SHOESHINE BOY, YOU'RE HUMBLE AND LOVABLE. DISNEY, YOU'RE NOT.

Disney announces plans for a live-action "Underdog" film. It will be produced exclusively by people who never saw the 2000 big-screen version of "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle." Like Gary Barber, for example, who says of his doomed-from-the-start project:

"Anything where you have a dog in that superhero context, that's appealing on a global basis ... Those films do very well, and there's no better brand than Disney for this kind of movie."

Disney says it plans to keep several elements of the classic cartoon in its new film, such as, well, its name, and dog-faced TV news anchor Sweet Polly Purebred. But everything else will be thrown in the hopper:

In the feature script, by Joe Piscatella and Craig A. Williams, a diminutive hound named Shoeshine gets superpowers after a lab accident. When he's adopted by a 12-year-old boy, the two form a bond around the shared knowledge that Shoeshine is really Underdog.

Yeah, that's pretty much how we remember it.

 

AFTER A SPLENDID WEEK IN THE OHIO COUNTRYSIDE, THE KIDS ARE REFRESHED AND READY TO RESUME GETTING POUNDED BY THEIR MIDDLE-SCHOOL CLASSMATES

 

It's another banner summer at Camp Quest, "the first summer sleep-away camp in the country for atheist, agnostic and secular humanist children." While we admire the camp's slogan - "It's Beyond Belief" - some of the kids admit they'd prefer a little more volleyball, a little less indoctrination:

Tomás Aguilar, 16, a Chicago native, thought the presentations on famous free thinkers like Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, could have used more balance. "Fred paints them in only a positive light," he said of the program director.

Oh, Tomás, but you should just hear what they're saying about Turner across the lake at Camp Bible ("Ohio's Best Summer Camp - Without a Doubt!").

July 8, 2005 | Permalink | Subscribe to RSS

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