Super papa

I must have been eight years old with nothing else to do one Saturday in 1974 when this screened at the local cinema. I went along knowing nothing about it but assumed it would involve a dad who is secretly a superhero. I can't remember at what point I resigned myself to Dad never getting into costume but I spent most of the film rather confused and alienated by what turned out to be a rather gentle generation-gap comedy about a father trying to manipulate his daughter's love life. 45 years later, having hardly thought about it in the meantime, I thought I'd see how it looks from this distance. Well, it's not great. It's a mildly interesting glimpse at 70s culture seen through a Disney lens. For the first 20 minutes of rather forced humour I wondered if I should have bothered but I warmed to it a little as it went on. Probably the only reason it stuck in my mind was a mildly scary confrontation between the dad and an unhinged hippie artist called Klutch on his bizzarely decked-out houseboat/studio. It's hard to guess who Disney was aiming at with this. Young kids would have been bored and confused, as I was. Adults would find it juvenile, and teenagers would probably rather just find it a bit lame. The best you can say is that it's not that bad. You might relate to it if you have a teenage daughter, or if they will sit still long enough you could watch it with your kids (or grandkids) and tell them about the bad old days before Star Wars when, if there wasn't a Doug McClure film out that week, something like this was quite often the best a kid could hope for from a trip to the cinema.

I wanted to like this film. Really.

After all, any Disney film with Russell, Flynn and even a young Kirby has to have something good, doesn't it?

Well, usually.

As a father who can't stand the thought of letting go of his little girl, Crane is kind of irritating as the "Superdad" of the title.

Did I say "kind of"? Scratch that: VERY irritating.

The main picture in my mind is of Crane screaming like a girl while taking a high water ski jump. After that, I'd just stay home and tell my daughter to go and have a good time.

At least Flynn's around for laughs. Why couldn't he have been the dad? Now that would have been really super.

Two stars, plus a half star extra for Flynn. Way to go, Joe.

This film is every bit as entertaining as any of the other Disney films of the 1959-1979 period. What do you want?

You got your high jinx. You got your love story. You got your Kurt Russell. You got classic Bruno Kirby. You got your Bob Crane (Colonel Hogan, and unfairly slammed as an actor). You got your mad cap caper. You got your teenage conflict with authority. You got little kids laughing.

Why are we looking for dramatic depth in a Disney kids movie?

I watched this movie several times as a Disney movie of the week in the 70's. We even rented the 16mm version for display at youth conferences. All I have are fond memories and a wish for the video to be added to the other Disney Classics.

Lighten up and go with the flow, man!

I was nine years old when I saw this movie and liked it then as I still do to this day.I was at that great age when I wanted to be 18 like the characters in the movie and it didn't hurt that Kathleen Cody was a knock out lady to boot as well as the other ladies in the film.It's a harmless movie of a Father and Mother seeing their Daughter maturing in the real world as well as a lot of laughs in the storyline.Bob Crane was very funny with his portrayal.A lot of great California footage of Newport Beach and San Francisco.It's a great summertime movie that brings me back to 1973.Fisherman's Wharf gets some great exposure as well.

Tightly wound and traditional lawyer and family man Charlie McCready takes a lot of pride in his daughter Wendy (Kathleen Cody) but disapproves of her group of friends collectively known as "the Gang" whom she has known since childhood and especially Wendy's boyfriend Bart (Kurt Russell) because he believes them to have no ambition and are a drag on Wendy. As Charlie tries to wrest Windy from her carefree friends towards more eligible persons, complications arise.

Superdad's origins begin in 1966 when the film was under the working title A Son-in-Law for Charlie McCready. Originally intended for Gig Young in the lead role, Gig dropped from the film due to "creative differences" and was replaced by Bob Crane who had found himself less in demand following the cancellation of Hogan's Heroes. Superdad was yet another entry in the formula comedies that served as Disney's primary output during the 70s and comes to us from writer Joseph L. McEveety who gave us the mediocre Dexter Riley films and the surprisingly decent Barefoot Exectuvie, and is directed by Vincent McEveety who's film The Million Dollar Duck stands as one of the dumbest of this era of Disney comedies. Superdad doesn't feel like a movie and instead feels like three episodes of a not particularly good pre-Rural Purge sitcom daisy chained together and presented to you as a movie.

Like many Disney comedies from around this time, Superdad's approach to culture clash and generation gap humor feel about 10 to 15 years out of date. Much like the Dexter Riley films or Million Dollar Duck, despite a teenage cast they spout hokey dialogue that hasn't evolved much beyond the approach taken from The Absent Minded Professor in 1961. The Scooby-Gang from the original run of Scooby-Doo in 1969 had more believable attempts at character and that was a cartoon with a talking dog, but it also helps that Scooby-Doo didn't treat 60% of its cast as a singular hive-mind character spread across a dozen actors. Bob Crane is massively unlikable as Charlie McCready and while the movie does try to address the generation gap by saying there's no fundamental difference between the teenagers of "today" versus 20 years ago, the movie wants to have its cake and eat it to because despite a message of tolerance and understanding throughout the film the movie also takes potshots at the counterculture movement in what amounts to pretty pandering and toothless commentary.

Superdad is what it is: A bad Disney comedy that feels like a sitcom projected on a bigger screen with no laugh track. There's a reason most people know of this movie from its mention in the heavily fictionalized Bob Crane biopic Auto-Focus or its appearance in the subway scene of the first Charles Bronson Death Wish, because the movie itself is only interesting as a curiosity or background novelty in relation to other more interesting topics. It's not as bad as Million Dollar Duck by virtue of not being as brazenly annoying and stupid, but it's also much lazier.