We begin with our protagonist, Larry Boyd, being chased down the street by a bunch of dogs. It’s a common occurrence and Larry hasn’t the faintest idea why he’s targeted every day, but running all the time isn’t good for his allergies [Are the dogs trying to kill him?!]. He escapes up a tree, but his relief is short-lived when the branch breaks and he falls back to the ground. The dogs don’t attack him or anything—it’s more like they just want to be around him [Larry hates dogs, but for anybody else I feel like this would be the opposite of a problem].
Larry’s best friend Lily, who’s “pretty cool for a girl” [We love sexism in a kids tv show lollll] appears and shoos away the dogs, suggesting they only chase him because they smell his fear [I like my allergy idea better]. She’s also got one blue eye and one brown eye, which is cool [One of my eyes is half brown, so I’m cool too xx].
The two head to an empty house to rehearse with their rock band, The Geeks, which also consists of their other friends Jared and Manny. Through voice-over, Larry explains that lots of houses in the neighbourhood are empty lately. Larry’s not happy about the band’s music abilities, and rightly so. Look at them:
Manny finds a bottle of Instant Tan in the garage of the empty house, and he, Jared and Lily all put some on so they can be “bronze gods” and tell everyone they played a concert in Hawaii [You might wanna go with something more believable, guys]. Larry calls them stupid because who knows where it even came from [Wow, aggressive, Larry. It came from the garage, duh] but Lily convinces him to put some on after declaring with his blonde hair, Larry would look great with a tan [I love peer pressure]. Inspecting the bottle, Manny notices the lotion expired in 1991 [Five years before this episode aired!], and Larry pranks them with a bit of paper towel, making it look like his skin is falling off [Cheeky devil].
Larry then faints, and we cut to him getting an injection at home from Dr. Murkin [What a name!], who explains to his parents that he was just overheated, which made his allergies flare up [What’s he allergic to though? I don’t get it]. He encourages Larry not to run so much, and later, Larry tells his cat, Jasper, that he thinks it was the expired Instant Tan that made him ill [It’s not like you ingested it though?]. He won’t tell his parents though, because he’ll just get in trouble for using it in the first place. To add insult to injury, he reckons he’s “getting whiter”, not more tan [White people thingz, lol]. Suddenly Jasper starts hissing, and Larry notices the back of his hand is covered in a carpet of brown fur, so runs straight to the bathroom to shave it off [Welcome to puberty, Larry].
The next day, he bumps into Lily walking around the neighbourhood, and since they both haven’t heard from Manny about band rehearsal today, they decide to visit his house. As they walk there, Larry asks if she’s grown hair in any unexpected places since using the Instant Tan [Hahahaha] which she denies, and then he denies it when she asks him because “it was pretty embarrassing talking to a girl about body hair” [He mentions her gender way too much].
He decides he’ll ask Manny if he’s experienced any new hair growth, but when they arrive at his house, it’s completely empty! Exploring the place, they find every room empty, as if the family has moved, except for Manny’s bedroom, which is still completely set up. As Larry opens the closet, a man casually pops out as if it’s the most natural thing in the world [I wasn’t expecting it so it made me jump hahaha. Why is he hiding in there like that?!], holding a bundle of Manny’s clothes. He explains that the family moved and he’s reselling it before ordering the kids to leave.
Larry has dinner at Lily’s house that night where they try to discuss Manny’s disappearance with her parents, who suggest his dad probably got transferred and constantly try to change the subject to the food. As Larry goes to pass the tuna loaf Which sounds disgusting] to Lily’s mum, he notices the hair has grown back and quickly hides his hand. He then notices a little fur on the piece of corn Lily’s dad is munching on and slaps it out of his hand, explaining it had deadly corn worms on it [Good save, champ].
Noticing fur on his other hand too, Larry feigns illness and scurries to the bathroom where we find out his whole arms have been overcome by the thick fur [But he has no reaction to this discovery for some reason]. With no luck finding a shaver, he sneak out the window, but finds a group of dogs waiting for him outside. Not wanting to face any more embarrassment at the dinner table [Don’t listen to society’s beauty standards Larry, body hair is beautiful!], Larry takes his chances with the dogs and runs off back to his own house.
He searches the rest of his body for the brown fur, finding more on his legs as he screams for his parents. Dr. Murkin returns and Larry confesses about using the Instant Tan, but the doctor tells him it’s more likely some sort of “skin irritation” than a side effect of the tan [But like, wouldn’t a skin irritation be a result of the tan? Also, what kind of skin irritations causes hair growth?]. His parents suggest the hair is caused by his nerves for his band’s upcoming audition [Which is an even stupider explanation], but it’s obvious they’re all hiding something and clutching at straws to deter Larry from the truth, but he can tell there’s something suss going on.
He wakes up the next morning to find the fur gone, and as he heads to band practice later, he finds a dog that’s wearing the same coin Lily wears around her neck in the street. Not only that, it has one brown eye and one blue eye [Ooky spooky!]. He realises it’s Lily, but the dog runs off, spooked by a lawnmower.
He heads to Lily’s house to question her parents, finding them packing up their belongings. Her mother tells him “There is no Lily. Forget about her” before they drive off, leaving Larry even more confused. Back home, Larry tells his parents about the dog and Lily’s parents, suggesting the Instant Tan is to blame and Dr. Murkin is hiding something. His parents are dismissive and offer him some roast beef [Cures any problem!] but Larry doesn’t want food, he wants answers, damn it!
He runs off to the empty house where his band practices to find Jared, but it turns out he’s a dog too! Larry notices his arms are furry again [!!!] and runs home, terrified of the changes his body is going through [Bloody hormones]. When he bursts through the front door, we see that the fur has spread to his head.
We then cut to Larry’s POV later that day of his parents apologising for something not working out, and it’s quickly revealed Larry is now a golden retriever [The same one in the opening credits!!]. Sometime later, dog Larry hangs out with his dog friends and explains through voice-over that Dr. Murkin had found a way to turn dogs into humans, which is why he needed to get shots all the time [And not for the allergies? I still don’t know what allergies he was supposed to have…], but now he’s back to his old self.
Suddenly, Dr. Murkin arrives at Larry’s house, holding a baby girl. He declares he’s through with dogs as he hands over the baby to the Boyds, and it turns out the baby is the family’s cat, Jasper, in human form [Have the Boyds heard of adoption?].
Final thoughts
This wasn’t good. I don’t expect much in the acting department for this show, but the kids who played Larry and Lily have to be some of, if not the, worst actors we’ve seen so far. Larry also narrated what we were seeing onscreen constantly as well, which makes no sense and was super annoying.
I remember liking the book when I was younger, but it doesn’t translate well to screen. We’re supposed to suspect the Instant Tan of causing the hair, but it’s easy to forget all about it because it’s not that prominent in the story. The hair growth and the kids’ disappearances aren’t really done effectively as a mystery either. Like, first they find the Instant Tan. Then Larry grows hair. Then Manny disappears. Then Lily’s a dog etc. We don’t really have time to wonder what’s going on because it’s straight onto the next thing, so the story doesn’t have time to breathe.
I’m also left with a bunch of unanswered questions: were all the dogs just failed experiments? Why did their parents abandon them when they moved away? Why did Larry hate dogs when he was a human? Did they only chase him because they were waiting for him to turn back into a dog? Why were all these parents taking part in the experiment anyway?
22 tuna loafs out of 105!
