Until very recently, the made-for-TV movie My Magic Dog was available on Netflix Instant, but at the end of July the title mysteriously disappeared from the company’s instant offerings. It was as if some wily negotiator had stipulated that it would only be available for a limited time on one of the most popular streaming platforms, hence increasing demand by diminishing supply. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the intrepid consumer of talking animal movies can still stream it in its entirety on YouTube.
Also known as My Ghost Dog (but obviously not to be confused with the Jim Jarmusch thriller), the movie was originally released in 1997. Talking animal aficionados could not ask for a better high concept: a faithful dog dies and comes back to life to save the day. It’s as cornball as you’d expect. But some bad movies win you over with the charm of their complete sincerity, and as ridiculous as the movie is, it has something resembling entertainment value, if not aesthetic worth.
As the movie opens, 12-year old Toby (Bryan Mendez), who fancies himself a young magician, is caught in the middle of a custody battle. He walks in his neighborhood with his best friend Lucky, a golden retriever, by his side. Neighborhood bullies dressed in flannel and Land’s End jackets tease Toby about talking to his dog. The boy is going through a rough patch; his mother recently died, and for now he’s living with his stepfather Chet (Leo Milbrook, who looks familiar but has only one other IMDB credit). Unfortunately, Toby’s evil Aunt Phoebe (Jessica Knoblauch, who seems like a familiar 90s character actress a la Holland Taylor but also has few credits to her name), wants custody of Toby.
Milbrook comes across as the quintessential benign ‘90s sitcom dad – you can easily imagine him telling his son to stop drinking milk directly out of the carton — while Knoblauch goes full Cruella de Vil, arching villainous eyebrows and chewing the scenery until it has the consistency of baby food. Aunt Phoebe hatches a plan to hire young thugs (apparently homeless teens) to break into Toby’s house to recover the will that states that Toby’s mother wants her late husband to have custody, because for some reason it would take six months to get a replacement will.
I haven’t brushed up on estate law in the particular jurisdiction served by My Magic Dog, but it’s the kind of legal logic you might expect from The Room and its childlike vision of the adult world’s arcane rules. The law is represented by John Philip Law, a long way from Barbarella and one of only two actors in the cast who had a notable career outside this movie.
The movie’s subtext is a broken family that can only be healed by supernatural intervention. When young thugs break into Toby’s house to steal his mother’s will, Lucky runs after the teens and is hit and killed by a passing car. Cheap special effects mark the transfiguration of Lucky from earthly pet to otherworldly helper. And naturally, when Lucky comes back from the dead, he can talk, albeit in a dopey voice. And, as seems to be the pattern with some talking animal movies, an uncredited voice; pity fallen actors like Eric Roberts lured by talking animal auteur David DeCoteau to voice the talking cat in A Talking Cat!?!
There’s also a ditzy neighbor who for some reason Chet, busy being a single dad, entrusts with keeping an eye on his stepson the night the will gets stolen. But the strangest and most delightful detail in the movie may be Vito, the owner of an Italian joint that is apparently the only restaurant in town. Played with undisguised glee by a thickly accented Russ Tamblyn, Vito is a friendly Italian stereotype that wouldn’t be out of place on ‘50’s TV show, except for the brief moment when Tamblyn takes a creative risk and goes into an Irish Brogue.
In a subplot, Vito and Toby place a personals ad in Chet’s name to set him up with a new woman. This seems to turn into an opportunity for Tamblyn to take on a dual role, as an answering machine message from a deep-voiced woman with a thick German accent sounds suspiciously like Tamblyn stretching his linguistic talents even more. But the German woman is played by another hammy character actor with a short C.V. – one wonders if some summer stock repertory company with some down time between outdoor Rodgers and Hammerstein productions was tapped for this film. My Magic Dog looks like it was a lot of fun to make, and it’s a lot of fun to watch. But I have probably seen more David DeCoteau talking animal movies than most of the people reading this combined, so I have a high tolerance for this highly specialized aesthetic punishment.