General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Shaggy D.A.

The Shaggy D.A. is a 1976 American live-action comedy from Walt Disney Productions and the sequel to The Shaggy Dog (1959), in which the grown-up Wilby Daniels runs for district attorney while a stolen magic ring repeatedly turns him into a large, talking sheepdog. It was directed by Robert Stevenson, written by Don Tait, and suggested by Felix Salten's novel The Hound of Florence (New York, 1930), the same literary source as the original film.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	Los Angeles opening December 18, 1976; New York and nationwide opening December 25, 1976; Disney and IMDb list December 17, 1976¹^•³
Director / writer	Robert Stevenson; screenplay by Don Tait¹
Stars	Dean Jones (Wilby Daniels), Tim Conway (Tim), Suzanne Pleshette (Betty), Keenan Wynn ("Honest" John Slade)¹
Runtime / rating	91–92 minutes, rated G, Technicolor, RCA Photophone sound¹^•⁴
Literary source	Suggested by The Hound of Florence by Felix Salten, author of Bambi¹
Reception	Reviews were critical of its formulaic nature but generally positive; IMDb 5.8/10, Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 50%¹^•⁴
Home video	Released on video in 1985; currently streaming on Disney+²^•⁴

Spoilers

Plot

In the town of Medfield, Wilby Daniels, his wife Betty, and their son Brian return from a vacation to find their home stripped bare by housebreakers.² Blaming the lax policies of the incumbent district attorney, "Honest" John Slade, and spurred by a second theft of the family's remaining clothing and blankets, Wilby decides to run against him.¹

The complication comes from the Borgia ring, a priceless scarab ring once owned by Lucrezia Borgia and displayed at the art museum by Prof. Whatley. According to the professor, the ring enabled Borgia to turn her unfaithful lover into a dog; when its Latin inscription is read aloud, it transforms Wilby, who had been "dogged" by the same ring as a teenager in the first film.¹^•³ The burglars Freddie and Dip steal the ring and cannot sell it to crime boss Eddie Roschak, and it passes through an ice cream vendor, Tim, who innocently recites the inscription and triggers the first transformation.¹^•²

From there the plot runs through a search for the ring lost among a delivery of cherry pies that turns into a pie fight, Slade's confiscation of the ring and his repeated recitation of the incantation to keep Wilby in canine form, a dog-pound imprisonment and breakout, and Wilby's recording of an incriminating conversation between Slade and Roschak at a warehouse. The pound dogs attack the criminals and retrieve the ring, Wilby returns to human form, and Slade's own reckless repetition of the incantation turns him into a bulldog. Wilby wins the election, and the family adopts the escaped pound dogs.¹^•²

Cast and production

Principal cast. Dean Jones, Disney's resident live-action star of the era, plays Wilby Daniels, the character Tommy Kirk had played as a teenager in the 1959 film. Suzanne Pleshette plays Betty Daniels, Tim Conway plays the ice cream vendor Tim, Keenan Wynn plays Slade, Jo Anne Worley plays Katrinka Muggelberg, Dick Van Patten plays Raymond, Shane Sinutko plays Brian Daniels, and Vic Tayback plays Eddie Roschak.¹^•²

The film marked Jo Anne Worley's feature film debut, according to the December 18, 1976 Los Angeles Herald-Examiner review.¹ Liam Dunn, who played a cameo role as a dogcatcher, died before principal photography was completed; IMDb trivia states he died during the filming of the roller rink sequence and that John Fiedler was brought in to complete the role.¹^•⁵

Behind the camera. Bill Anderson produced with Ron Miller as executive producer, Frank Phillips was the cinematographer, and the special effects credited to Eustace Lycett, Art Cruickshank, and Danny Lee handled the transformation sequences.¹^•² Impressionist George Kirby dubbed the voices of the pound dogs in the styles of Mae West, Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson, a detail both contemporary reviews singled out.¹ The title song, "The Shaggy D.A.," written by Shane Tatum and Richard McKinley, was sung by Dean Jones, and Tim Conway sings "Down by the Old Mill Stream."¹ AFI notes that the inclusion of a Great Dane named Brutus was possibly a reference to The Ugly Dachshund (1966), which also starred Jones and Pleshette.¹

Release and reception

The release dates differ among sources: Disney's official page and IMDb list December 17, 1976, D23 gives December 18, and AFI, citing AMPAS production notes, records a Los Angeles opening on December 18 and a New York and nationwide opening on December 25, 1976.³^•⁵^•²^•¹

Contemporary reviews found the film formulaic but generally liked it. The trade paper Box predicted in January 1977 that it would be "one of the year's biggest hits," and Daily Variety described it as "all frothy fun, not to be taken seriously or analyzed."¹ Roger Ebert, the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times and winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, reviewed it on December 31, 1976, calling it "one of Disney's better recent efforts" and highlighting the dog-pound sequence, in which the canine inmates talk like Warner Bros. gangsters and dig tunnels to freedom, as a cross between a dog movie and a prison movie.⁶

Later aggregate scores have been middling: IMDb users rate it 5.8 out of 10 from about 3,800 votes, and the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer stands at 50 percent from 8 reviews.⁴ A retrospective fan-history assessment calls it the last film directed by Disney veteran Robert Stevenson, whose live-action Disney credits stretched back to the late 1950s.⁷

Place in the Shaggy Dog series

The Shaggy D.A. was the first sequel in a franchise that began with The Shaggy Dog (1959), Disney's first live-action comedy and, per a May 1959 Los Angeles Mirror article cited by AFI, the studio's biggest box-office hit of the time, earning over $8 million in its first domestic release.⁸ After the 1976 sequel came the made-for-television films The Return of the Shaggy Dog (1987) and The Shaggy Dog (1994), and a 2006 theatrical remake directed by Brian Robbins and starring Tim Allen and Kristin Davis.⁸ The film was released on video in 1985 and is currently available on Disney+.²^•⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026