Genre: animation, family, comedy

Teacher's Pet

Directed by Timothy Bjorklund

Written by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner

Starring the voices of Nathan Lane, Kelsey Grammer, Shaun Fleming

Classification: G

Rating: *½

Weighing in at 68 animated minutes, Teacher's Pet can be considered a short feature or a long cartoon. Either way, it's a big disappointment, especially hailing from the Mouse House (to use my best Variety-ese). Animation of all types is a going concern these days, but the show has happily kept pace with the business. Much of the material is terrific and, whether they're Finding Nemo or getting Spirited Away, kids have been treated well at the movies lately. But not here. In the proud mansion that is Disney, this thing belongs on a basement shelf behind the boiler.

Don't blame the drawings, though. Gary Baseman's illustrative style is rather old-fashioned, almost crude compared to the Shrek-like realities available at the click of that other mouse, the one umbilically tethered to any computer. But Basemen's outsized-schnozes and rubbery bodies are a part of the charm -- these are goofy characters unafraid to be goofy cartoons. No, the problem here isn't how the figures look; rather, it's what they do and say -- the story is lame and the dialogue no better.

Given that the source is a TV series of the same title, someone must have had the bright idea: Who better to spin it into a movie than a pair of TV sitcom writers -- specifically, Bill and Cheri Steinkellner, the wordsmiths behind the likes of Cheers and The Jeffersons. If so, someone got exactly what he wanted: a shrill TV product, dumb in plot and short on laughs.

The first frames open by paying homage to Pinocchio and then getting right on with the theft. In this case, it's a dog who wants to be a boy -- a Spot who wants to be a Scott. Actually, since the dog has already mastered the sullen art of human speech (in the voice of Nathan Lane), and since the dog has already risen to the status of star student at the local grade school, you might reasonably conclude that his wish has pretty much been granted. So what's he whining about? Good question, although apparently not good enough to trouble the sitcom scribes. Ignoring it, they pack the pooch off on his metamorphic mission.

So, after a pause for a musical interlude (the first of several, all forgettable), we're tagging along with Spot on an excursion to sunny Florida. So is his young master Leonard (Shaun Fleming), who has a wish of his own -- that the loquacious dog would content himself with gnawing bones and fetching tennis balls. However, determined to speed down the genetic highway from canine to human, our aspiring boy seeks out the mad Doctor Krank (Kelsey Grammer), who promptly lives down to his name. Oops, seems Spot was unwise to put his paws in Krank's evil hands.

Trouble ensues, but not much else. The humour is designed to be Simpsons-esque in its architecture, the split-level kind that has one floor for the children and another for their parents. Yet lines like, "What is it about this family and singing -- I'm starting to feel Von Trapped", or, "If these pants ride up any more, I'm gonna be a soprano", just don't cut it on either level. Too many of the jokes are above the heads of kiddies and beneath the contempt of adults -- in either case, nobody's laughing.

Worse, the stuff that nobody's laughing at tends to be delivered at typical sitcom volume -- that is, at the level of a perpetual shriek. Alas, Lane doubles as the principal voice and the loudest offender -- his yappy mutt is right in our face. So put a muzzle on it, please, and get along little doggie -- you're not anyone's pet.