| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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| Horror |
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| Fantasy |
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C.H.O.M.P.S.
Rating: 
USA. 1978.
Director – Don Chaffey, Screenplay – Joseph Barbera, Duane Poole & Dick Robbins, Story/Producer – Joseph Barbera, Photography – Charles F. Wheeler, Music – Hoyt Curtin, Special Effects – Ross Hahn, Art Direction – David Constable. Production Company – AIP/Hanna-Barbera.
Cast:
Wesley Eure (Brian Foster), Valerie Bertinelli (Casey Norton), Conrad Bain (Ralph Norton), Larry Bishop (Ken Sharp), Chuck McCann (Brooks), Red Buttons (Bracken), Jim Backus (Carl Gibbs)
Plot: Security systems designer Brian Foster unveils his invention, the Canine Home Protection System, or CHOMPS for short, a home security system designed in the form of a robot dog which contains built-in x-ray vision, super-strength and sound effects. Brian’s boss dismisses the idea but then CHOMPS apprehends car thieves in a cross-town chase which makes the tv news. Soon Brian becomes a center of media attention but has to deal with a rival corporation that wants to steal CHOMPS.
How Don Chaffey has comes down from the days when he directed films like Jason and the Argonauts (1963), even Hammer’s One Million Years B.C. (1966). This sub-Disney clone is an improbable co-production between Hanna-Barbera, creators of Yogi Bear and The Flintstones, and Roger Corman’s old home stables American International Pictures, and was construed as a big screen breakout vehicle for Valerie Bertinelli, then the teenage star of tv’s hit sitcom One Day at a Time (1975-84).
The exercise sure dredges a particular barrel. When you have a dog dubbed over with a dull, disinterested voice and coming out with lines like “hand over that bone, turkey,” you know you’re in for a bum film. The dreary photography, the disco Muzak soundtrack, and the bumbling performances drag the film out excrutiatingly. Being a kid’s film nobody can ever get properly hurt so it is filled with bizarre opportunities for people to break falls by landing in dust bins, pools and bins of flour. It may possibly be a hidden message reflecting the crime statistics of our times, or methinks a plot device, but the story does require an inordinate number of robberies to happen throughout.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1991
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