In the Dog House

Vivien Oakland doesn't like husband Andy Clyde's rambunctious grandson -- Delmar Watson, another of the innumerable brood -- and keeps threatening to send him back to the orphanage in this early Columbia short for Mr. Clyde, one of more than two hundred he did for Jules White's unit.

Andy was 42 when he made this movie, but he had been playing older men for ten years, starting at Mack Sennett's film factory as a supporting comic. He prospered into the sound era, with his slow-talking, kindly character a bit of an odd duck at Columbia's shorts unit, where they favored hard-knock slapstick and characters who were not too bright. After his last short in 1956, he moved into episodic television with recurring roles in THE REAL MCCOYS, NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS and LASSIE, finally growing into his character's age. He died in 1967.

"In the Dog House" is a misfire from Columbia Pictures that stars Andy Clyde. When the story begins, Andy has remarried and his new wife has learned only now that Andy was married before and has a grandchild who is now an orphan. I can understand her being upset....but this witch wants Andy to send the boy to an orphanage! This is a singularly unfunny situation and there really aren't many laughs in this one....and how could there be?? Overall, it's a short film that was poorly written and unpleasant.