TV Detour #6 - Herbie's Adventures in Television

When we last saw Herbie - the plucky little Volkswagen with a mind of his own - he’d been run ragged and stunk of rotten fruit following the release of the embarrassingly awful “comedy,” Herbie Goes Bananas. By the dawn of the 1980s, the franchise had clearly been run without a tune-up for too long. Much like the once-sprightly “love bug” himself, the series was in need of a rest before returning to the silver screen. Rather than letting Herbie drive off into the sunset of nostalgia, however, Disney would put their vehicular mascot to work on the small screen; Herbie would therefore be called upon to front a pair of television productions aired some 15 years apart. So before Herbie takes his final lap, let’s take a look at his adventures in television.



Groovy...

Herbie’s first foray into television, as we’ve discussed previously, came back in 1971 when he was featured in The Grand Opening of Walt Disney World TV special. Appearing alongside his Love Bug co-star Buddy Hackett, the duo faced off against a handful of genuine race car drivers at the Magic Kingdom’s Grand Prix Raceway attraction. This infamous bit is memorable for seeing Hackett use a giant wind-up key to start Herbie - because apparently nobody associated with that program had ever seen The Love Bug (or seemed to know what the hell was going on in general.)

'Memba TV Guide?

Herbie’s big break into broadcast TV would come a decade later, in the form of a full-on TV series. Herbie, The Love Bug was a mid-season replacement which ran on the CBS network for 5 episodes in March and April of 1982. Starring Dean Jones as Herbie’s on-again/off-again friend and driver, Jim Douglas, the show followed the retired racing star as he meets and becomes engaged to divorcée and mother-of-three Susan MacLane (played by Patricia Harty) - with a little help from Herbie, of course. Attempting to sabotage the couple’s courtship is Susan’s jealous ex-fiancé, Randy, played with ineffectual bluster by M*A*S*H’s Larry Linville. The cast is rounded out by Richard Paul as the prerequisite goofy mechanic pal, Bo (sort of a low-rent substitute for both Hackett and Don Knotts), and Susan’s three kids: oldest daughter Julie (a pre-Back to the Future Claudia Wells,) middle son Matthew (Nicky Katt) and edge-of-precocious Robbie (Douglas Emerson.) Actress Natalie Core also appears as the ex- fiancé’s mother, Mrs. Bigelow, so that we can get someone who says “Randy, why are you still obsessing over that woman?” in every episode.

Keeping up with the Joneses...

Though officially categorized as a sitcom, I have trouble describing the show as such, since it neither looks nor feels like contemporary sitcoms such as Taxi or Too Close For Comfort (why did I choose those two examples? Well, if you must know: Taxi has cars in it, and I freaking love Too Close For Comfort - so there.) Instead, Herbie, The Love Bug fits into that particular sub-genre that viewers (and reviewers) can’t seem to decide should be dubbed “comedy-drama” or simply “hour-long comedy.” Herbie, in fact, seems to be better bed-fellows with such contemporaneous programs as The Love Boat and Fantasy Island - or such current quirky favorites as Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. While the show has plenty of wacky antics (mostly focused on Herbie consistently foiling Randy’s attempts at sabotage,) the show mostly revolves around Jim and Susan coming to terms with integrating their relationship into her family life. Closer to a light-hearted domestic drama than a knockabout comedy, coming into this show straight off the strained goofiness of Herbie Goes Bananas came as something of a respite for this blogger.

Fun fact: The jauntily corny theme song, entitled “Herbie, My Best Friend,” was actually performed by Dean Jones himself - presumably in character. Here it is, for your Summer listening pleasure:

The pilot episode - in which Jim and Susan meet after Herbie helps to foil a robbery at her bank - was helmed by veteran TV director Charles S. Dubin, and establishes the show’s premise and main cast well. The following four episodes find directing duties rotating between returning series director Vincent McEveety and Bill Bixby (best remembered as Dr. Banner in TV’s Incredible Hulk, but also a prolific director and producer.) Episodes 2 and 3 cover the troubled road to Jim and Susan’s wedding, which itself occurs in episode 4. The 5th episode almost seems out-of-place, detailing the day-to-day struggles of the newlyweds adjusting to married (and extended family) life. Perhaps this final installment was a window into what a continuing series would’ve looked like, had it been renewed?

Domesticated Herbie...

All episodes save for one (more on this in a moment) were written by Arthur Alsberg and Don Nelson, the sitcom-writing duo responsible for Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. Alsberg and Nelson wisely ignore the events of Herbie Goes Bananas, establishing Jim and Herbie as ongoing friends and partners who set up a driving school following their retirement from racing. Their “Famous Driving School” seems to cater exclusively to kindly old ladies (a nod, perhaps, to Herbie Rides Again) - whom Herbie is able to assist when they fail to notice the occasional STOP sign or missed turn. Another main storyline focuses on Susan’s opposition to auto racing, since her first husband abandoned the family to become a racecar driver. Therefore the series ends up featuring only a couple of racing scenes. However, unlike previous film entries in which Herbie did not race, it makes sense within the established story. But despite this lack of racing scenes (and the fact that Herbie himself features less than most of the human cast,) Herbie, The Love Bug actually does feel like a continuation of the film series - certainly more so than the most recent sequel did.

Now cut that out!

While the show is an inoffensively pleasant, fairly breezy affair, I have to admit that the best episode by a long mile is episode 3. This installment heavily references the events of Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, and features the return of Jim’s love interest from that film, Diane Darcy (played here by Andrea Howard, replacing Julie Sommars for some reason) - whom is invited to Jim’s bachelor party in an attempt by Randy to make Susan jealous. Oddly enough, despite extensively referencing the third film, as noted above this is the only episode that wasn’t penned by the writers of that movie; instead this episode was scribed by Herbie Goes Bananas screenwriter Don Tait. Despite the ire flung at him in my review for that movie, I must admit that his teleplay here - a somewhat wackier installment than the surrounding four episodes - entertains thoroughly. Perhaps more at home with writing for television, or working better within another writer’s framework, Tait’s work here - his very last screenplay, as of this writing - is fun and efficient in it's on-point comedy.

Herbie gets 'em to the church on time...

While the show’s brief run seemingly signaled the end of Herbie’s adventures, Disney wouldn’t let the little Bug disappear entirely. Besides keeping his memory alive through televised repeats and home video releases of his theatrical films, Herbie became a rare but consistent mainstay at Disney’s theme parks - but we’ll go into that in a future "Theme Park Rundown," of course.

And then, fifteen years after the conclusion of his short-lived TV series, Herbie suddenly returned to the small screen in the form of a made-for-TV movie. Titled The Love Bug (usually referred to as The Love Bug ‘97 or “The TV Movie” to differentiate it from the 1968 original,) this rarely-seen Herbie adventure aired on ABC’s version of The Wonderful World of Disney on November 30, 1997. It was directed by Peyton Reed, who two years prior had overseen a Kirk Cameron-starring TV-remake of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, and would go on to direct Bring It On three years later (before taking the reigns of Marvel’s Ant-Man franchise starting in 2015.)

Okay, now a silly one you guys!

Hovering somewhere between a remake, reboot and continuation, the film sees Herbie worn-out but back on the racing circuit, under the drivership of an arrogant Scottish racer named Simon Moore III (played by John Hannah, familiar from the Mummy films and Starz’ Spartacus series.) After Moore dismissively gives Herbie up for scrap, he is rescued after being put into a “junk-car race.” There, small-time racer and mechanic Hank Cooper (the one-and-only Bruce Campbell) repairs and races Herbie, ending up the winner. One of the judges of the event is Alex Davis (Alexandra Wentworth) - an automotive magazine reporter and, naturally, Hank’s ex-girlfriend - so you can see where this is heading from the get-go.

By the way, as a fan of the Evil Dead series it came as quite a kick for me to see Bruce Campbell (“Ash” himself) appearing here - the first in a handful of appearances the quintessential B-movie star would make for Disney. Campbell is in “average Joe” mode here, however, playing a nondescript “vanilla” hero rather than the chainsaw-wielding badass familiar to the Fangoria set.

Good, bad - I'm the guy with the Bug...

Much of what occurs in this version of The Love Bug follows the original film (and it’s follow-ups to some degree): we have Herbie playing matchmaker to his driver and an initially reluctant love interest; an eccentric buddy (Kevin J. O'Connor as Roddy, a sculptor like Tennessee Steinmetz) whom early-on realizes the car’s sentience; a scene in which an emotional lead character realizes that Herbie has feelings; and a wacky climactic race. Really the only factor that doesn’t make this a remake is the mid-movie arrival of good ol’ Dean Jones as Jim Douglas, who arrives following Herbie’s destruction (SPOILERS!) to assist in rebuilding him. Jones, noticeably older by this point (the wide-shouldered business suits he wears here making his head look positively puny,) offers a few tidbits to the new characters about Herbie’s background, as well as the sole reference to the 1982 TV series to be found in any “Herbie” production, mentioning that Herbie helped him “meet his wife.” Jones also provides a brief narration at the start of he film, which significantly contextualizes Herbie’s rise to fame within the zeitgeist of the late ‘60s “love generation.”

What those familiar with the previous “Herbie” films may not see coming, however, is that this Love Bug goes somewhere unexpected and not entirely warranted: into an origin story. You see, once Herbie inevitably starts helping Hank win more races, a jealous Moore (slightly more crazy than most of Herbie’s previous nemeses) seeks to discover what makes the little VW Bug so special. He soon digs up one Dr. Gustav Stumpfel (Harold Gould,) the heretofore unheard of German scientist who, when tasked with creating a “people’s car” that would become the Volkswagen Beetle, inadvertently created a sentient “Love Bug” after a picture of his beloved wife accidentally fell into the vat of special metal he was brewing to make into the car. WHAA!?!

Mein Gott! Das auto!

This reveal is … odd, to put it one way. Ignoring the fact that the screenwriter (Ryan Rowe) chose to link Herbie's origin to a quasi-historical/fictional context (essentially making Herbie the progenitor of the entire VW Beetle "race",) it also shifts the core concept of the character. That Herbie, previously portrayed as a car that obtained consciousness through love, is now revealed to be the result of a “mad scientist” trope is fairly disappointing. This story reframes the image of Herbie as a byproduct of alchemy rather than a child of mysticism - a “happy accident” of human invention, rather than one bourne from pure thought. While the idea that Dr. Stumpfel’s love for his wife brought about emotional awareness within his creation is an interesting one, it somehow doesn’t quite fit in with the Herbie we’ve been witness to before (especially when he’s acted like a little thug several times before.)

She could tell right away that I was bad to the bone...

This brings us to the part of The Love Bug ‘97 that people seem to remember most: Horace, the Hate Bug. In the film the point of Moore’s uncovering of Dr. Stumpfel is to trick the eccentric old inventor into recreating his previous experiment, and then perverting said work by tossing a picture of himself into the “magic ingredients.” The resulting creation is a jet-black, souped-up Beetle that Moore dubs “Horace.” Unlike the gentle, child-like Herbie, Horace is a machine seething with rage and possessing an instinct to destroy (and even comes equipped with James Bond-style offensive weapons.) Another intriguing idea that gets rather bungled in the execution, the idea of a hate-filled “anti-Herbie” seems like a great addition to the franchise. Unfortunately, when framed within this film’s weird science theme, any idea of a “living car without a soul” ends up functioning more like a villain’s “super weapon” than it’s own character - frowning bumper or not. And the less said about Horace’s demise (in which he crashes through the ground, literally surrounded by flaming hellfire) the better.

Horace Goes to Hell!

Despite the presence of Dean Jones, a focus on auto racing and (admittedly superficial) discussions of love and hate, there’s something about this TV rehash that somehow feels … off. Not that it’s a bad movie by any means - while not great, it’s enjoyable and even has moments of genuine wit. It’s just that there are some small, niggling issues that really prevent it from fitting in with Herbie’s other adventures. This specific situation should sound familiar to older fans of the long-running English series Doctor Who (I’m going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, so my apologies.) That show, which ran uninterrupted from 1963 to 1989 (and began airing on PBS stations in the US in the mid ‘70s) was resurrected as a made-for-TV movie in 1996 as a co-production between the BBC and the FOX network. That movie (which in fandom is usually referred to as “The TV Movie” as well,) despite a number of call-backs and continuity references, looked and felt disconnected from it’s parent franchise - just like The Love Bug. For one, both “TV Movies” featured a returning cast member to lend some credence to their existence (Dean Jones in The Love Bug, “Seventh Doctor” Sylvester McCoy in Doctor Who,) as well as out-of-place quasi-celebrity cameos in bit-parts (comedian and MadTV performer Will Sasso as a morgue attendant in Doctor Who, ex-Monkee Micky Dolenz as a cigar-chomping car dealer in The Love Bug.) Both films also feature somewhat bland music; John Debney’s Doctor Who score sounds more like selections from FOX series Sliders, and Shirley Walker’s Love Bug score is forgotten almost as soon as it’s heard. This is a real shame, since Walker's work for modern classic Batman: The Animated Series featured some of the best music on television just a few years prior. At least Debney got to use the original Doctor Who theme, whereas George Bruns’ famous “Herbie Theme” is nowhere to be heard here.

Why do I bring up Doctor Who? Well, the similarities between these two attempts at reviving a long-running franchise is too great to ignore, especially since both came out within a year of one-another. Hell, maybe I just wanted to write an entry that brought up The Evil Dead, Doctor Who and Batman? Incidentally, both “TV Movies” also ended up being dead-ends, as Herbie’s franchise would go dormant again thereafter, and Doctor Who failed to act as a “backdoor pilot” for a revived series. It would take both franchises a few more years to return to popular culture again, and would both stage successful returns in 2005. But more on that in the next entry...

Two players. Two sides. One is light... one is dark.

As we’ve seen, Herbie may have gone through a few long periods of rest, but he never really went away. Though largely forgotten, Herbie’s adventures in television kept the little living car puttering around in the public consciousness, like a well-known acquaintance always hovering in the background. Disney, both under Ron Miller and later Michael Eisner, knew that they still had a popular character on their hands, and wouldn’t let the opportunity to use him slip by; they just needed a few small-screen pit-stops to ensure the little old car would be ready for his inevitable big-screen victory lap.

Herbie Goes Bananas

Oh dear God … what happened here?! Three years after the ever-expanding Love Bug franchise seemed to return to form in Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, director Vincent McEveety decided to take the titular little Volkswagen south of the border in 1980’s Herbie Goes Bananas. But instead of a continuation of Herbie’s adventures in the racing world, audiences were presented with yet another detour into the world of unfettered wackiness - or at least an attempt at it. The poor souls suckered into buying a movie ticket never knew what hit them.


I was forced to remove the turd I'd had here, then the rotten banana. So fuck 'em, here's a dumb poster.

Like it’s predecessor, the film opens with some rather lovely aerial photography that plays behind the opening credits. This time the sunny shores of the "Mexican Riviera" are on display, and the sandy beaches and azure waters of the Pacific are an enchanting sight to behold.

Now that we’ve covered everything good about the movie, let’s move on.

To put it simply, Herbie Goes Bananas is a rancid turd. It flat-out sucks. To call it “a disappointment” would be a laughably insufficient description; Herbie Rides Again was “a disappointment” - a slip-up by a well-meaning group of filmmakers who failed to capture the simple joys of the 1968 original. Herbie Goes Bananas, on the other hand, feels like an attempt at turning the "Herbie" series into a flaming pile of wreckage. It’s one of those films that, while watchable (in the sense that it doesn’t feel like it was made by amateurs,) makes one wonder why someone didn’t stop the production at some point and say “Something’s not working, because this is horseshit.”

The (stupid) gang's all here...

The story, such as it is, is such a mess that attempts to summarize it typically break down into a series of “then this happens, then this happens” - so let’s not even try. The script attempts to continue the narrative from the previous film, insomuch as one of our lead characters, Pete Stancheck (played with hunky blandness by Stephen W. Burns,) has inherited Herbie from his uncle, Jim Douglas (an absent Dean Jones,) who apparently ditched the little car after he stopped wanting to race. Boy, they sure try to make Douglas into a real jagoff when he’s not in the picture. The main character of the film is Paco (Joaquin Garay III,) a young orphan from Puerto Vallarta who befriends the little car and dubs him “Ocho”. In a hi-larious twist at the end, when questioned why he calls him this, Paco informs us that he was simply adding together the race numbers on Herbie’s hood: 53. That’s some real Oscar Wilde-like wit right there. There’s also a trio of crooks (John Vernon, Alex Rocco, and Richard Jaeckel) searching for a lost city or something, a cruise ship helmed by Harvey Korman (more on him in a moment,) Cloris Leachman playing yet another pathetic spinster, and Elyssa Davalos as her mousy niece, who shares a She’s All That-style romance with Stancheck that I couldn't give two shits about.

Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance silver-moon's sparkling...

Just about every decision made in the creation of this pile of garbage was a bad one, and many mistakes that had already been made in previous “Herbie” films were repeated. Once again, the story is absent any racing scenes - instead Stancheck and his pal D.J. (a completely wasted Charles Martin Smith, whom Disney owed Never Cry Wolf after this) are planning on entering Herbie into the Brazil Grand Prix, apparently after the movie’s over. Not only that, but by the film’s conclusion they’ve appointed little Paco to be their official driver, because of his bond with the car and Christ kill me now. Like the previous film, we also get another trio of hapless crooks, because the tedious shenanigans of the diamond thieves from Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo were surely the secret to it’s middling box office success. These three (who are American this time, because they wanted to cast John Vernon to please all the fans of Dean Wormer from Animal House) plan to make off with a large golden blah-blah-blah from a lost Inca city, and must be stopped because villains. To the film’s credit, the crooks here do pose a more tangible threat than the bumbling Brits from the last entry, since they seemingly transcend all laws of time and space. Paco can drive Herbie all the way from Panama to Mexico to avoid them, but they’ll already be waiting for him at a random spot along the way. As a matter of fact, every character in this film has the uncanny ability to find one another, illogically appearing all over the fucking continent no matter what distance separates them. One minute a character will be in Puerto Vallarta, and minutes later they’ve apparated somewhere hundreds of miles away to join in on some hijinks they’d have otherwise missed.

Villains, or menswear models from the 1979 Gottschalks catalog?

The cast, while made up mostly of fine actors, seems completely lost. Each actor (and therefore each character) is playing at odds to one another, as if no one told them all just what kind of movie was being shot. Stephen W. Burns has all the charisma of a handsome cardboard cut-out, and seems as though he wants the film to be a soap opera. Charles Martin Smith, tasked with a role seemingly written for Don Knotts, half-heartedly throws out goofy one-liners like a flailing stand-up comic. John Vernon seems to think he’s still in a Dirty Harry movie, and plays the villain completely straight until he finds himself slipping on banana peels in the climax. Poor Cloris Leachman was apparently doomed to keep repeating variations of her love-starved Last Picture Show character for years after, and honestly had a much more rounded character to work with in the previous years’ North Avenue Irregulars. Here her Aunt Louise character spends most of the film clumsily reacting to others’ pratfalls (a lot of the off-screen “Oh my goodness!”, “Oops!”, “My word! Are you okay?” variety,) and bewilderingly fawning over Harvey Korman’s character.



Cloris Leachman induces her gag reflex…

Which, unfortunately, brings us to Harvey Korman. I know I’m going to ruffle some feathers here, but for the life of me I’ve never understood Korman’s appeal as an actor or comedian. Perhaps best known for numerous appearances in Mel Brooks' comedies (including his turn as villainous Hedley Lamarr in the venerable Blazing Saddles,) Korman excelled in roles that required a measure of pomposity. If we’re being honest, though, playing a jackass is not difficult for any caliber of actor to pull off. One need look no further than Keenan Wynn playing the bad guy back in Herbie Rides Again for a better example of a crazed egoist; he really sold the idea of a blowhard barely keeping himself together. Korman, on the other hand, usually comes off as someone acting like a blowhard, merely playing at being unhinged. Hell, he couldn’t even pull off being a straight-man either, since he’s gone down in history as the guy who nearly pissed himself trying not to laugh at Tim Conway on The Carol Burnett Show.

However, I’m almost willing to give the guy a pass, just because he had to do this for a national TV audience in 1978's Star Wars Holiday Special:

In Herbie Goes Bananas, Korman plays the dictatorial captain of a cruise ship, named (I shit you not) Captain Blythe. Get it!? Like Captain Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame, only it's Blythe!! But the word “blithe” means cheerful indifference or euphoric happiness - which describes the opposite of Korman’s character here. One could argue that they were trying to be ironic, but honestly I think it was just a stupid pun amongst innumerable other dumb jokes in this cinematic grab-bag of shitty gags. Blythe, as written and performed, is the biggest asshole on the seven seas, going off on long diatribes about the days of tall ships sailing across uncharted seas, when insubordinate crew could be punished with “lashes from the cat.” The dickhead seems to barely tolerate being the captain of a pleasure vessel, thundering angrily at passengers and crew members alike - especially ones that don’t play along with his Horatio Hornblower fantasies. While the character is clearly supposed to be a pompous ass, and suffers a number of slapstick humiliations over the course of the film, the really unfortunate thing is that we’re also supposed to find him funny. Witness a rib-tickler early in the film, when the camera cuts to the exasperated expressions of gathered passengers as Blythe admiringly recounts the following tale:

The booty was taken aboard the man-of-war, and the enemy vessel scuttled. The women were then turned over to the crew, the select ones going to the officers, naturally. The wenches were escorted below, and believe me, there was no poetry, or "by your leave," or "how lovely you look tonight". One got to the matter at hand in short order!

Grumpy Cap.

One of the biggest “I can’t believe I’m watching this shit” moments in Disney’s entire film library comes about halfway through this film, courtesy of our delusional captain. Blythe, enraged following Herbie’s wrecking of the ship’s hold (after Paco is discovered stowed away in his trunk,) abides “by the traditions of the sea” and orders the little car thrown overboard. Now up to this point, the film has been stupid, unfunny and full of lousy acting choices. But this scene, in which a Volkswagen was actually dumped off the side of a cruise ship while cameras rolled (and was never recovered afterward,) serves as a “point of no return” - the moment when the film loses all hope of redemption. Rather than “jumping the shark,” this film (and perhaps the franchise itself) has “dumped the Bug.” After this point, any attempt at making a cohesive movie falls apart, and the shit just piles up higher and higher until the credits roll. We get more of Cloris Leachman throwing herself at Captain A-hole, Herbie participating in a bullfight before driving across the country incognito under a pile of bananas (Aha! The title!), and finally using said fruit as artillery to bring down the fleeing villains (because hardened criminals with guns are no match for a car flinging bananas at them.)

Ocho swims with the fishes...

Looking over the list of the behind-the-scenes crew, it’s hard to figure out just where to place the blame for this abomination. Screenwriter Don Tait, a veteran of TV and movie writing (who’d written episodes for Maverick and The Virginian, as well as The Apple Dumpling Gang and The North Avenue Irregulars for Disney,) may’ve been past his prime by this point, though that’s hardly an excuse for a script this horrible. It’s telling, however, that this would be Tait’s final theatrical screenplay - his following pair of scripts being for TV shows broadcast in 1982. It’s also conceivable to lay some blame at the feet of returning director McEveety, as his previous Herbie film may've been the best work he did at Disney. A generally uninspired filmmaker at best, McEveety can also be credited with heading up such previous Disney-produced duds as 1973’s Superdad and 1975’s The Strongest Man in the World (the movie that killed off the "Dexter Riley" film cycle.)

I knew we should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque…

So far I’ve failed to talk about the music in the "Herbie" films, other than mentioning George Bruns’ "Herbie Theme" from the original. The Love Bug found the gifted musician in fine form, showcasing both his proficiency for jazz (in the high-spirited comedic segments) and exotica (in his eastern-tinged underscore for Tennessee Steinmetz’s philosophical musings). His score for the second film, while still enjoyable, wasn’t quite as inspired, leaning more heavily on the "Herbie Theme." Bruns was then replaced by prolific songwriter and TV theme-song writer Frank De Vol, whose credits include the music for Family Affair and The Brady Bunch. De Vol’s score for Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo was serviceable though not especially memorable, again making extensive use of a slightly-adapted "Herbie Theme." His score for Herbie Goes Bananas, on the other hand, is an ugly-sounding mélange of goofy orchestrations overdubbed with synthesized burbles and cheesy variations of "La Cucaracha" and "Jarabe Tapatio" (AKA the “Mexican Hat Dance”.) After all, this is set in Mexico, amigos!

Why grab the bull by the horns when you can just drop a car on him?

In another departure from the previous films, Herbie Goes Bananas features a pair of original songs. The first, a disco ballad entitled “Look at Me,” underscores the love scenes between Pete and Melissa, and is so breezy it barely exists. Hell, maybe it doesn’t, since I can’t seem to find any credited performers for it online, beyond a writing credit for De Vol himself. Maybe the singer wished to remain anonymous? Smart move. The second song - oh my fucking God. Also credited to De Vol, “I Found a New Friend” plays against the “heartwarming” scenes between Paco and Herbie Ocho, and in it’s entirety during a driving montage and the closing credits - so you have to hear it twice. I can’t seem to be able to express how bowel-drainingly awful this song is, so feel free to watch and listen for yourself:

So, yes - De Vol namechecks Charro in order to rhyme “tomorrow,” proving himself a true wordsmith to be reckoned with. Additionally, a new verse is added to the end of the song's reprise, in which the word “friend” is spelled out in song - only misspelled “f-r-e-n-d,” because the gods of rhythm demanded it. Already knee-deep in the waste that is this movie, it was all I could do to get through this insult to songcraft without shoving kabob skewers through my eardrums.

Here in my car, I feel safest of all...

It should come as no surprise that Herbie Goes Bananas was (and still is) the least successful film of the franchise, earning less than half of what Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo did - though I nearly spat out my coffee reading that enough people were apparently suckered into giving this dung heap $18 million. Garnering mostly bad reviews, one wonders if those few critics who gave the film any sort of plaudits are into sadomasochism or something; I honestly can't fathom how else they could've found anything to enjoy in this cinematic cluster-fuck. By this point, it was clear that Disney, in it’s current state, was no longer equipped to deliver on the franchise possibilities of the 1968 original. Thus, with Herbie left in the care of a Mexican orphan and covered with rotting banana peels, we wouldn’t be seeing the little VW Beetle with a mind of his own up on the big screen again for quite some time. Until then, the worn-out little car was in desperate need of a rest - save for a few TV appearances, of course.

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo

First introduced in 1968’s classic The Love Bug, Herbie - the loveable little living car - had returned to theaters in a belated follow-up, 1974’s madcap Herbie Rides Again. While the film was a moderate success, it felt far-removed from the original: it lacked any car races, featured none of the original (human) characters, and was bereft of heart. Disney, obviously sensing the need for a course-correction, brought Herbie back three years later - along with a familiar friend and a story centered once again around a fast-paced auto race. But would audiences still want to follow the high-octane exploits of Herbie, or would 1977’s Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo be too little, too late?


The champagne's not Korbel!

Herbie’s latest adventure brings him and his friend Jim Douglas (a returning Dean Jones) and mechanic Wheeley Applegate (Don Knotts) to France, to participate in a cross-country race. They face stiff competition from arrogant German racers Bruno von Stickle (Eric Braeden) and Claude Gilbert (Mike Kulcsar,) who drive a souped-up Porsche 917 and a De Tomaso Pantera, respectively. Also competing (and going out of her way to prove herself) is firebrand American racer Diane Darcy (Julie Sommars,) who operates a 1976 Lancia Scorpion. While Jim and Diane share a prickly, competitive relationship (gee, I wonder if they’ll end up together?), Herbie falls head-over-tires in love with Diane’s Lancia (whom she dubs Giselle at the end of the film.) Meanwhile, a pair of inept British thieves (Roy Kinnear and Bernard Fox) manage to steal a highly valuable diamond called the Étoile de Joie, and end up hiding said gem inside Herbie’s gas tank. Under the watchful eye of their mysterious boss (who, in a “surprise twist” early in the film, turns out to be Inspector Bouchet of the Parisian police, played by Jacques Marin,) they pursue Herbie along the racecourse in an attempt to recapture the purloined diamond. Inevitably, wackiness ensues.

Clearly, Disney wanted Herbie’s third big-screen outing to be seen as a return to the charming formula of the original film, and to tone down the freewheeling silliness of the previous entry. The biggest clue here is setting the story amidst the fictional Trans-France Race, placing Herbie firmly back into the role of “living race car,” rather than the “automotive guard dog” he was portrayed as previously. Also of note is, of course, the return of Dean Jones, playing his character from The Love Bug. While Jones had been continuously cast by Disney through the mid ‘70s (most recently appearing in the previous year’s The Shaggy D.A.,) it had been almost a decade since his "heyday” at the studio, when he’d starred in six films between 1965 and 1968. Returning to what would become his most fondly-remembered role, Jones seems more than happy to get back behind Herbie’s steering wheel - safe in the knowledge that by this point he was playing second-banana to the titular car.

That awkward moment when you realize only one of you is a "Disney Legend"...

No mention is made of the events or characters from the previous film, by the way; Herbie and Jim appear as if they’ve been together since the first film. It’s actually stated that the pair of them are trying for a comeback with this race, having been some “12 years” since they last raced. Retcon or not, attempting to reconcile the film’s contemporary setting with the original’s late ’60s ethos is now rather difficult - unless this film is set a few years in the future. I’m probably overthinking things again...

For the most part, this back-to-basics approach works in the film’s favor. Even though no one could say with any authority what exactly a “Herbie Movie” should look like when the sequel rolled around, having no racing scenes whatsoever (pointless clip-montage notwithstanding) made Herbie Rides Again feel far removed from the original. But seeing the little VW Bug zipping past sleeker-looking sportscars on the racecourse, accompanied by his sprightly theme music (originally composed by studio maestro George Bruns, replaced here by Frank De Vol) just feels right. The addition of Don Knotts to the cast, clearly meant to fill in for the missing Tennessee Steinmetz (played by Buddy Hackett in the original film,) is a welcome one. While never bringing the same level of bonkers warmth as Hackett (and lacking that character’s eastern philosophical bent,) Knotts adds his usual nervous energy to an otherwise straightforward “kooky buddy” role, hitting an easy rapport with Jones.

Herbie, quit checking out that guy's butt...

Unlike the first two films (whose San Francisco setting was established mainly through the use of evocative matte paintings,) Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo was mostly shot on location throughout France and Monaco. Perhaps wishing to impress from the start, the filmmakers “put the money upfront” in an extended credits sequence featuring striking aerial photography, with sweeping vistas of the French countryside (and eventually Paris itself) - all while little Herbie is seen to drive along the winding roads below.

I’m somewhat on the fence regarding the film’s love story, to be honest. I suppose I should say love stories, since both Herbie and Jim partake in on-screen romances - although I have no qualms with the human’s storyline, despite it’s predictability. Jim and Diane’s “been there, done that” love story plays out exactly as one imagines: “tough cookie” Diane inevitably softens into a starry-eyed romantic, while Jim … you know … doesn’t really change at all. This by-the-numbers arc comes off especially false, since Diane is portrayed as fiercely independent before her sudden conversion to “affection object.” This initial characterization is played rather too on-the-nose, unfortunately, as she’s presented as a brittle shrew who continually shrieks that “everyone” wants her to fail as a racer “just because (she’s) a woman” - even though no one, including the “bad guy” drivers, ever say or act as such.


Pfft! You zink Claude and I haff any interest in ze women?

The love story between Herbie and Giselle the Lancia, on the other hand, dances a fine line between tediously silly and oddly affecting. Unlike the other “living machines” that sprang to life in the previous installment, here it appears that Giselle “awakens” at Herbie’s gentle beckoning, her pop-up headlights slowly blinking open. One catches a whiff of the old mysticism at work here, as the key to consciousness is born from love, from an emotional connection forged through feelings. After this awakening, the two cars share a near-immediate affection for each other, following a goofy-but-sweet scene in which Herbie plops a bouquet of flowers onto the Lancia’s hood (while a dumbfounded French waiter looks on, natch.) At varying points in the film, the two cars become depressed and despondent at the thought of the other driving off without them, but are quick to spring back into action when their human friends are in trouble. This is keeping in character with the Herbie from The Love Bug, a gentle soul whose emotions run deep - especially in regards to  offering and accepting love. This is not, in other words, the high-strung psychopath of the previous film.

Hubba Hubba…

On the other hand, the series of montages following the pair of loving vehicles around Paris tend to drag on too long. These stretches of dialogue-free scenes aren’t nearly as clever as the filmmakers seem to think, and quickly become repetitive.

The chuckle brothers at work...

While there is much to like in this film, unfortunately not everything works. The plot involving the diamond heist (and it's "man on the inside" twist that plays it's hand far too early) feels unnecessarily tacked-on. Apparently the filmmakers felt that a movie containing both Don Knotts and a pair of living cars wouldn’t provide enough humor, and so Roy Kinnear (familiar from his role as Veruca Salt’s father in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory) and Bernard Fox (Dr. Bombay from TV’s Bewitched) are tasked with providing an endless series of “bungling burglar” gags. Since these two are portrayed as clueless from the get-go, there’s never any menace or threat against our heroes. Even when the pair’s boss (Jacques Marin’s Inspector Bouchet) steps in to help retrieve the stolen gem, he too spends the rest of the film being outsmarted by a Volkswagen. Unfortunately, just about every sequence involving these three connards stupides causes the film’s pacing to grind to a stand-still; audiences are left waiting impatiently for Herbie to return and the racing to resume.

Inspector, may I interest you in a piece of Dentyne?

Additionally, one wonders if Bernard Fox was cast as a kind of stand-in for the first film’s similarly posh-accented David Tomlinson. Is this is the case, then - with no offense meant to Fox - it’s a pretty piss-poor substitution.

On the whole, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo feels much more like a follow-up to the 1968 original than it’s first sequel, despite a number of issues. In a way, it’s a shame that it took Disney nine years to make this film. With all due respect to director Vincent McEveety and screenwriters Arthur Alsberg and Don Nelson, you have to wonder what the same movie would’ve looked like a few years earlier, in the hands of the original filmmakers. Imagine if Love Bug director Robert Stevenson (and the rest of his crew) had been given this racing-focused story to use as the basis for their sequel - perhaps aimed for a late 1971 or early ‘72 release. Further, suppose that not only Dean Jones, but Buddy Hackett and perhaps even David Tomlinson had agreed to reprise their roles, their characters' re-match shifted to Europe. How much more interesting would the race itself have been with a pre-established rivalry to increase the stakes? And what would Hackett’s goofy, spiritually-enlightened Tennessee Steinmetz make of a love story between little Herbie and a lovely living Lancia?

C'est l'amour...

Alas, we’ll never know how differently Herbie’s future may’ve turned out had this been the case. While unlikely, it’s possible that had Disney followed up the original film with something more closely resembling a “Love Bug Goes to Monte Carlo,” the franchise may have had a longer or more prestigious run than it did. Indeed, while Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo is, for all intents and purposes, a better movie than Herbie Rides Again, it made almost $10 million less. Perhaps this is evidence that Disney had waited a little too long to give audiences the Herbie movie they really wanted to see. Of course, it should be kept in mind that the film was released about a month after the all-encompassing pop-cultural nexus that was Star Wars hit theaters - so maybe the fact that anybody bothered to see it at all should be commended.

Nevertheless, by this point younger audiences at the time of The Love Bug’s release had long since grown up, and the rest of the viewing public seemed ready to move on. With a better film now under their belt, the filmmakers would have to make a fourth adventure for the little VW Bug something special if they were going to recapture the imaginations of their audience. For if the original Love Bug had been the map drawn out for a successful franchise, then Herbie Rides Again had been a wrong turn, and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo the shortcut back. Unfortunately, Herbie was about to be driven straight off a cliff - as the filmmakers’ next move resulted in one of the biggest, most disastrous artistic misjudgments in Disney’s entire film catalog.

Do you smell something? Smells like putrid, rotten bananas to me…

Try to land on Harvey Korman!!

Herbie Rides Again

It took six years for Herbie, the loveable little car from 1968’s The Love Bug, to zoom back into theaters; and when he did, something felt different. With the “summer of love” now a distant memory, the danger that audiences would be less inclined to follow the misadventures of a groovy little VW Bug posed a bit of a problem for the filmmakers. The solution they hit upon was to amp up the irreverence and throw their vehicular protagonist (and his human co-stars) into an increasingly silly series of comedic situations. Unfortunately the resulting film, 1974’s Herbie Rides Again, ended up showing how little Disney understood about what had made the original film so successful.

He's ugly, but he'll get you there...

The film focuses on the efforts of villainous real estate magnate (and demolition fetishist) Alonzo Hawk (Keenan Wynn) to construct the world’s tallest office building over an existing San Francisco neighborhood. The sole holdouts who refuse to move away are Old Lady Steinmetz (Helen Hayes, apparently playing the aunt of Buddy Hackett’s character from The Love Bug, despite being referred to as “Grandma”) and her displaced neighbor, flight attendant Nicole Harris (Stefanie Powers,) who reside in the old firehouse from the first film. In a last-ditch effort to sweet-talk the kindly old widow into signing over her residence, Hawk sends his naïve young nephew, Willoughby Whitfield (Ken Berry,) fresh out of law school and completely oblivious to the fact that his uncle is a tyrant. Little does anyone know that Old Lady Steinmetz and Nicole have a third roommate, one who is fiercely protective of them and their little firehouse: Herbie, the VW Beetle with a mischievous mind of his own. Before you can say “tediously predictable,” Willoughby is soon convinced of Herbie’s consciousness, as well as his uncle’s greedy ways. He therefore decides to help the old lady, her sassy roommate, and their living car stay in their home, and - through an increasingly wacky series of events - make Hawk receive his overdue comeuppance.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: the only returning “character” from The Love Bug is Herbie himself. Our three (or four, if you count David Tomlinson) flesh-and-blood leads are MIA in this sequel, their absences explained offhandedly by Hayes’ character: her nephew, Tennessee, is with his ailing guru in Tibet, while Jim Douglas (who’s never mentioned by name) “went off to Europe to drive foreign cars”; no mention is made as to the whereabouts of Michele Lee’s Carole Bennet. While the lack of familiar characters doesn’t automatically make a sequel bad, the cast of the original Love Bug shared some of the strongest chemistry yet seen in a Disney film, so their complete absence is sorely felt here. It doesn’t help, of course, that male lead Ken Berry (familiar from TV’s F-Troop and later Mama's Family) is no Dean Jones. Lacking the charisma necessary in a film where suspension-of-disbelief is paramount, Berry never injects the feeble Willoughby with any spark of life. The character ends up taking a backseat to just about every other character in the film, never growing beyond the “affable doormat” he's initially introduced as.

Berry pretty...

Additionally, the relationship between Willoughby and Nicole (because of course they fall in love) is played with as little subtlety as possible. Not that I’m saying the first film’s Carole Bennet was an especially well written or acted character, but there was solid chemistry between Lee and Jones that made their characters' budding romance somewhat believable. Here instead we get Powers’ Nicole clocking Willoughby on more than one occasion, since she goes “crazy” if she hears Hawk’s name, while he cowers and apologizes (to which she replies "I can't stand men who apologize" … WHAT!?!) Their romance seems to happen only because it’s what men and women do in Disney comedies.

It’s also quite a stretch for a then 41-year old Berry to be playing a starry-eyed young man fresh out of law school. By comparison, Dean Jones was 37 in the first film, and was then referred to by other characters as an “old man” in the racing circuit. When the supposedly "youthful" main character ends up getting more wrinkle-disguising soft-focus glamor shots than the leading lady, one wonders why a younger actor simply wasn’t hired in the first place.

Also, Ken Berry’s hands are distractingly hairy. Like, gorilla hairy. He should’ve changed his name to Ken Hairy.

Okay, I’ll leave the guy alone now.

Something else you may have noticed in the above synopsis is that there’s no mention of auto racing. As noted in last week’s post, one of the continually popular aspects of The Love Bug is it’s focus on Herbie’s career as a racecar, paying deference to sports-car enthusiasts and racing culture. Since the first film’s other focus on counter-culture and mysticism couldn’t practically be repeated (more on that in a moment,) it would only makes sense for a follow-up film to focus on Herbie’s further exploits in the racing world. Yet for reasons known only to the filmmakers, they avoided this all together. Instead, Old Lady Steinmetz informs Willoughby that Herbie “used to be a famous racing car,” explaining why she has to “humor” him like some temperamental old diva. We are later treated to a lengthy dream sequence of Herbie’s career, consisting entirely of clips from The Love Bug. This sequence serves absolutely no purpose beyond padding out the short film (Herbie Rides Again clocks in at a tidy 88 minutes,) and reminding the audience how fun the original film was.

Why do we put such big wheels on our little cars?

Instead of energetic racing sequences, Herbie Rides Again instead ratchets up the wackiness quotient to almost unbearable levels. The film features numerous chase sequences, in which Herbie flees from Hawk’s henchmen. The longest of these finds Herbie speeding through city streets with an unfazed Old Lady Steinmetz sitting inside, causing massive traffic collisions, driving through the dining room of the Sheraton Palace Hotel, and finally escaping by driving up the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. Later, after ascending a window-cleaning platform (that’s strangely large enough to fit a Volkswagen,) Herbie and his elderly passenger spray gallons upon gallons of foam into Hawk’s office and proceed to chase the raving villain around the building and out onto the building’s ledge (which, again, is amazingly wide enough to accommodate a car.) By this point, one can’t help but miss the first film's humor. Yes, it was silly, but used more sparingly, such as when Herbie would squirt motor oil onto Thorndyke’s shoes or perform silly stunts to win races - not to cause mayhem. Such wrathful behavior (which culminates in a sequence featuring Hawk having unnerving Herbie-centric nightmares) also seems unbecoming of the charming little car, whose entire consciousness had previously hinged on feelings of love.

Fahrvergnügen of death...

The over-the-top craziness in this film isn’t even limited to Herbie’s antics, either. Upon learning that Willoughby is not only in Hawk’s employ, but also related to him, Nicole becomes enraged and wallops him with a boiled lobster (a fact that we’re reminded of several times afterward, as if using a lobster as a weapon is the funniest damn thing in the world.) Willoughby, our protagonist, is literally sent flying over the railing of Fisherman’s Wharf, landing in the water below with a massive splash. Jeez! Who does Nicole think she is, Princess Anna!? By far the biggest ham on display, unsurprisingly, is Keenan Wynn. As Alonzo Hawk (a character also featured in Disney’s two original Absent-Minded Professor movies - which means that Herbie and Flubber both exist in a shared universe,) Wynn spends nearly all of his screen-time bellowing at the top of his lungs, flinging insults and firing subordinates left and right. If the goal as Herbie’s nemesis is to top the over-acting of your predecessor, then Wynn makes David Tomlinson’s energetic performance come off as naturalistic in comparison.

After that flying Model T! Wait, wrong movie...

An unfortunate victim of the thematic re-imagining of Herbie is the loss of the emotional mysticism that pervaded the first film. This is an understandable and unfortunate instance of real-world circumstances informing fictional matters, as the flower-power fueled counter-culture that had informed this motif had more or less evaporated by 1974. But again, this being the case, the filmmakers could have opted to leave the more “out there” elements of Herbie’s existence alone and focus on the racing. Instead, they seem to shoot for a kind of magical realism by bringing in a number of other "living machines" - but to little effect. Besides Herbie, the firehouse also houses a sentient Orchestrion (a turn-of-the-century music machine) and a retired San Francisco cable car. In addition, during the film's climax Herbie speeds through town rallying every other VW Beetle he encounters, in order to take on Hawk’s assembled demolition crew. Like much in this film, this sequence was likely thrown in because the visual of a “VW Bug cavalry” chasing after Keenan Wynn struck someone as amusing. One could possibly argue that Herbie’s protective emotions for his human friends grows so strong that they spread to other “like-minded” machines, but this feels like grasping at straws. The addition of other "living machines" seems arbitrary to the script, merely an attempt to make the movie seem quirky. Rather than continuing the undercurrent of mysticism, the filmmakers turn to empty spectacle, filmic conjuring tricks masquerading as whimsy.

Looks like a lemon party...

It may also be worth noting that Volkswagen, who had little to do with the first film, worked with Disney to heavily cross-promote their line of cars (and made sure their familiar “VW” emblem was much more prominent on-screen than it had been in ‘68.). Seeing an army of “heroic Volkswagens” on the big screen suddenly makes much more sense when viewed from a financial point-of-view, rather than a mystical one.

The biggest question here, of course, is “why?” Why did the filmmakers decide to drop nearly everything that made the first film work so well? Why change the cast, exclude the racing, ignore the mystical overtones? Most important of all, why focus on the one element that probably least accounted for The Love Bug’s success: the “living car” gags? Much of the behind-the-camera talent was retained from the first film - including director Robert Stevenson and writers Gordon Buford and Bill Walsh - so why the wide disparity in the script’s thematic tone and (let’s be honest) overall quality? Could this have been a case of Disney completely misreading it’s audience? That may be so, for while Herbie Rides Again was far from a box office disappointment (earning over $38 Million,) it most definitely wasn't the runaway success it’s predecessor was. Perhaps the “love generation” ethos that the original was released during accounted for far more of it’s success than anyone at Walt Disney Productions thought.

Face to face in secret places, feel the chill...

While I’ve spent this review tearing the movie apart, the unfortunate fact is that, while not a very good movie, when taken on it’s own merits it’s not that bad, either. It’s far, far from perfect of course, for all the reasons already stated, but it can be pretty funny. Hell, Keenan Wynn’s bugnuts performance alone is worth the price of admission. For anyone looking for some mindlessly wacky comedy, there are far worse ways to spend 88 minutes. In many ways, the film follows in the tradition of “throw everything at the wall” comedy that categorized 1963’s It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and would eventually spawn such parody-heavy titles as 1980’s Airplane! In fact, Herbie Rides Again really feels like a spiritual successor to Disney’s groan-inducing 1970 yuk-fest The Boatniks (which, perhaps not coincidentally, also featured Stefanie Powers in a lead role.) But the fact of the matter is that this is a sequel not to that knockabout comedy, but to The Love Bug - a well-made, extremely popular film that has rightly become a classic in Disney’s canon. And, for whatever reason, the people who made that film followed it up with something that feels like a very different kind of movie. Whether it’s fair or not, comparing one to the other inevitably makes Herbie Rides Again pale considerably.

Sooner or later, your wife will drive home
one of the best reasons for owning a Volkswagen...

Next time we’ll continue our look at the adventures of Herbie the Love Bug, as Dean Jones returns in an attempt to get the expanding series back to basics. But will it be a case of “too little, too late”?

The Love Bug

In the history of filmdom, there have been few box-office draws as unlikely as Herbie, the little car with a mind of it’s own. That a self-aware Volkswagen Beetle should end up starring in a film franchise spanning decades is surprising enough; the fact that his original film, 1968’s The Love Bug, ended up as the second highest-grossing film of the year (for 1969, when it went into wide release) is frankly stupefying. This was, after all, the same period that produced such decade-defining hits as Midnight Cowboy and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and saw the rapid rise of a counterculture-inspired “New Hollywood” movement that made Easy Rider and The Graduate cultural events. And yet this silly comedy, the final production given Walt Disney’s personal “OK,” is steeped in a counter-cultural zeitgeist (at least one filtered through stodgy old Walt Disney Productions) that apparently struck a chord with audiences at the time.



Poor Dean - he thinks he's the star of the movie...

Based on the 1961 book Car, Boy, Girl by Gordon Buford, the film tells the story of down-on-his-luck race car driver Jim Douglas (Dean Jones,) who discovers that his sprightly new VW “bug” possesses a measure of consciousness - and a playful personality to boot. Aided by his new car - dubbed Herbie by his roommate - Douglas becomes a famous racing star, besting a snooty upmarket European car showroom owner Peter Thorndyke (played by David Tomlinson) and winning the hand of Thorndyke’s sales associate and amateur automotive technician Carole Bennett (played by Michele Lee.) Disney’s favorite “everyman,” Jones - already in his sixth role for the studio - plays to his strengths as the befuddled straight man who must come to grips with the extraordinary circumstances he finds himself in. The real genius in Jones’ performance, however, is how he moves almost imperceptibly from a place of understated realism to high drama. Audiences follow along with Douglas’ initial skepticism (even if they already know the film’s central gimmick) and eventual change of heart, having been completely sold on the emotional truth behind the improbable events occurring on-screen. With no other actor - not even such patented Disney charmers as Fred MacMurray - could one conceivably believe the grief Jones’ character experiences while grappling with a suicidal Herbie atop the Golden Gate bridge.

Jeez, first I have to deal with an invisible Peter Ustinov, now a living car!?!

While Jones goes to great lengths to ground the story in reality, many of his co-stars go for the opposite approach, firing on all wacky cylinders from the start. Most obvious in this regard is Tomlinson, Disney’s secret weapon, four years off his signature role as George Banks in Mary Poppins. Tomlinson plays against his “proper English gentleman” persona as the villainous Thorndyke, ranting and gnashing his teeth with perverse abandon. It’s clear that Tomlinson’s having a blast playing the bad guy, gleefully flying off the handle at Douglas and heaping abuse upon his meek toady, Havershaw (played to ass-kissing perfection by Joe Flynn.) Tomlinson’s scenery-chewing goes off the charts during the lengthy “El Dorado Road Race” in the film’s final act; the face he pulls while fainting at the sight of a bear riding shotgun is so over-the-top it feels like the actor may have pulled a muscle.

DEUUEAUGH!!

Bringing the wacky for the good guys, meanwhile, is familiar funnyman (and future Little Mermaid voice-actor) Buddy Hackett as the improbably-named Tennessee Steinmetz. Playing Douglas’ friend and roommate, audiences at the time were likely most familiar with Hackett from his role in Stanley Kramer’s It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Bizarrely, the 44-year old actor's cock-eyed comedic persona (possessing the world’s thickest Brooklyn accent) is utilized for playing Steinmetz as a spiritually enlightened, New Age student of eastern philosophy, who constantly extols lessons he supposedly picked up during time amongst Buddhist monks in Tibet - and who also assembles objets d’art from battered car-parts. Interestingly, the character and his philosophy are not played for laughs (Hackett delivers plenty of humorous asides and physical pratfalls to cover that,) but portrayed as the heart and soul of Douglas and Herbie’s crew, encouraging the initially skeptical racer to listen to his own emotions in order to understand those of his living car.

And den dey made me wind up Hoybee like a giant kid's toy!

A brief aside: there’s a scene shared between Tomlinson and Hackett, in which Thorndyke pretends to get drunk with Steinmetz (from his “Mudda’s own recipe” for Irish coffee) to cover an act of sabotage against Herbie. I’m certain that much of the interaction between the two in this scene was ad-libbed, with Tomlinson “accidentally” squirting whipped cream on Hackett’s hand, who then responds by spending the rest of the scene trying to get the Brit to crack-up and break character. Tomlinson barely makes it, obviously starting to lose it at scene’s end as Hackett sprays whipped cream on a discarded notebook. Watching the pair of comically gifted actors using a scene in a Disney film to crack one-another up is a joy to behold, and one of the film’s unexpected highlights.

If you're going to San Francisco...

The film’s San Francisco setting seems wholly appropriate to the story being told - especially a San Francisco awash in the lingering haze of the “summer of love.” Besides providing Peter Ellenshaw and his crew an opportunity to produce yet another set of beautiful matte paintings (the painter’s brush somehow making the fog-bound streets of the “city by the bay” feel more authentic than photographic reality ever could,) the flower-power counterculture provides a colorful backdrop to the story of a living car. While I wouldn’t call the portrayal of hippies in the film “authentic” in any sense of the word, the laughs generated by their presence seem more like a tongue-in-cheek play on the ridiculousness of the movie itself. Witness the van-driving hippie at the drive-in (played by a bearded Dean Jones, who clearly wanted in on the fun,) responding to Carole’s plea of “Help! I’m a prisoner! I can’t get out!” with a deadpan “We all prisoners, chickie-baby; we all locked in,” before dismissing our protagonists as a “couple of weirdos.”

… be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

But beyond a few (admittedly cheap) laughs, the contemporary counterculture is a pervasive presence in the film, going hand-in-hand with Steinmetz and his New Age philosophy. This is where the real meaning of the film’s title comes to play. For while many assume the meaning of The Love Bug to be referring to Herbie playing matchmaker between Douglas and Carole, the “love” in question turns out to be something less tangible. At no point in the movie are we given a straight-forward reason as to how or why the little Volkswagen is alive. The closest the script comes to providing an explanation is having characters theorize about mankind’s love imbuing it’s mechanical creations with emotions. Such conversations, when referring specifically to Herbie, tend to focus more on his emotional state than the fact that he can move and think for himself. The big reveal in the film isn’t that Herbie is alive - that’s already a given - but that the apparent animating agent behind his consciousness is love itself. This points to a kind of mysticism rarely alluded to in Disney films. To be clear, I’m not referring to a general kind of fairytale “magic,” but the idea of actual mysticism, the belief that union with an absolute truth - or the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the mind - can be attained through contemplation and self-surrender; in other words, the very ideas that Hackett’s character clumsily propagates throughout the film. Douglas and Herbie only become simpatico once Douglas lets go of his preconceptions about his own life and what “life” itself means, and risks his own to save Herbie from driving himself into the San Francisco Bay.

Herbie walks on water...

It’s true that this “peek below the surface” of mysticism may be treated within the script as a mere gateway into a series of wacky race scenes, but this is clearly the kind of thematic material audiences were looking to connect with at the time. While it’s hard to imagine theaters full of actual Haight/Ashbury-bound hippies coming together to experience The Love Bug (although for all I know this may’ve been the case - and no doubt the film would’ve been one hell of a trip under a hashish cloud,) it’s entirely conceivable that more straight-laced audiences may’ve come away from Disney’s latest comedy feeling as though they’d touched part of the “happening” of the time. Little Timmy and Sally may not exactly leave the matinee with a desire to thumb a trip ‘cross-country to follow The Grateful Dead, but they just may end up wearing love beads, or sewing a “Peace and Love” patch onto their Sears bell-bottoms.

Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer...

While The Love Bug’s counter-cultural overtones may’ve helped it become a hit, much of the film’s legacy focuses on the film’s other obsession: that of car culture and racing. Much deference is paid to authenticity in the film's portrayal of the racing community, such as utilizing a number of actual race events for Herbie to compete in, and casting famed sportscaster Chick Hearn and STP CEO and spokesman Andy Granatelli as themselves. While the years following the film's release has seen a number of sequels (which we’ll also be looking at this month) fade from public consciousness, Herbie remains a consistent presence at car shows in the form of fan-made recreations, as well as the occasional appearance of one of the screen-used VW Bugs.

The success of The Love Bug may be an example of the right story coming at the right time - for within another couple of years, the flower-power that permeates the story would find itself burnt out and turned ugly. And so it would seem that Disney, clearly wanting to chase Herbie’s success with a follow-up film, would most likely focus on the popular racing aspects of the film. As we will see, however, they'll end up failing to do so - in the process completely dropping the ball on Herbie’s future cinematic potential.

He who smelt it, dealt it...