Family Dog

1 9 9 3 (USA)
10 x 30 minute episodes

Known only as Family Dog, the star of this animated comedy – a belated spinoff from Amazing Stories – was a happy mongrel (voiced by Danny Mann) whose life was filled with the day-to-day concerns of the doggie world – finding good places to nap, burying and digging up bones, finding canine romance, avoiding confrontations with other animals, and coping with the idiosyncrasies of the human family to whom he belonged.

The middle-class family consisted of father Skip (Martin Mull), mother Bev (Molly Cheek), and two children – 9-year-old Billy (Zak Huxtable Epstein), who was almost as nasty as Bart Simpson, and 3-year-old Buffy (Cassie Cole), who spent most of her time planted in front of the TV.

Creators Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton decided that everything on Family Dog would be seen from the dog’s perspective, not the human family’s and CBS had high hopes for the series when it was originally put into production in 1990.

Although 13 episodes were ordered, there were production problems with the animation house in Taiwan and the network halted production on the final three episodes and outsourced the ten existing episodes to Canada’s Nelvana animation studio for “fixes and completions.”

The series finally aired in the summer of 1993.

Family Dog
Danny Mann
Skip Binsford
Martin Mull
Bev Binsford
Molly Cheek
Billy Binsford
Zak Huxtable Epstein
Buffy Binsford
Cassie Cole
Martin Mahoney
Bruce McGill
Trish Mahoney
Deanna Oliver
Katie
Mary Kay Bergman