Rover Dangerfield (1991)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A Masterpiece!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I've always had kind of a perverse curiosity about this animated movie starring Roger Dangerfield as an animated dog who, having lived in Las Vegas his whole life, has to learn to exist on a farm. It just seemed like such a moronic idea. Well, it just popped up on Netflix Instant, having never been released on DVD, and I decided that, no matter how awful it was, it's only 73 minutes long. Well, yeah, self-fulfilling prophecy and all that. It's terrible. I mean, the idea of a G rated Rodney Dangerfield should have stopped me in my tracks (okay, Ladybugs wasn't too bad, I guess). What's really weird is that Dangerfield himself was the creative force behind this whole project (he co-wrote the script with Harold Ramis). You'd think he would figure that no child would really want to see a cartoon starring himself. And Dangerfield fans aren't likely to enjoy him in such a toothless incarnation. About as dirty as it gets is when he sings a song about not "doing it" on a Christmas tree. Yes, there's a whole song where he promises his new girlfriend that he would never take a leak on a Christmas tree. Even worse, that's the only song that's even close to memorable, and it is only memorable because of its subject matter. At least Dangerfield isn't nearly as bad a singer as you might imagine, which allows the songs to go by more or less unnoticed. What's really weird is that Dangerfield didn't attempt in the slightest to get some blue jokes past the censors (it was a more innocent time than a decade later, when Shrek tickled us all pink with dick jokes), but the plot often gets absurdly dark. At least two plot points of the film have Rover facing possible execution, once by his original owner's gangster boyfriend (who himself apparently gets whacked in the end) and once by his new farmer master, who catches him with a dead turkey (which wolves killed). Yes, the turkey was just talking in the previous scene (voiced by Simpsons/Futurama regular Tress MacNeille, who voices a few other characters along the way, too), and then it has its neck broken. Rover is slapping its dangling head about, trying to revive it, when the farmer discovers him. Then he holds its head up and tries to do an impression of a turkey. I'm sure no children were traumatized by that. As bad as it is, it's a curio that I can check off my "I can't believe they made this movie" list.

I started out this movie with a positive attitude towards it. Rodney Dangerfield brings character to a character that is essentially a milder, toned down canine version of himself. The animation isn't good, though the opening scene is really well animated. As the movie drags on, more characters are introduced. All of them are clichéd are very poorly voiced and none of them are interesting in the least. It's good to have Rodney Dangerfield as the star character and main attraction of his movie, but that doesn't mean every other character should be boring and underused. But in the end, it was the little things that made this a real stinker.Rover Dangerfield (Voiced by Rodney Dangerfield) is a gambling dog in Vegas and is owned by a Vegas show girl, Connie. Rover accidentally ruins an illegal deal being done by Connie's mean boyfriend Rocky, so when Connie leaves for a couple weeks, Rocky disposes of the dog, and Rover ends up on a farm. Now Rover must learn to work for his meals and learn to live out of the city. Along the way he makes some boring friends and falls in love with the neighbor farm's dog, Daisy. By the end, Rover must choose between the high life and the farm life.There were quite a few things in this movie that didn't make much sense. First off, Rocky wants to get rid of Rover, so he throws him over the Hoover Dam? It seems like taking him a mile out and leaving would suffice, but instead he gets thrown over a dam. Earlier, Connie got mad at Rocky for showing up late to her birthday. What didn't make sense is, she was about to go on stage, and it seemed the other showgirls surprised her with this, so how was Rocky supposed to know to come. And even if he did know, he only came like a minute after the girls sang happy birthday. One minute late to a party he wasn't in on doesn't seem like that big of deal.Connie shows affection towards Rover. She really loves her dog...maybe a little too much. She's living on a showgirl salary, and she feeds him steak and whatever he wants every day. Everything he does she laughs at, something Rover couldn't pull off for the viewing audience. She is constantly kissing and hugging him, and several times before leaving says she'll miss him. At the end, she drives what must be hundreds of miles to private property just because she thinks he might miss a female dog on the farm...that makes no sense. This movie is supposed to have the realism that humans are the dominant species on the Earth and dogs are their pets, but to me, it seems she is his love slave or something. It's creepy and weird. I almost expected a dog-human make out session from how much she loves him. Also, the farm people love Rover a lot, and are always hugging and kissing him, but why are they neglecting all the other more useful farm dogs?The voices here are just awful. The little farm boy got to my last nerve with his scratchy delivery. He sounded like he's been smoking too much or something. The kid's dad has this monotonous voice that's hard to take seriously. Raffles, the sheep dog also gives some horrid deliveries. Overall, it just should be chalked up to bad voice acting, except for Rodney, and Sal Landi who was quite good as Rocky.Characters and character traits are introduced, but by the end they add up to nothing. Rover is supposedly a funny dog, so you think maybe by the end he'd become a comedian, but nope. Just ditch the idea that everyone thinks he's funny. Rover meets all these dogs on the farm that have unique character traits, but not one of the dogs must've got any more than 10 lines in the entire movie, except for his love interest, Daisy.What's a good way to pick up a mediocre cartoon? How about making it a musical. That usually works right...usually it does, but the music here is so run of the mill. The songs are boring and add nothing to anything. Most of them are random, too and express nothing. One song, Rover sings about not peeing on Christmas trees, one about liking living the high life in Vegas. Might as well have a song about Rover sleeping, and one about him eating. They're about as important as the actual songs.My biggest pet peeve in animated movies was featured here. The farmer's son asks to keep the dog and the dad and the son are discussing this. Meanwhile Rover is saying all kinds of stupid things that are supposed to be witty, during their conversation. For some reason, every time Rover talks, their conversation takes a long pause, then they continue. They aren't paying attention to Rover, they're just randomly taking 30 second pauses after each statement. I seriously hate that in cartoons! Overall, this is a really cruddy animated feature, with voice work that would've been more lively if each character was voiced by Ben Stine, and inconsistencies throughout. Avoid this one, even if you're a fan of Rodney Dangerfield.My rating: * out of ****. 70 mins. Rated G.

When this movie came out - I was it's target audience - a child.And I loved this movie.Rover Dangerfield, is a great movie for kids - better than half the crap, that parents are letting their kids watch, which is far too mature for them.This movie is filled with enough seriousness, that kids don't feel like they're being talked down to - and enough adult appeal, that even my father used to always sit down with us to watch it.The humour is great, the characters charming - particularly Rodney Dangerfield, as Rover - what I think people are forgetting it - it doesn't have to be perfect by your standards - unless you watched it as a kid at the time of it's release and were actually a child of that time - just let your kids watch it, and ask what they think...You probably watch what they think is crap, so who are you to be a judge?

'Rover Dangerfield' is the animated story of dog who becomes lost from his master and from the city that he calls home, and on his journey back, he meets different characters and ends up working on a farm. The dog is unmistakenly voiced by Rodney Dangerfield, and it is an animation that both children and adults can enjoy. The humor is aimed more at adults than children in some cases, but it is perfectly acceptable for children. The story is not the best, but the sense of humor and the situations that Rover finds himself in make up for a pretty slow story in some cases. It's not the best animation, but overall, I rate it just about average.