TV's "Colonel Hogan" (Bob Crane) strives for mainstream film stardom in this out-of-touch and instantly dated Disney comedy that fails in its endeavors to attract the "hip" generation. He'sthe father of a college-age girl (Kathleen Cody) who hangs out with a high school crowd pop couldn't stand (along with boyfriend Kurt Russell), and his efforts to get her away from them puts her four hundred miles away near San Francisco where she seemingly ends up with the right crowd only to really be involved with the wrong crowd.
But pop is striving too hard to be hip, as we see in the first quarter of the film, becoming involved in his daughter's social life by accompanying her gang to the beach, ending up waterskiing (and making an absolute fool of himself), and even more so when he follows her to school. She learns that she didn't get a scholarship on her merits, and then he must confront the beatnik punk she is seeing protesting with on the news and announces her engagement to!
Absolutely absurd and pointless in every manner, this has some amusing moments but no plot other than his interference in her life and constantly making a fool out of himself. Bruno Kirby is rather aggravating as a squeaky voiced best friend of Russell whose constant job change ends up with him driving a different type of work vehicle for every crazy stunts they end up in, and Dick Van Patten and Joe Flynn are typically pompous as Crane's stuffy bosses.
The beautiful Barbara Rush photographs exquisitely but is completely wasted as the wife and mother, only able to react to the stupid stunts her husband gets in with a roll of the eye and a few words of hope. It's the always terrific Judith Lowry (Mother Dexter, "Phyllis") who steals the film with her two scenes as mother Barlow, the head of the coed dorm that's Cody lives off campus. The typical Disney sitcom look with their usual array of mostly colorless character regulars makes for a weird film that I found amusing when seeing it upon its first release and later on "The Wonderful World of Disney" on TV, but in retrospect years later, simply stinks. Three songs tossed in are completely forgettable as well, and "These are the Best Times" a cringeworthy finale. In short. "Superdad" is "Superbad".
But pop is striving too hard to be hip, as we see in the first quarter of the film, becoming involved in his daughter's social life by accompanying her gang to the beach, ending up waterskiing (and making an absolute fool of himself), and even more so when he follows her to school. She learns that she didn't get a scholarship on her merits, and then he must confront the beatnik punk she is seeing protesting with on the news and announces her engagement to!
Absolutely absurd and pointless in every manner, this has some amusing moments but no plot other than his interference in her life and constantly making a fool out of himself. Bruno Kirby is rather aggravating as a squeaky voiced best friend of Russell whose constant job change ends up with him driving a different type of work vehicle for every crazy stunts they end up in, and Dick Van Patten and Joe Flynn are typically pompous as Crane's stuffy bosses.
The beautiful Barbara Rush photographs exquisitely but is completely wasted as the wife and mother, only able to react to the stupid stunts her husband gets in with a roll of the eye and a few words of hope. It's the always terrific Judith Lowry (Mother Dexter, "Phyllis") who steals the film with her two scenes as mother Barlow, the head of the coed dorm that's Cody lives off campus. The typical Disney sitcom look with their usual array of mostly colorless character regulars makes for a weird film that I found amusing when seeing it upon its first release and later on "The Wonderful World of Disney" on TV, but in retrospect years later, simply stinks. Three songs tossed in are completely forgettable as well, and "These are the Best Times" a cringeworthy finale. In short. "Superdad" is "Superbad".