Clifford
Directed by: Paul Flaherty
Written by: Jay Dee Rock and Bobby Von Hayes
Starring: Martin Short, Charles Groden, Ben Savage (?)

“Whats the difference between Clifford and a pit bull?One will tear your heart out, scare your friends andwreck your house. The other one is a dog.”

So reads a very extended tagline to “Clifford”, the1994 coming-of-age tale of a little boy who needs tolearn he can’t always get his way. The story behindthis film is that the makers of the film could notland a child star like Macauley Culkin, so theydecided to get the next best thing: Martin Short. Whatwe end up with is a new take on the wonderful “ProblemChild” series. Mmmm, John Ritter.

Clifford (Short) with do anything to get to theDinosaurworld theme park in Los Angeles. Cliffordmanages to, with the aid of his toy brontosaurausStefan (you’ll see a lot of him), force his parents’plane to land in L.A., where his estranged UncleMartin (Charles Grodin of the Beethoven the Dogmovies) lives. Of course, his Uncle Martin is theeternal bachelor, living in a large home by a cliff hemight possibly have built himself. Martin, you see, isan architect, working on plans for a monorailconnecting the entire city. Martin has no time and nodesire for children, which is unfortunate for him, ashis fiance (Mary Steenburgen – “Back to the FutureIII”) runs a daycare centre at his work.

Back at the airport, Clifford annoys his parents bystealing from some members of the clergy, and hisparents have had enough. They decide to head to Hawaiiwithout him, and leave Clifford with Uncle Martin.Martin sees this as an opportunity to prove to hisfiance that he can be good with kids.

But Clifford is no ordinary child. Oh no no no. AfterUncle Martin cancels their trip to Dinosaurworld inorder to finish the transit system, Clifford goesbonkers. He embarrasses him in front of his boss(played by Dabney Coleman – “Amos and Andrew”"Drexell’s Class”), his fiance’s parents, tricking himout of the house and even trying to steal theaffection of his lover. As Clifford gets crazier inhis quest of revenge, Martin gets crazier as well,only to at misopportune moments find himself even more embarrassed as he’s caught in the act of beating his poor nephew. This is the kind of sitcom-esque laughs I’m expecting on futre episodes of “Thats My Bush!”, but thats another story.

I watched this with my girlfriend, and she foundMartin Short as Clifford to be “just plain scary…and very very wrong”. But forget her, she’s acrackhead. Short rules, as does Grodin. Theirexchanges are amongst the most insane and goofyvariety. They are classic. You will never forget asGrodin is forced off the road to fetch Clifford atreat, resulting in the now infamous line: “Get me thebunny!”

Short goes back and forth from cute little angel todevils cabana boy. And yes, he does manage to sneakthe Ed Grimley dance in there somehow.

The film climaxes when an over-the-edge Uncle Martinfinally gets Clifford to his desired land:Dinosaurworld. This happens after dark, and Martinhas a free pass to the park as he helped design theparks most famous ride: Larry the Scary Rex (thisscene has the catchiest music I’ve heard in a while).Pterry the Pterodactyl is Cliffords guide throughhorror, a device of Martins to finally teach Cliffordto respect people and that he can’t always have hisway.

Go find Clifford. Run to him. Video stores are takingit off the shelves. It needs love. All he wants islove. Wont you love him? I do. — The Pretentious Goon