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Underdog, the oddball rhyming Superman of the canine world, is as enjoyable now as he was 30-plus years ago. He returns in
Underdog Vs. Simon Barsinister, a 40-minute marathon of three original, eccentric episodes of
The Underdog Show. In the first, "Shrinking Water," Sweet Polly Purebred shrieks helplessly for the floppy-eared dynamo after Simon Barsinister, the series' sparse-haired, swollen-eyed mad scientist, diabolically devises a way to shrink all the world's citizens into thumb-sized replicas of themselves. Predictably, Underdog swoops down to save the day, but not without a close call that requires the use of his Super Underdog Energy Pill. Polly is equally powerless in the second episode, "Vacuum Gun." Here, Barsinister sucks a crew of thugs into a magic vacuum in an attempt to form an army of criminal geniuses. Polly, inadvertently tangled up in the bad guys' barbaric scheme, squeaks a few feeble "Help--ooh, helps" and--hip, hip, hip--away Underdog goes. Finally, "Simon Says" finds Barsinister concocting yet another world-domination scheme, this one in the form of a camera that turns people into pictures. Have no fear, though--Underdog is here. He uses a mirror to bounce the picture-making rays back onto Barsinister, creating a not-so-pretty picture out of him, at least until next time. Not just nostalgic grownups but children 5 and older are apt to stay tuned to
The Underdog Show. Its predictable, repetitive patterns (the airborne hero collides into a new, unforeseen obstruction at each episode's end, for instance) and simple story lines manage to never get tiresome.
--Tammy La Gorce
