Robert Butler

Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Now You See Him, Now You Don’t

~ electrictheatre
Now You See Him, Now You Don't one-sheet

Walt Disney was not a fan of sequels. He considered them cheap and lazy. When he did approve them, as in Son Of Flubber, it was only because there were leftover gags and ideas from the original film and Walt hated to waste a good joke. After Walt’s death in 1966, Walt Disney Productions tried to abide by the wishes of its founder. But by 1972, the studio needed a hit and that no-sequels rule seemed a little shortsighted. And I think it’s fair to say that Now You See Him, Now You Don’t was not born out of a surplus of ideas from the original Dexter Riley film.

To be fair, Disney had tried to capitalize on the success of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes without making an outright sequel. The Barefoot Executive reunited stars Kurt Russell and Joe Flynn with director Robert Butler and screenwriter Joseph L. McEveety. That movie didn’t lose money but it hadn’t done as well as its predecessor. So in the grand tradition of such collegiate comedies as The Absent-Minded Professor and The Misadventures Of Merlin Jones, producer Ron Miller decided to send Dexter Riley back to Medfield College.

Just about everyone from The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes returned for the sequel. In addition to Russell’s Dexter Riley and Flynn as the beleaguered Dean Higgins, Butler brought back Cesar Romero as evil businessman A.J. Arno, Richard Bakalyan as his chauffeur/henchman Cookie (he was called Chillie last time but continuity has never been Disney’s strong suit), Alan Hewitt as Higgins’ rival Dean Collingsgood, and Michael McGreevey as Dexter’s sidekick, Schuyler. Ed Begley Jr., who made his uncredited film debut in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, got a promotion, receiving both screen credit and a character name as science nerd Druffle.

There were a few new faces. Jim Backus makes his Disney debut as philanthropist and golf aficionado Timothy Forsythe. William Windom takes over the all-purpose science professor role from William Schallert. Dexter’s new girlfriend, Debbie, is played by Joyce Menges, who previously popped up as one of the gnome maidens in The Gnome-Mobile but then left the industry completely after this film. Jack Bender, who made an impression in The Barefoot Executive and The Million Dollar Duck, enrolls at Medfield as the magnificently named Slither Roth.

Two other Medfield students have seemingly switched identities. In The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, legendary voice actor Frank Welker played Henry Fathington and Alexander Clarke played Myles Miller. In Now You See Him, Now You Don’t, Welker plays Myles and Mike Evans is Henry. Evans had already guest-starred on All In The Family as Lionel Jefferson, the son of the Bunkers’ neighbors George and Louise Jefferson. In 1974, Evans co-created the sitcom Good Times and the year after that, the Jeffersons moved on up to their own show. You can see why Evans won’t be back in this column. He was a little busy.

Now You See Him, Now You Don’t isn’t exactly a carbon copy of the first Dexter Riley adventure but Butler, Miller and McEveety don’t stray too far from the template they’d created three years earlier. Dexter and his classmates are still bugging Dean Higgins’ office and eavesdropping on budget meetings for increasingly vague reasons. Higgins still holds most of Medfield’s student body in complete contempt, certain they’re all as dumb as a bag of hammers. And new science professor Lufkin is just as desperate for expensive new equipment as his predecessor.

Also, A.J. Arno is back on the streets, his arrest for operating a network of illegal gambling joints dismissed as a mere misunderstanding. Arno has assumed control of Medfield’s mortgage and doesn’t appear to be remotely concerned about when or if Higgins can make payments. Dexter and his pals are understandably suspicious of Arno but the Dean is happy to let bygones be bygones as long as it doesn’t cost anything.

Anyway, Higgins has bigger worries than a known felon taking control of his college under mysterious circumstances. Medfield’s getting ready to compete for the Forsythe Prize, an annual science fair. Higgins and Professor Lufkin have high hopes for Druffle’s groundbreaking bumblebee study and zero hopes for Dexter’s attempt to recreate a Russian experiment in invisibility. But a freak electrical storm not unlike the one that turned Dexter into a human computer zaps Dexter’s gizmo. Before you know it, Dexter’s got a bowlful of invisibility juice. Or maybe it would be more accurate to call it invisible paint, since anything that gets dipped in it or sprayed with it turns invisible and the stuff washes off with water.

Dexter and Schuyler make themselves invisible to sneak into Arno’s office and figure out what he’s up to. Not surprisingly, the guy who gave away his super-computer loaded with incriminating evidence has an enormous floor model of his top-secret plan. Thanks to a loophole in some old zoning laws, gambling is still completely legal on the land Medfield is built on. Once Higgins fails to make a payment, Arno will foreclose and build a gamblers’ paradise. Bad guys are always wanting to build casinos in Disney movies.

Higgins is not thrilled to hear this, especially since he’s also just learned that Medfield isn’t even going to be allowed to compete for the Forsythe Prize this year. Desperate for the $50,000 prize, Higgins calls up Mr. Forsythe himself and pleads his case. Forsythe agrees to meet with him and Dean Collingsgood over a round of golf. Since Higgins doesn’t know the first thing about golf, Schuyler serves as his caddy and Dexter gives him an invisible hand. With Dexter’s help, Higgins plays an astonishing game, sinking repeated holes-in-one and drawing a lot of attention to himself.

Now, I’m no golfer and I’ve never been invisible but I’m not quite sure how Dexter is able to pull this off. It seems to me that he’d have to jump up, catch the golf ball in midair, run with it all the way down the course and slip it into the hole. Even visible, that strikes me as a remarkable feat of athleticism. Sure, it might be considered “cheating” according to your precious “rules” but it would sure make golf a lot more fun to watch.

Higgins’ miracle golf game scores him an invitation to play in a professional tournament against real pro golfers Billy Casper and Dave Hill (and if you don’t recognize their names or faces, that just tells you how few golfers ever become legitimate household names). Unfortunately, Dexter hears about it too late to accompany them on the flight. Forced to rely on his own non-existent skills, Higgins ends up humiliated on national TV with a triple-digit score.

While Higgins and Schuyler are off playing golf (a surprisingly large amount of the movie is just about golf), a couple of other things are going on. Arno spotted Dexter showering off the invisibility serum in the clubhouse and tasks Cookie with figuring out what’s up. And poor Druffle has learned the hard way that he’s allergic to bee stings. Puffed up and wrapped head-to-toe in bandages, he won’t be able to compete for the Forsythe Prize, leaving Medfield’s hopes in Dexter’s hands.

Incidentally, that image of Ed Begley Jr. covered in bandages was featured prominently in promotional materials for Now You See Him, Now You Don’t. Makes sense, since he looks like the classic Universal Monsters version of the Invisible Man. Only trouble is he’s not invisible and it isn’t Kurt Russell, despite how the still is sometimes captioned and tagged. It’s just Ed Begley Jr., hideously swollen up by bees. Years later, Begley would get wrapped up in bandages again for the funniest segment in Amazon Women On The Moon. I guess there’s just something about Begley in bandages that’s inherently funny.

At any rate, Cookie finally discovers what the kids have cooked up in the lab and Arno wants it. Cookie pulls a switcheroo, leaving Dexter and a very visible Schuyler looking like idiots when they try to demonstrate their formula for Forsythe and crew. Dexter is convinced that Arno stole his invention, so the gang pulls the old walkie-talkie-in-a-flower-arrangement gag again to bug Arno’s office.

Meanwhile, Arno’s plans for the spray are a bit more criminal than just cheating at golf. He’s going to turn himself and Cookie invisible, walk into a local bank while they’re making a big transfer, turn the money invisible and stroll out under everyone’s noses. The plan seems a bit hands-on for a white-collar criminal like Arno but otherwise, it’s fairly foolproof. But Arno forgot to reckon with those meddling kids!

Dexter tries to warn the bank president (Edward Andrews, who’s played harried, ineffectual authority figures in everything from The Absent-Minded Professor to The Million Dollar Duck). Surprise surprise, nobody at the bank (including Ted the guard, played by the voice of George Jetson, George O’Hanlon) believes they’re in danger of invisible robbers. So the kids stake out the bank and resolve to stop Arno and Cookie themselves, no matter how long a car chase it takes.

The fact that Now You See Him, Now You Don’t concludes with an epic car chase should come as no surprise at this point. This one feels longer than most but at least this time there’s a seemingly driverless car involved. There’s also a familiar Volkswagen Beetle. Schuyler’s car is our old pal Herbie from The Love Bug, sporting a green paint job and distressed to appear like a college kid’s junker.

Ultimately Arno has the bright idea to turn the car itself invisible. Driving an invisible car in a high-speed chase on crowded city streets turns out to be just as dangerous as it sounds. Arno and Cookie end up crashing into a swimming pool, turning the car, themselves and the money visible again. This seems like a slightly more difficult spot for Arno to talk his way out of but something tells me he won’t be spending much time behind bars.

In some ways, Now You See Him, Now You Don’t feels like a step down for the Dexter Riley saga. On the technical side, it doesn’t feel like anybody cared to put much effort into this one. Most of Disney’s gimmick comedies start with a pop song and/or an animated title sequence. Not this time. The movie starts like a TV show with Dexter joining a scene already in progress. The titles play out over Dean Higgins tearing his office apart to find the kids’ listening device. It’s kind of a funny scene but the credits occasionally get in the way of the action, obscuring Flynn’s performance. We don’t even get a song this time, just Robert F. Brunner’s instrumental score.

Even the movie’s visual effects, usually one of Disney’s strong suits, come across as more than a little half-assed. The optical trickery used whenever Dexter or Schuyler become partially invisible is particularly wobbly. It’s no wonder that Butler decides to take the easy way out in the climactic chase and just completely disappear the car. It’s a whole lot easier to have actors pretend they’re reacting to a car than to show part of the car itself.

But in at least one important regard, Now You See Him, Now You Don’t improves on the Riley formula by simply being a funnier movie. All that golf nonsense seems superfluous and it very much is from a storytelling perspective. But it gives Joe Flynn a chance to take the spotlight, especially in the second game. Flynn’s a genuinely funny actor but being stuck in second banana roles limited his screen time. Here, Butler makes better use of Flynn than any other Disney movie so far.

Kurt Russell is also back in top form after being saddled with a genuinely unlikable character in The Barefoot Executive. Dexter seems slightly more ambitious this time. His abilities in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes were totally the result of a freak accident. He stumbles upon invisibility accidentally as well, but at least this time he was actively trying to learn something. I also wonder if Medfield would have been allowed to keep the prize money, since Dexter really doesn’t know how the invisibility serum works and couldn’t recreate the experiment if he tried. That seems like an important rule for winning an award in science.

Now You See Him, Now You Don’t was released on July 12, 1972, just one week after Napoleon And Samantha hit theatres. It received some surprisingly decent reviews and did fairly well at the box office, falling just a bit short of its predecessor. That was good enough for Disney. The studio wasn’t through with either Kurt Russell or Dexter Riley yet. And it wouldn’t be long before another Disney property got a sequel of its own.

VERDICT: I wouldn’t plan your day around it but it’s kind of fun so sure, it’s a Disney Plus.

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Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Scandalous John

~ electrictheatre
Original theatrical release poster for Walt Disney's Scandalous John

When I told my girlfriend that this week’s Disney movie was called Scandalous John, she laughed. “That doesn’t sound like a Disney movie,” she said. “It sounds like a porno.” She’s not wrong, even though Scandalous John predates the porno chic movement of the 1970s by a couple years. It’s fun to imagine this title on a 42nd Street grindhouse marquee and some very disappointed moviegoers leaving the theatre.

Disney’s Scandalous John was produced by Bill Walsh, who’d been on a bit of a roll lately. His last two films for the studio, Blackbeard’s Ghost and The Love Bug, had both been big hits. Maybe this gave him a little bit of freedom to adapt an obscure 1963 book by Richard Gardner. I haven’t been able to track down anything else by Gardner and the only edition of Scandalous John I’ve found is the movie tie-in.

Walsh cowrote the screenplay with his frequent collaborator, Don DaGradi. The increasingly prolific Robert Butler, fresh off The Barefoot Executive, was assigned to direct. Up till now, Butler’s only features had been Kurt Russell gimmick comedies. But his extensive television credits had amply demonstrated that he could tackle all genres, from westerns to action-adventure to sci-fi.

Scandalous John also marked Brian Keith’s return to the studio after six years. Disney had been very good to Keith. The Parent Trap in particular gave his career a huge boost. But Keith hadn’t made a Disney appearance since Those Calloways in 1965. The year after that film, he was cast as the lead in Family Affair, a sitcom about a confirmed bachelor trying to raise his late brother’s three kids. Another Disney regular, Sebastian Cabot, costarred as Keith’s valet. Family Affair was a big hit, running for five seasons on CBS and cementing Keith’s star status. The show aired its last episode on March 4, 1971. Scandalous John was released about three and a half months later.

Keith stars as John McCanless, an aging, cantankerous eccentric who lives alone on his New Mexico ranch. McCanless’s unpredictable behavior has resulted in a revolving door of ranch hands. The latest poor sucker to get stuck with the job is Francisco Torres Martinez, so newly arrived from Mexico that he’s practically still dripping from the Rio Grande. Alfonso Arau plays Martinez. We’ll see him again in this column but most will immediately recognize him from his role as El Guapo, owner of a plethora of piñatas, in Three Amigos!

Martinez gets dropped off at the ranch by his cousin, who assures him that this is a good job. That seems unlikely when McCanless immediately starts shooting at him, mistaking him for someone from the bank. Martinez is rescued by McCanless’ granddaughter, Amanda (Michele Carey). She persuades him to stay, promising that the old man is really harmless, that the work is minimal and the pay is good. Once introductions are made, she ignores his name and dubs him “Paco”, which sure feels like a racist thing to do. Nevertheless, he accepts it and everyone refers to him as Paco from then on.

McCanless lives in fear of the bank coming to foreclose on his mortgage. Seems there’s a greedy land developer (isn’t there always?) named Whittaker buying up all the ranches to make way for…a new dam, I think? Honestly, it’s never all that clear why Whittaker wants the land. He just does. So Amanda talks to Whittaker’s son, Jimmy (Rick Lenz), to see if he can help. Jimmy unwisely tries to parlay this request into a date. Perhaps surprisingly for a 1971 Disney movie, Amanda doesn’t appreciate that and takes off.

Jimmy rides out to the ranch to meet McCanless. While the old man is none too happy to meet someone named Whittaker, Jimmy comes up with a potential solution. He proposes turning the ranch into a museum that John and Amanda can run together. I’m not sure how that would work if his dad wants to flood the place with his dam. In any case, John’s not buying what Jimmy’s selling. Despite his hostility, Jimmy eventually starts developing a fondness for McCanless.

Meanwhile, McCanless and Paco are bonding over music and the occasional gunfight with imaginary Apache. One night over a couple bottles of whiskey, McCanless fills Paco in on his plan to save the ranch. The two of them are going to go on an old-time cattle drive, bringing the herd north to market. McCanless is sure that they’ll fetch enough to save the ranch and then some. But the next morning, Paco learns that the “herd” consists of one very scraggly-looking old bull. Even though it’s clear that McCanless’s grasp of reality is tenuous at best, Paco humors him and agrees to go on the cattle drive.

First, they head into town for supplies, McCanless on his old horse and Paco riding a semi-cooperative mule. They ride directly into a department store, where Paco gets fitted for some new boots. Paco then heads over to the general store alone for the rest of their supplies. This attracts the attention of Sheriff Pippen (Harry Morgan, returning from The Barefoot Executive…toldja we’d be seeing a lot of him).

Even though he refuses to carry a gun, Pippen is still your typical New Mexico sheriff in that his primary mission is to get rid of illegal immigrants. (The term “wetback” is tossed around a lot in this movie, probably one of the reasons it’s not on Disney+.) McCanless intervenes and they’re able to escape back to the ranch with the cops hot on their trail. Once they show up there, McCanless slashes the sheriff’s tires and the two caballeros embark on their cattle drive.

Their journey takes them past a bar where a biker gang is harassing the owner, Mavis (the always delightful Iris Adrian, who also popped up briefly in The Barefoot Executive). McCanless rides to the rescue, capturing the drunks with his lasso. Rather than thanking him, Mavis complains that he wrecked the place and is driving off good customers. Perplexed, McCanless turns the gang over to a couple of old Indians, assuming the gang is with them. The Indian says his people have taken the blame for a lot over the years but he’s not about to accept responsibility for a bunch of “white weirdos”. Undaunted, McCanless pays him to take the bikers away. The Indians shrug, take the cash and lead the captives off into the desert.

Finally, McCanless and Paco arrive in a little tourist trap town with folks dressed up like Old West characters. In one funny bit, McCanless chases off a woman dressed like a prostitute and is horrified when the bartender says, “Take it easy, they’re all just volunteers. Haven’t you ever heard of civic pride?” When he encounters an actor playing a crooked card dealer, he demands to know if he’s carrying a gun up his sleeve. He’s not but pretends to shoot a finger gun. Insulted, McCanless fires his real gun above the dealer’s head. Not realizing the bullets are real, the pretend sheriff admits that a sleeve gun would be a nice touch and advises the dealer to run over to props and pick one up.

McCanless pursues the hapless dealer, firing wildly into the streets, much to the delight of the tourists. No one is hurt but a private train owned by Barton Whittaker himself is badly damaged. Whittaker has just arrived with a bunch of visiting dignitaries, planning to sell them on whatever it is he wants to do with McCanless’s land.

That’s Simon Oakland as Whittaker, by the way. He’s probably best known as the psychiatrist who turns up at the end of Psycho to explain everything. And John Ritter makes his second and unfortunately last Disney appearance as Wendell, Whittaker’s bodyguard/assistant. Ritter plays a pivotal role at the end of the movie but he has exactly one line of dialogue, which seems like a waste. He seems like a natural fit for Disney’s live-action comedies, so it’s bizarre that the studio didn’t utilize him again after his first two roles.

McCanless and Paco end up in jail, where Whittaker tries and fails to make a deal with him. But Jimmy, who seems to have some unresolved daddy issues, has switched sides and helps Amanda break the pair out of lockup. You’d think Amanda might want to keep her grandfather on a short leash after all they’ve been through. But no, they let them go to ride off and hijack Whittaker’s train.

With Paco more or less serving as engineer, McCanless gets rid of Whittaker’s passengers one by one and forces everyone to listen to mariachi music for a while. As hostage situations go, this one’s not too bad. But sooner or later, people start to realize there’s essentially a runaway train on the loose since nobody on board knows how to stop the thing. The train gets switched to an unused stretch of track leading to an abandoned mine, where it finally derails.

Whittaker realizes this has gone too far and is ready to cut his losses. But just then, Wendell shows up and shoots McCanless in the back. Amanda and Jimmy bury the old man back at the ranch and give the animals to Paco. He decides to head back to Mexico, accompanied by the spirit of his new friend.

Quad poster for Scandalous John

It doesn’t take an English major to realize that Scandalous John is a modernized riff on Don Quixote set in the American West. In case you missed it, the reflection in the poster image above makes the connection explicit. What’s a little surprising is that it mostly works. Almost all the credit for this goes to Brian Keith. His face hidden behind a thick beard, Keith gives a funny, fully committed performance. His muttered dialogue is a little hard to understand at first but you get used to it. Keith has several big moments in the film and he makes the most of them. When McCanless comes across a woman’s shoe in the desert, he delivers a touching, wistful monologue imagining what became of its owner. It’s impressive that Butler allows the movie to move at its own languid pace and take time for moments like this.

Alfonso Arau is a fun Sancho Panza to Keith’s Quixote, although the character heads uncomfortably into caricature territory several times. It would have been nice to learn more about his backstory. It isn’t clear where he came from or what he’s going back to at the end. But the friendship that develops between McCanless and Paco feels genuine and heartfelt. It’s hard not to be moved when McCanless defends him against the racist sheriff who wants to deport him.

Michele Carey and Rick Lenz do the best they can but their characters are weak links in the movie. Their relationship starts poorly and even though they end up together for some reason, they still don’t seem to like each other all that much. Not to mention the fact that Amanda’s concern for her grandfather’s wellbeing comes and goes whenever it suits the narrative.

Butler and cinematographer Frank Phillips capture some beautiful images of the New Mexico landscape. But other technical aspects are less impressive. The train sequence features some of the least convincing miniatures Disney has produced in a long, long time. Walt Disney famously loved model trains but I find it hard to believe these would have made the grade under his watch.

Rather than rely on one of their usual house composers, Disney brought in a bit of a ringer to compose the film’s score. Rod McKuen made a name for himself in the 1950s and 60s as a poet, songwriter and musician. He’d had success translating the songs of Jacques Brel into English and branched into film in the late 60s with movies like The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and A Boy Named Charlie Brown. In addition to the score for Scandalous John, McKuen also wrote and performed the song “Pastures Green”. It’s not a great song, to be honest, but his score is kind of interesting.

Disney did not seem to have a lot of confidence in Scandalous John. It was barely released in a handful of regional theatres on June 22, 1971, and sank without a trace soon after. That’s kind of a shame. This isn’t a great movie by any stretch but it is unusual for the studio and individual moments have stayed with me. It sort of reminds me of some of Clint Eastwood’s man-out-of-time movies like Bronco Billy and Honkytonk Man. It’d be interesting to see someone like Eastwood take a crack at this material because I do think there’s something of value here.

Sadly, this is the last we’ll be seeing of Brian Keith in this column. He continued to work steadily throughout the 1970s and 80s. His highest-profile gig was probably the show Hardcastle And McCormick, which ran for three seasons starting in 1983. In later years, he was diagnosed with emphysema and lung cancer, battled depression, and suffered some serious financial setbacks. In 1997, his daughter, Daisy, took her own life. Two months later, Keith himself died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 75 years old.

Brian Keith was one of Disney’s best and most reliable stars in the 1960s and he’s too often overlooked. The Parent Trap alone secured his legacy but he was even able to liven up some real duds like Ten Who Dared and Moon Pilot. Scandalous John is by no means a great film but it does allow Brian Keith to go out on a high note. That alone is enough to make this a Disney Plus.

VERDICT: Disney Plus

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Disney Plus-Or-Minus: The Barefoot Executive

~ electrictheatre
Original theatrical release poster for Walt Disney's The Barefoot Executive

As we’ve seen repeatedly in this column, Walt Disney loved relying on successful formulas but he was not a fan of direct sequels. He only produced a handful, like Son Of Flubber, during his lifetime. So maybe it was a respectful nod to what Walt would have wanted when producer Bill Anderson, writer Joseph L. McEveety and director Robert Butler decided to follow the very successful Kurt Russell comedy The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes with The Barefoot Executive instead of another Dexter Riley adventure. It’s as good an explanation as any for this deeply weird movie.

Like most of Disney’s gimmick comedies, The Barefoot Executive is more an elevator pitch than an actual story. Russell stars as Steven Post, an ambitious kid hustling in the mailroom of third-place TV network UBC who becomes an overnight success thanks to a chimpanzee named Raffles who can pick hit shows. But unlike other gimmick comedies like The Love Bug and The Shaggy Dog, that quick synopsis isn’t very satisfying. Yes, I can see how a movie about a kid who turns into a dog or a sentient Volkswagen could be entertaining. A movie about a chimp who likes TV? Maybe not so much.

McEveety wrote the screenplay to The Barefoot Executive but the story is credited to Lila Garrett, Bernie Kahn and Stewart C. Billett. Garrett and Kahn were TV veterans who’d worked together on such shows as Get Smart and Bewitched. My guess is their original story was a more satirical look at the industry that lost its edge in the process of Disneyfication. Otherwise, I can’t figure out how two people with years of TV experience could be involved with a movie that seems to have no idea how television actually works.

Raffles enters Steven’s life through some needlessly complex machinations. Raffles’ original owners, the Bernaduccis, lived next door to Steven’s girlfriend, Jennifer (Heather North, best known as the voice of Daphne on Scooby-Doo). When the Bernaduccis move to San Francisco, they have to give Raffles up because apparently it’s too cold up there. You might think it would be difficult to rehome a chimp but the Bernaduccis don’t have any problem foisting Raffles off on the nearest warm body.

That first night, Steven is annoyed that Raffles freaks out any time he tries to change the channel. But the next day, he discovers that the shows Raffles watched were the highest-rated shows of the night. (Incidentally, one of the shows Steven scoffed at is called Mother Carey’s Chickens, which was a book Disney had filmed years earlier as Summer Magic. Disney was really a pioneer in the fine art of Easter Eggs.)

Realizing this could all just be a fluke, Steven tests the chimp’s ability by spending the next several nights watching TV with him. He even goes so far as to sneak into Jen’s apartment and swap Raffles out with another chimp so he can spend more time with him at his own place. I didn’t realize chimps were so common that you could just run down to the pet store and pick one up. At any rate, Steven is eventually convinced that Raffles is indeed a TV savant and begins figuring out how to capitalize on his discovery.

Fortunately for Steven, network president E.J. Crampton (Harry Morgan, who we’ll be seeing a lot more of) is flying in from New York. Steven slips a note containing Raffles’ picks from the night before to Mertons the chauffeur (Wally Cox, last seen in The Boatniks, in his final Disney appearance). When Steve is proven right, Crampton is impressed enough to invite him to drop by the screening room later that evening to check out a couple of pilots.

Steven “disguises” Raffles as the world’s tiniest plumber and manages to sneak him into the projection booth. Crampton has high hopes for a show called The Happy Harringtons but Raffles has other ideas. The chimp prefers Devil Dan, a program Crampton and his vice president, Wilbanks (perennial Kurt Russell foil Joe Flynn), have already decided is dead on arrival. When Steve goes to bat for Devil Dan, Crampton and Wilbanks declare him an idiot and put The Happy Harringtons on the schedule.

Convinced that Raffles knows best, Steve pulls a switcheroo, putting the Devil Dan reel into the Happy Harringtons film canister. Because UBC is such a crappy network that nobody bothers to look at the material they’re broadcasting or even knows how to use a “technical difficulties” slide, Devil Dan goes out in its entirety nationwide. Wilbanks fires Steve but the overnight ratings prove that Raffles was right. Devil Dan is a hit and the network is praised for its innovative stunt programming.

Nothing succeeds like success, so Crampton changes his tune and proclaims Steve to be a boy wonder, making him the youngest programming executive in the industry. He moves on up to a deluxe apartment in the sky, tastefully decorated with a random carousel horse and a bunch of high-tech burglar alarms to keep visitors out of his secret monkey room. Raffles picks hit after hit and before you know it, Steve is winning the coveted and definitely real Television Man of the Year Emmy Award. Apparently the Television Academy also gives out new cars with this honor? I don’t know, this must be one of the categories they don’t televise.

At any rate, Crampton and Wilbanks begin to get a wee bit resentful of their young protégé’s success. So they send Wilbanks’ sycophantic nephew, Roger, to uncover Steve’s secret. (John Ritter makes his big-screen debut as Roger. We’ll be seeing him again in this column very soon.) Roger dresses up like a bad guy in one of those DePatie-Freleng Inspector cartoons and sneaks into Steve’s apartment. Raffles attacks him before he learns much, other than Steve seems to really, really like bananas.

Jen, on the other hand, finally figures out that Steve stole her chimp and confronts him. Steve confesses everything, along with a declaration of love and a vague semi-proposal of marriage. That’s apparently all she needed to hear because she’s fine with it. Hey, remember that other chimp that Steve stuck her with? Really? Because the filmmakers don’t. I guess Jen just resigned herself to life with a mystery chimp.

Back at the studio, Roger overhears Tom, Steve’s buddy in the projection booth, ask whatever happened to that monkey plumber Steve used to bring in. (That’s Jack Bender making his Disney debut as Tom. We’ll see him again, too. Later on, Bender left acting and became an Emmy-winning producer and director for such shows as Lost and Game Of Thrones. I guess he learned a lot about the TV business from The Barefoot Executive.) Roger puts all his circumstantial evidence together and reaches the inevitable conclusion that the chimp is the one picking the shows. Sounds air-tight to me.

Roger drags Crampton, Wilbanks (and Mertons, for some reason) over to Steve’s building to spy on him. When Raffles gets up during the commercials to grab a beer, everyone is convinced. Crampton decides he must have that chimp! This leads to an interminable sequence with Wilbanks and Mertons stuck on a ledge outside Steve’s penthouse apartment. It goes on. And on. And on. Honest to God, I feel like I could have made and eaten an entire Thanksgiving dinner while they were stuck on that ledge.

Wilbanks eventually falls and is caught in a fireman’s net. Since everyone thought he was suicidal and he’s raving about chimpanzees, he’s carted off to the looney bin. But Mertons explains everything, more or less. The revelation that the top-rated TV network in the country has been programmed by a chimp causes a huge scandal. At a huge meeting of network executives, sponsors and government officials, it’s decided that the best course of action is to buy Raffles from Steve and air-drop him into a remote jungle. Sure. Why not.

At first, Steve assures Jen that he has no intention of selling Raffles. Which is nice of him considering he stole the chimp from her to begin with. But the offer of a million dollars proves too much to resist. Again, THERE’S A SECOND CHIMP! Maybe give that one to Crampton and Steve, Jen and Raffles can take the million and live happily ever after? No? OK, fine. Whatever.

Crampton and Wilbanks board a plane to take Raffles away, putting the chauffeur in charge seemingly for the sole purpose of pissing off Roger. But once they’re over the drop zone, Raffles opens the rear hatch and all the executives and reporters are sucked out into the abyss. Rather than attempting a rescue, the pilot turns around and brings Raffles back home. Steve returns the money (that he definitely could have kept if he’d just remembered he had access to a second chimp) and he, Jen and Raffles ride off into the sunset on Steve’s motorcycle.

OK, so where to start with this thing? First off, I admit there is the germ of a funny idea here. Movies love taking pot-shots at TV and the premise of a chimp programming the highest-rated shows on the air sounds like a logical addition to the “TV Sucks” subgenre. But the problem is that it’s never clear how we’re supposed to feel about these shows. Is Raffles actually picking better shows than his human counterparts? Or are they terrible shows that just happen to be enormously popular?

The Barefoot Executive isn’t concerned with questions like that. And honestly, you can’t tell if it’s because the filmmakers think everything on TV is lousy or if it’s because they think it’s all fine. You can’t really satirize something without expressing your opinion about it. We also never get to see much of the shows Raffles likes or dislikes, so we’re unable to draw our own conclusions. The most we’re shown is a few seconds of the animated opening to Devil Dan, which honestly looks pretty cool. We aren’t even told what Devil Dan is supposed to be about but I’d watch a show that opens with that cartoon devil. Based on that, I’d say let the chimp pick the shows. He seems to have good taste.

It’s pointless to complain about the fact that The Barefoot Executive makes zero sense. Most of Disney’s gimmick comedies are like that and everybody involved knew it. But you can only turn a blind eye to that as long as you’re laughing and too few of the gags in this movie really land. John Ritter is fun to watch and there’s a clever bit with Kurt Russell pitching his idea for a surefire hit show called Abraham Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog. But everything is dragged out much longer than necessary. I already mentioned the ledge sequence, which is clearly the worst offender. But even in Russell’s pitch, you want to yell at the screen for everyone to stop saying the words Abraham Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog. Just because something is funny once doesn’t mean it’s still funny the sixth or seventh time.

The other big problem with The Barefoot Executive is our so-called hero. Kurt Russell was only about 20 when he made this movie and he already had a knack for playing charming connivers. But Steven Post is nowhere near as likable as Dexter Riley. He whines a lot. He’s a terrible friend to both people and chimps. He’s barely interested in the girl he supposedly wants to marry. He has no ideas of his own. He even stole the Lincoln idea from a guest speaker at his night school. Sorry Steve, you’re just not a fun guy to be around.

The Barefoot Executive also echoes The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes in its title music. Robert F. Brunner and Bruce Belland learned one lesson from that movie and did not try to write a song called “The Barefoot Executive”. Instead, they came up with a generic, go-get-‘em-tiger tune called “He’s Gonna Make It”. The only lyric that sounds specific to this movie is a random bass voice at the end of the chorus singing, “And his little bitty barefoot friend.” It sounds like it was designed to allow other films to remove that one line and replace it with their own rewritten words. Stick in “and his little bitty love bug friend” and you could put it in a Herbie movie.

Released March 17, 1971, The Barefoot Executive received some better-than-expected reviews and did fairly well at the box office, albeit not quite at the level of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. Which is not to say it hasn’t had a legacy of its own. It aired frequently on television and a lot of people seem to have fond memories of it. I’m not quite sure why but hey, whatever floats your boat.

In 1995, when Disney went through a phase of remaking a lot of their live-action comedies for TV, the studio hired Susan Seidelman of all people to reboot The Barefoot Executive. Jason London stepped into the Kurt Russell role, just a few years after his breakthrough in Dazed And Confused. The cast included such familiar faces as Chris Elliott, Julia Sweeney, Ann Magnuson, Kathy Griffin, Jay Mohr and Tenacious D’s own Kyle Gass. It sounds like an improvement but from what I’ve seen, it’s not, although it is kind of weird seeing those actors in a movie like this.

After five movies and a handful of television appearances, Disney was officially in the Kurt Russell business. But for his next movie, Russell took a short hiatus from the studio to appear opposite James Stewart, George Kennedy and Strother Martin as a young ex-con named Johnny Jesus in the movie Fools’ Parade. But he’d be back in Burbank before long. And this time, the studio would be throwing Walt’s “no sequels” rule out the window.

VERDICT: Disney Minus

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Disney Plus-Or-Minus: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes

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Original theatrical release poster for Walt Disney's The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes

The shared cinematic universe is usually considered a relatively recent concept even though studios like Universal and Toho started hosting all-star monster jamborees decades ago. Even Disney dropped some shared universe Easter eggs in their early days, like bringing a live-action Bambi into 1957’s Perri. With The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Disney went back to Medfield College, birthplace of Flubber in The Absent-Minded Professor.

A few things have changed at dear old Medfield since the Flubber days. Fred MacMurray’s Professor Brainard has evidently retired, presumably flush with Flubber cash. The great character actor William Schallert is the new all-purpose teacher, Professor Quigley. (I assume Medfield must have additional faculty but these movies only ever seem to focus on one.) The college also has a new dean, Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn, last seen as David Tomlinson’s flunky in The Love Bug).

But perhaps the biggest difference between The Absent-Minded Professor and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes is its protagonist. The Flubber movies treated the student body like an afterthought, nameless bodies to toss around the basketball court and the football field, keeping the focus on Professor Brainard. Computer shares a little DNA with The Misadventures Of Merlin Jones (which surprisingly did not take place at Medfield) by promoting a student to the lead role. But unlike Merlin Jones, Dexter Riley is no brainiac inventor. As played by Kurt Russell, Dexter is the typical all-American underachiever, more interested in having a good (albeit G-rated) time than academics.

Russell had worked steadily since his Disney debut in Follow Me, Boys! three years earlier. In addition to his feature appearances, he’d done plenty of TV including guest shots on non-Disney shows like Daniel Boone with former Davy Crockett, Fess Parker. Now 18, Russell had earned the chance to show what he could do with a starring role.

One thing that hasn’t changed is Medfield’s dire financial straits. Alonzo P. Hawk may not be around anymore to call in the school’s loan but Medfield is still hemorrhaging money. By the way, Keenan Wynn will eventually be back in this column as Alonzo P. Hawk, bringing another Disney franchise into the Medfield-verse.

During a budget meeting with the board of regents, Professor Quigley argues that the school desperately needs to get with the times and buy a computer. Unfortunately, the budget is stretched thin and Dean Higgins shoots down the request. Besides, the regents believe modernization is overrated. Higgins is more concerned with weeding out Medfield’s worst students, a long list that includes Dexter and his friends. Quigley sticks up for them. He believes they’re good kids, just in need of a little extra motivation.

Those troublemaking kids were smart enough to plant a listening device in the conference room and they’ve overheard the whole thing. Wanting to do something nice for Quigley, they decide to go visit Dexter’s old boss, tycoon A.J. Arno (Cesar Romero, who had previously appeared in a few episodes of Disney’s Zorro). He seems to be in possession of the only computer in town and the kids hope to persuade him to donate it to the school.

Arno is surprisingly open to the idea except for one thing. He already donates $20,000 a year to Medfield, so he isn’t about to toss in a $10,000 computer on top of that. But if the school is willing to forego their annual gift, maybe they can work something out. This sounds like a good deal to the kids (obviously not math majors) and they set to work crating up the tons of components that make up a late-60s computer.

It’s surprising that Arno is so willing to part with the computer because we soon find out he keeps it in a secret room behind a hidden panel. The computer’s primary function is keeping track of Arno’s many illegal gambling clubs. Now you might think that Arno would need a valuable piece of equipment like that. At the very least, perhaps he should consider erasing all the incriminating evidence stored in the computer’s memory banks. Nope! Take it away, boys! He just saved 20,000 big ones and he’s a happy man.

Anyway, the computer gets set up at Medfield but Quigley’s demonstration hits a snag when a part shorts out. Dexter volunteers to make the 70-mile drive for a replacement, even though he should really be studying for the upcoming standardized test. Later that night, he gets back to the lab during a torrential rainstorm. He foolishly decides to switch out the part while he’s dripping wet and standing in a small lake of rainwater. As you might expect, Dexter is zapped with about a zillion volts of electricity and instantly dies.

The end.

Quad poster for The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes

No, no, of course not. The computer dies but Dexter seems just fine. Sure, he wakes up his roommate later that night, beeping electronically and reciting the coded data about Arno’s gambling joints. And yeah, when his friend asks him about it, Dexter has no idea what he’s talking about. But still, he’s fine.

Dean Higgins and Professor Quigley don’t have much time to be upset about the $20,000 boondoggle because the next day is the big standardized test. Students have an hour to complete the test and, in the opposite of a pep talk, are told that nobody in the history of Medfield has ever finished it. Dexter is surprised to find himself whipping through the whole thing in less than five minutes. Quigley and Higgins are even more surprised to discover that he aced it, getting the first perfect score in the history of the college.

A thorough medical check-up solves the mystery. As so often happens, the accident caused Dexter to absorb the properties of the computer. A quick glimpse inside his ear reveals flashing lights, spinning magnetic tape and all the other hallmarks of a 1969 computer. As long as he doesn’t run out of punch cards, Dexter Riley is the smartest man on Earth.

Quick to capitalize on his human computer, Dean Higgins organizes a nationwide tour for Dexter. As his fame grows, he drifts apart from his girlfriend, Annie (Debbie Paine), and buddies like Pete Oatzel (Frank Webb, who was tragically killed in a car accident just a few years later at the age of 26). He also attracts the attention of Dean Collingsgood (Alan Hewitt, seen most recently in The Horse In The Gray Flannel Suit) who hopes to lure Dexter over to Medfield’s arch-rival, State University.

Dexter’s new celebrity status does not pass unnoticed by Arno, either. He may have lost his computer but thinks having a human computer on his payroll sounds even better, especially after Dexter consistently picks winners in horse races. Arno sends his flunky, Chillie Walsh (Richard Bakalayan, who played a similar gangster role in Never A Dull Moment), to give Dexter a taste of the good life. Unfortunately, the club they visit is raided by the cops and Dexter winds up in jail, along with Walsh and the two Deans, who’d been following him.

When Dexter’s friends pool their money to bail him out, Dexter realizes what a heel he’s become. He turns down Arno’s offer and reaffirms his loyalty to Medfield by captaining a quiz bowl team alongside three of his dimmest friends. Dexter leads them to victory and a championship match against State. One Day At A Time’s future Schneider, Pat Harrington, hosts the quiz bowl and Spinal Tap’s future John “Stumpy” Pepys, Ed Begley Jr., makes his big screen debut as one of the State students. We’ll be seeing Begley again in this column.

On one of his College Knowledge appearances, Dexter correctly answers a question with “Applejack”. That just so happens to be Arno’s code name for his illegal businesses, prompting Dexter to start rattling off information about Arno’s gambling joints on live TV. Arno shuts down the exposed locations and sends Walsh to kidnap Dexter the night before the finals.

Pete and Annie track him down and come up with an elaborate plan to rescue him. Disguised as house painters (Merlin Jones used a similar scheme…it seems house painters were given carte blanche to go wherever they pleased in the 60s), the kids search the building and manage to smuggle him out in a trunk. There’s a big chase back to the TV studio with gallon after gallon of paint thrown at the pursuing gangsters. Dexter rejoins his team but the rough handling in the trunk seems to have knocked a few circuits loose. His answers get slower and slower until he finally crashes completely.

Dexter wakes up in time for the final question about the geographic center of the United States but has no idea what the answer could be. He’s back to being a normal, below-average student. The team has been relying on Dexter for so long that everyone’s shocked when Schuyler (Michael McGreevey) realizes he actually knows the answer. He has family in Lebanon, Kansas, and that is the correct response. Medfield wins the day and Arno and his goons end up in jail.

I vaguely remember watching and enjoying the Dexter Riley movies as a kid, so I was looking forward to revisiting this one. Unfortunately, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes was not the comedic powerhouse I remembered. So far, I’ve been making fun of the movie’s leaps of logic and Mariana Trench-sized plot holes but they’re not really the problem. The issue is that most of this just isn’t that funny.

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes was the first screenplay by longtime Disney employee Joseph L. McEveety. McEveety joined the studio in 1957 as an assistant director, working on movies like Moon Pilot, Mary Poppins and, yes, Merlin Jones. He knew the Disney house style backward and forward but comedy wasn’t exactly in his blood. Previous Disney comedies relied heavily on slapstick but Computer’s story doesn’t allow for any until its madcap finale. As a result, the first half can get pretty dull and repetitive. The movie desperately needs more verbal humor or, at the very least, a few jokes.

Director Robert Butler also made his Disney feature debut with The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. Butler had directed a ton of TV, including Star Trek’s original pilot, “The Cage”, and multiple episodes of shows like The Untouchables, Batman, The Fugitive, and countless others. For Disney’s Wonderful World Of Color, he and Norman Tokar codirected Kilroy, a four-part serial, in 1965. Earlier in 1969, he directed Kurt Russell in the three-part Secret Of Boyne Castle, released theatrically overseas as Guns In The Heather. He knows exactly what’s expected of him here and keeps the tone light and the story moving as best he can. But even so, the movie gets bogged down often enough that it’s hard to not get impatient.

Like most Disney comedies, the action is preceded by a colorful animated title sequence and a peppy title song. Visual effects artist Alan Maley (who went on to win an Oscar for his work on a movie we’ll be getting to soon) designed the abstract titles and they’re pretty cool. The song, by Robert F. Brunner and Bruce Belland, isn’t quite as successful. To be fair, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes is an unwieldy title. Even the Sherman brothers would have a hard time making it work in a song. Brunner’s and Belland’s solution was basically to shout the whole thing as quickly as humanly possible. It’s one of the more aggressively unpleasant Disney songs.

The only reason any of this works on any level is thanks to Kurt Russell. In his earlier Disney appearances, Russell definitely had something but nobody had quite figured out what his strengths were yet. Now we begin to see the charismatic movie star he would become. Russell always brings a little twinkle of fun to every role but here, he’s given his first opportunity to go all in on a broad comedic part. When Dexter’s central processor starts to crash, Russell fully commits to the gag. That’s a genuinely funny scene. I only wish the movie had more like it.

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes was Disney’s last theatrical release of the 1960s. It was a decently sized hit, particularly in relation to its cost, and most critics gave it a pass. The movie certainly did well enough to inspire Disney to bring Dexter Riley and friends back for more wacky adventures at Medfield.

TV Promo Art for The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1995)

Disney also produced a TV remake in 1995 with Kirk Cameron stepping into Dexter’s tennis shoes (a style of footwear Kurt Russell never dons once, by the by). That version had an interesting supporting cast, including comedian Larry Miller as the Dean, Jeff Garlin and Eddie Deezen as FBI agents, Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson hisownself) and Disney veteran Dean Jones playing against type as Miller’s rival Dean. Peyton Reed, who would eventually return to the Disney fold via Marvel’s Ant-Man, made his feature debut as director.

Revisiting The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes was a good lesson in tempering your expectations for childhood favorites. I had high hopes for this one. And while it wasn’t a complete waste of time, it definitely wasn’t as good as I’d remembered. They’ll have plenty more chances to impress us, though. Practically everybody involved will be back in this column in some way, shape or form.

VERDICT: Not quite a Disney Minus but nowhere near a Disney Plus, this is a Disney Neutral.

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