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Teacher's Pet | 2003 | PG | - 4.3.0
Animated feature based on ABC's eponymous TV series: A boy's (Shaun Fleming) dog (Nathan Lane) desperately wants to become a boy, and so he dresses up every morning and attends school as one. It appears his wish can actually come true when he learns of a mad scientist called Dr. Krank (Kelsey Grammer) who specializes in transforming animals to humans. The results are not what he expected: he is transformed into a middle-aged man and he proceeds to flirt with the mother of the boy who owned him as a dog. Also with the voices of Debra Jo Rupp, Megan Mullally, Estelle Harris, Jay Thomas, Jerry Stiller and David Ogden Stiers. Directed by Tim Björklund. [1:13]
SEX/NUDITY 4 - An odd relationship develops between the transformed dog (who's now a man) and his ex-master's mother (who was also his teacher when he was pretending to be a boy and attended school): the man talks about sharing a bed with her, and that he always loved her; she reacts lovingly, she touches his hand tenderly and flirts with him, they share a romantic dinner, and both make references to getting married. A man and a woman kiss on TV, and a man and a woman nearly kiss on a TV show. We see a bare-chested man with bandages wrapped around his waist. A woman wears a tight-fitting low-cut dress that reveals cleavage and accentuates her figure. People wear bathing suits on a beach (men are bare-chested, women in bikinis expose some cleavage). We see a woman on TV in a bikini. We see a man's buttocks cleavage when he tries to squeeze into shorts that are too small. A bird says "I wanna be a rooster in a henhouse," a man says "If these pants ride up any more I'll be a soprano."
VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - A man pulls his head off and holds it in front of a boy. A man yells and kicks a mutated alligator/boy creature , and a man swings an axe at a dog. A man and a boy yell at each other. A man pokes himself in the leg with a hypodermic needle and he deflates. A cat's skin is blown back while riding on top of a speeding train (we see his skull). A man is zapped by a machine and he is transformed into a mouse and is chased by a cat. A boy is strapped to a table and a strange ray machine is pointed toward him. A dog is zapped with a ray and is transformed, and a dog is zapped and a pile of sand is left on the floor where he was. A cat and a bird are zapped and we see them briefly as bare-chested, odd looking men. Two characters approach a dark and eerie cabin in a dark swamp. A mosquito hits a man in the head. A bird and a cat are slammed into a wall when a door is opened. The alligator/boy creature runs into a wooden post breaking it in half. A bird flattens under the weight of a cat. A dog clings to a moving RV, he's blown by a truck speeding by in the other direction, he slips off, we see claw marks on the spare tire and a boy thinks the dog has been killed. Two people are washed off a beach by a large wave that crashes on shore. A cat claws at and clings to a man's neck. A man in a straightjacket hits his head against a wall. A fairy hits a dog on the head three times with a wand (in a recurring dream). We hear that a man can transform animals into humans, we see pictures of some of them with malformed features and two participate in the story: one is an alligator (one of his eyes dangles from the eye socket) and the other is a mosquito with a bob haircut. A man on a Jerry Springer-like TV show yells during the introduction. People and animals yell at each other and call each other names. Bugs pick up and carry a cat, they are squished under his weight and we see a puddle of goo. A boy pretending to be a frog eats a fly by flicking his tongue. A man is extremely jittery from drinking coffee.
LANGUAGE 0 - Some name calling.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Wishes, dreams, family, creepy relationships, disappointment, companionship, DNA, fate, friendship, persistence, nature, insanity, loneliness.
MESSAGE - A friend needs a friend and a boy needs a dog.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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