I binge-watched the entire Air Bud film series

It’s now a full 20 years since Walt Dis­ney Pic­tures unleashed their sports-mad pooch pro­tag­o­nist on the world. To mark this cul­tur­al mile­stone, I decid­ed to watch all five orig­i­nal Air Bud films back-to-back (NB: for the sake of my time/​sanity, I exclud­ed the sev­en Air Bud­dies sequels, which focus on the exploits of Buddy’s pup­pies, as well as the San­ta Paws Christ­mas spin-offs.) What fol­lows is a deep analy­sis of said series, with a defin­i­tive rank­ing at the end.

Direct­ed by Charles Mar­tin Smith
Star­ring Bud­dy the Dog, Kevin Zegers, Wendy Makkena

00:01:30 – Dur­ing the open­ing cred­its sequence, a clapped-out clown car rolls into what appears to be a bucol­ic Seat­tle sub­urb. A sign reads, ​‘Wel­come to Fer­n­field: Where Every­thing is Pos­si­ble’. The car pulls up out­side a kid’s birth­day par­ty. A dis­grun­tled clown emerges, as does Bud­dy dressed in a rather fetch­ing red-and-white pol­ka dot num­ber. The clown threat­ens Buddy.

00:04:55 – The par­ty is a total dis­as­ter and, some­what unfair­ly, the blame is placed square­ly on Bud­dy. On the road out of town, Buddy’s cage falls off the back of the trail­er. An SUV rams the cage, free­ing Bud­dy. A kid looks on from the back seat, clear­ly bemused. It’s not every day you see a dog in a clown costume.

00:07:58 – The kid’s name is Josh Framm (Kevin Zeg­gers). Dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion between Josh’s moth­er, Jack­ie (Wendy Makke­na), and the Fer­n­field High prin­ci­pal it is revealed that the Framms are new in town, and that Josh has been depressed ever since his father died in a test pilot accident.

00:12:08 – Josh dis­cov­ers an aban­doned bas­ket­ball court.

00:14:58 – Despite his clear lack of abil­i­ty, Josh tries out for the school bas­ket­ball team. Coach Bark­er (Stephen E Miller) offers a few words of inspi­ra­tion: ​“If you can win on the court, you can win in life.”

00:17:25 – While get­ting in some much-need­ed prac­tice, Josh spots Bud­dy hid­ing in the bush­es. His once gleam­ing clown cos­tume has been reduced to soiled rags, allud­ing to the hard times he’s fall­en upon. Buddy’s wag­gy dis­po­si­tion con­tra­dicts this som­bre mood.

00:19:12 – Back at home, Josh appears distracted.

00:19:50 – Igno­rant of the fact that some dogs are lac­tose intol­er­ant, Josh lures Bud­dy with a trail of vanil­la pudding.

00:21:31 – Bud­dy enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly takes to the court and demon­strates his mean jump shot.

00:24:35 – After Josh sneaks Bud­dy home, the pair share a ten­der bath time bond­ing moment.

00:27:40 – Bud­dy is intro­duced to the rest of the fam­i­ly but fails to make a good first impression.

00:32:02 – A quick browse of Buddy’s Wiki bio tells us that he also played Comet the Dog in the long-run­ning sit­com Full House.

00:39:32 – It remains unclear whether Bud­dy will ever be accept­ed as a mem­ber of the family.

00:42:40 – It’s Christ­mas Day morn­ing. Bud­dy is nowhere to be found. But wait, who’s that peer­ing out from beneath the tree wrapped up in a green bow? Josh’s wish has come true. Mer­ry Christmas!

00:44:24 – Josh is remind­ed of his father’s absence. Back on court, in a bid to con­sole his grief-strick­en own­er, Bud­dy makes a suc­ces­sion of out­ra­geous baskets.

00:48:20 – Hav­ing inex­plic­a­bly made the team, Josh turns out for the Tim­ber­wolves’ first game of the season.

00:51:35 – Dur­ing the sec­ond quar­ter, Bud­dy stuns the crowd by mak­ing a three-point­er from way downtown.

01:51:49 – One of the taglines used in the film’s mar­ket­ing cam­paign was ​‘He Sits. He Stays. He Shoots. He Scores.’

00:54:17 – After Coach Bark­er is let go for psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly abus­ing one of the kids, the jan­i­tor (Bill Cobbs, chan­nelling Bill Cosby/​Scatman Crothers) takes over. Josh sus­pects that he is retired bas­ket­ball leg­end Arthur Chaney. His unortho­dox ​‘invis­i­ble ball’ train­ing ses­sions baf­fle the kids.

00:56:49 – Bud­dy is kit­ted out in a jer­sey and minia­ture Air Max. It is adorable.

01:02:05 – After an unlike­ly mid-sea­son turn­around, the Tim­ber­wolves qual­i­fy for the state final against the Warriors.

01:02:53 – Jack­ie dis­cov­ers a fortnight’s worth of news­pa­pers buried in the front yard.

01:03:30 – The film takes a dra­mat­ic turn when Norm Snive­ly (Michael Jeter), aka the nasty clown, claims right­ful own­er­ship of Bud­dy hav­ing wit­nessed him shoot­ing hoops on television.

01:08:13 – Josh rescues/​steals back Buddy.

01:10:54 – Bud­dy was report­ed­ly trained to play var­i­ous sports by Kevin di Cic­co, who picked him up as a stray in 1989. It’s your clas­sic wags-to-rich­es story.

01:11:12 – After feed­ing him yet more vanil­la pud­ding, a vis­i­bly dis­tressed Josh explains to Bud­dy that he’s left with no choice but to dis­own him.

01:11:45 – Gold­en Retriev­ers are cute and all, but when your cen­tral character’s default facial expres­sion is ​‘bliss­ful insou­ciance’, your film becomes emo­tion­al­ly redundant.

01:13:02 – Accord­ing to IMDb, Air Bud was filmed in under one month.

01:18:51 – With the Tim­ber­wolves down 20 points with sev­en min­utes remain­ing, Bud­dy makes a late entrance and is imme­di­ate­ly brought on for a game-chang­ing cameo.

01:20:50 – The squad num­ber on Buddy’s jer­sey is ​‘K9’.

01:24:47 – Bud­dy makes a free throw, but drags his hind paws over the free throw line while the ball is mid-flight, mak­ing it a foul shot. Some­how the offi­cials fail to spot the call.

01:25:10 – Bud­dy makes the sec­ond free throw, but again jumps across the line before the ball hits the bas­ket. What game are these offi­cials watching?!

01:25:48 – Arti­cle 4.3.2 of the Inter­na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion offi­cial rule­book states that each team mem­ber must wear a shirt, shorts and socks. Bud­dy lacks two of the three required items of uni­form, thus putting him in clear vio­la­tion of this rule.

01:26:25 – Josh scores a buzzer-beat­er to win the game.

01:27:45 – The Framms are award­ed full cus­tody of Bud­dy fol­low­ing a bit­ter legal dis­pute. Out­side the court­room, Bud­dy sav­age­ly attacks the clown.

01:34:30 – The end cred­its roll. In the pan­theon of ​‘ani­mals play­ing sports’ movies, Air Bud raised the bar.

Direct­ed by Richard Mar­tin
Star­ring Misc Gold­en Retriev­ers, Kevin Zegers, Cyn­thia Stevenson

00:00:31 – A stock estab­lish­ing shot reveals that we’re back in Fernfield.

00:03:12 – Josh (Kevin Zegers), now in his ear­ly teens, attends a pro­fes­sion­al bas­ket­ball game with his moth­er Jack­ie (Cyn­thia Steven­son) and sis­ter Andrea (Alyson MacLaren). Bud­dy is left in the car, but quick­ly escapes and finds his way into the are­na, where­upon he wreaks havoc.

00:06:09 – A friend of Josh’s tells him that high school chicks dig foot­ball play­ers. Josh briefly enter­tains the notion of try­ing out for the team.

00:08:42 – We meet a Cruel­la Dev­ille-esque Russ­ian ani­mal train­er named Natalya (Nora Dunn), who’s look­ing to add a star attrac­tion to her trav­el­ling circus.

00:09:43 – Bud­dy watch­es Josh make a sandwich.

00:11:25 – Josh sug­gests that maybe it’s time his moth­er start­ed dat­ing again, before sab­o­tag­ing her chances with the first respectable man she meets.

00:13:12 – While out rollerblad­ing, a for­lorn Jack­ie paus­es to con­fide in Buddy.

00:21:22 – At his first prac­tice ses­sion, Josh impress­es Coach Fanel­li (Robert Con­stan­zo) with his ​“killer arm”.

00:25:11 – Con­cerned by his lack of wag, Josh takes Bud­dy to the local vet, Dr Patrick (Gre­go­ry Har­ri­son), who is now dat­ing Jack­ie. In real life, Bud­dy the dog died of a rare form of soft tis­sue can­cer on 10 Feb­ru­ary, 1998 (Wikipedia states that he died peace­ful­ly in his sleep). From Gold­en Receiv­er onwards, the role of Bud­dy was played by var­i­ous Gold­en Retriev­er dog actors. This sequel is ded­i­cat­ed to his memory.

00:27:47 – Bud­dy reveals that his apti­tude for bas­ket­ball also applies to football.

00:29:39 – A bureau­crat­ic fac­ul­ty mem­ber express­es con­cern that the foot­ball team hasn’t had a win­ning sea­son in 10 years. If only they could find a secret weapon…

00:32:15 – Con­sid­er­ing he’s a Sea­hawks fan, Coach Fanelli’s loose grasp of defen­sive coor­di­na­tion is surprising.

00:35:55 – Josh’s big moment arrives when the start­ing quar­ter­back dis­lo­cates his shoul­der in the open­ing game of the sea­son. Josh gets sacked on the very first play and the oppo­si­tion runs in the result­ing fum­ble for a touchdown.

00:36:31 – On the next play, Bud­dy saves Josh’s blush­es by mak­ing a stun­ning catch. The crowd goes berserk.

00:45:10 – In game two, Bud­dy — sport­ing a Tim­ber­wolves jer­sey and retro leather hel­met — rush­es for 72 yards, makes four recep­tions, forces two fum­bles and scores three touchdowns.

00:50:43 – The film’s tagline, ​‘Just Dog It’, is a play on Nike’s ​‘Just Do It’ slogan.

00:51:33 – The Tim­ber­wolves breeze through the play­offs via a euphor­ic montage.

00:53:48 – Patrick pro­pos­es to Jack­ie, upset­ting an increas­ing­ly petu­lant Josh.

00:55:01 – After Josh runs away, Bud­dy is snatched by Natalya and trans­port­ed to a secret dock-side ware­house in an ice cream van.

00:58:12 – Fol­low­ing a man-to-man with Coach Franel­li, Josh returns home, only to find that Bud­dy is missing.

01:03:17 – As the Tim­ber­wolves pre­pare to kick off against the Giants, Bud­dy is freed by a dun­ga­ree-clad chim­panzee. Togeth­er they release the oth­er animals.

01:06:42 – Bud­dy and co rise up against Natalya and her hap­less cohort, Popov (Per­ry Anzilot­ti). Dur­ing a show­piece phys­i­cal com­e­dy scene, a skunk sprays Natalya in the face.

01:10:39 – Coach Franel­li is seen clutch­ing a can of Coca Cola in vir­tu­al­ly every scene he’s in.

01:12:11 – After suc­cess­ful­ly com­man­deer­ing the ice cream van from the chimp, Natalya and Popov attempt to run Bud­dy over. Patrick intervenes.

01:15:35 – Air Bud is back! And just in the nick of time, with the Tim­ber­wolves down three scores in the fourth quarter.

01:16:30 – The Tim­ber­wolves run a text­book reverse-sweep and Bud­dy charges down­field for a TD. Team­work makes the dream work, folks.

01:22:21 – Bud­dy gets flat­tened by an out­side tack­le and is forced to leave the field. Unflus­tered, The Tim­ber­wolves snatch vic­to­ry in the dying seconds.

01:25:30 – Patrick and Josh share an awk­ward moment as they attempt to rec­on­cile their differences.

01:26:12 – In char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly mav­er­ick fash­ion, Bud­dy invades the pitch dur­ing a Sea­hawks vs 49ers game.

01:29:31 – Despite essen­tial­ly being a shot-for-shot remake, Gold­en Receiv­er lacks the uncom­pli­cat­ed charm of the original.

Direct­ed by Bill Ban­ner­man
Star­ring Misc Gold­en Retriev­ers, Kevin Zegers, Caitlin Wachs

00:01:08 – The film opens on Jack­ie (Chilton Crane) and Patrick’s (Dale Mid­kiff) wed­ding day. Bud­dy, act­ing as an ush­er, has for­got­ten the ring.

00:03:31 – On his way home to fetch the ring, a lux­u­ri­ant rus­set bitch catch­es Buddy’s eye.

00:06:13 – At the recep­tion, Bud­dy enter­tains a group of kids by nudg­ing a soc­cer ball around. A dog catch­er watch­es on omi­nous­ly from some near­by bushes.

00:09:17 – Despite his obvi­ous com­mer­cial val­ue, at no point does any­one deem it nec­es­sary for Bud­dy to wear a collar.

00:15:51 – Josh (Kevin Zegers) sizes up some tail of his own, an Eng­lish soc­cer coach and fel­low stu­dent named Emma (Brit­tany Paige Bouck, who judg­ing from her accent is almost cer­tain­ly not English).

00:18:01 – A joke is made in ref­er­ence to America’s lack of inter­est in, and basic knowl­edge of, soccer.

00:21:10 – Dur­ing train­ing, Bud­dy drills in a penal­ty kick.

00:23:42 – Mon­tage time. Bud­dy puts in a match-win­ning per­for­mance, cement­ing his rep­u­ta­tion as a big game player.

00:30:43 – A friend of Josh’s con­fi­dent­ly informs him that chicks dig guys with good fash­ion sense.

00:32:39 – At a classy soirée Emma’s father (Dun­can Regehr) and their black house­maid, Mrs Brim­stone (Patri­cia Idlette), exhib­it equal­ly uncon­vinc­ing British accents.

00:36:21 – Bud­dy has some­how man­aged to dig a tun­nel into next door’s gar­den. He uses it to bring his love inter­est, Mol­ly, a baguette.

00:39:22 – In the Tim­ber­wolves next game, Emma hits an absolute worldy from all of 25 yards. Not to be out­shone, Bud­dy bags a first-half hat-trick.

00:43:38 – Josh takes Emma to the movies to see a film called ​‘Nin­ja Bloody Nin­ja’. Bud­dy and Mol­ly opt for a qui­et night in.

00:46:07 – After a dis­as­trous first date, Emma accus­es Josh of being a ​“twit” and a ​“hip­ster”.

00:49:06 – Bud­dy is shown sport­ing a rather slick pair of shades.

00:49:53 – The Tim­ber­wolves are expelled from the league for field­ing an inel­i­gi­ble play­er (Bud­dy). No one men­tions the fact that he has pre­vi­ous­ly appeared for two sep­a­rate Fer­n­field High teams.

00:52:10 – In a scene rem­i­nis­cent of 101 Dal­ma­tians, Mol­ly goes into labour. Bud­dy becomes the proud father of six.

00:56:45 – The Tim­ber­wolves are rein­stat­ed into the league. Despite lack­ing match sharp­ness, Bud­dy extends his pur­ple patch.

00:59:16 – This is real­ly start­ing to drag now. Per­haps think­ing of dog-relat­ed puns of famous footballer’s names will help pass the time…

01:00:01 – The pup­pies are stolen by a pair of heart­less goons. Their moti­va­tions are vague.

01:02:50 – At the league cham­pi­onship game between the Tim­ber­wolves and the Spring­brook Spar­tans, for­mer Unit­ed States women’s nation­al soc­cer team goal­keep­er Bri­ana Scur­ry is intro­duced to the crowd. Bud­dy, Josh and Emma are con­spic­u­ous by their absence.

01:04:36 – Stan Col­liemore, Spaniel Stur­ridge, Emile Husky…

01:06:25 – Against the run of play, the Tim­ber­wolves take the lead.

01:11:20 – After the bad guys have an unex­plained change of heart, the pup­pies are saved and our all-star trio head to the stadium.

01:13:17 – Bud­dy is prompt­ly subbed on and buries a head­er into the top cor­ner with sec­onds left on the clock.

01:14:28 – The defeat­ed Spar­tans are refresh­ing­ly mag­nan­i­mous in defeat. Bri­ana Scur­ry per­son­al­ly con­grat­u­lates Buddy.

01:15:00 – Four months lat­er at the Women’s World Cup, team USA edge out Nor­way in a tour­na­ment decid­ing penal­ty shootout. The win­ning save is pulled off by – you guessed it – Bud­dy. Who needs oppos­able thumbs when you’ve got a win­ning spir­it, eh?

01:18:24 – You know the feel­ing when some­thing you enjoyed as a kid turns out to be real­ly, real­ly bad for you, like Sun­ny D and Rolf Har­ris? This is rapid­ly becom­ing one of those moments.

Direct­ed by Robert Vince
Star­ring Misc Gold­en Retriev­ers, Caitlin Wachs, Patrick Cranshaw

00:00:12 – The first post ⁹⁄₁₁ Air Bud opens with a har­row­ing scene in which Bud­dy, dressed as a fire­dog, hero­ical­ly drags injured civil­ians from the burn­ing rub­ble of the World Trade Cen­ter. Just kid­ding, it’s more of the same.

00:01:32 – A pair of car­toon­ish­ly evil sci­en­tists hatch a plan to har­ness the ​“super sport­ing gene” from Bud­dy and his pup­pies with a view to mar­ket­ing it as a new per­for­mance enhanc­ing drug.

00:03:46 – Pic­nic time with the Framms. Josh (Kevin Zegers) appears to have a new step­fa­ther, although no one men­tions any­thing about this.

00:10:40 – Heartrend­ing scenes as Josh says his good­byes before leav­ing for col­lege. The film’s focus switch­es to Josh’s pre­vi­ous­ly irrel­e­vant younger sis­ter, Andrea (Caitlin Wachs).

00:13:38 – Josh gives Andrea their father’s watch. This is the first time the watch has been fea­tured in any of the Air Bud films.

00:15:12 – The sci­en­tists appear to be oper­at­ing under the com­mand of a racoon named Rocky. It’s pos­si­ble that Rocky has some incrim­i­nat­ing pic­tures of the men.

00:20:35 – There are an alarm­ing amount of Gold­en Retriev­ers in this town.

00:21:01 – Bud­dy con­tin­ues his irri­tat­ing habit of embar­rass­ing the Framm kids at school.

00:24:32 – For no dis­cernible rea­son, Andrea decides to try out for the school base­ball team.

00:27:17 – Direc­tor Robert Vince also helmed the 2000 chimpanzee/​ice hock­ey caper MVP: Most Valu­able Pri­mate and its skate­board­ing-themed 2001 fol­low-up MVP: Most Ver­ti­cal Primate.

00:32:38 – Buddy’s bas­ket­ball ace pup, Shoot­er, is shown wear­ing sweat­bands while tak­ing part in a pick-up game. As every­one knows, dogs don’t sweat, so this is pre­sum­ably a fash­ion choice.

00:35:17 – Bud­dy reveals him­self to be a world-class base­ball play­er, to the sur­prise of no one.

00:36:12 – Sher­iff Bob (Patrick Cran­shaw, who played Joseph ​“Blue” Pulas­ki in Old School) is alert­ed to the dis­ap­pear­ance of Shooter.

00:37:30 – The film’s title is a ref­er­ence to a spec­ta­tor tra­di­tion known as the sev­enth-inning stretch, where fans stand up and stretch out their arms and legs between the halves of the sev­enth inning of a game.

00:38:44 – After her friend Tam­my (Chan­tal Strand) picks up an injury, Andrea seals her place in the Tim­ber­wolves start­ing ros­ter dur­ing the oblig­a­tory win­ning-streak mon­tage sequence.

00:42:29 – Must remem­ber to can­cel that month­ly dona­tion to Dogs Trust.

00:46:12 – When three more pup­pies, Strik­er, Shaq and Tan­go, go miss­ing, a con­cerned Bud­dy decides to take mat­ters into his own paws.

00:48:34 – Andrea and Bud­dy find time to hit the prac­tice field.

00:50:14 – Weren’t there six pup­pies orig­i­nal­ly? What hap­pened to the oth­er two?

00:53:12 – Bud­dy puts his ongo­ing domes­tic cri­sis aside to help the Tim­ber­wolves to a nar­row vic­to­ry over their local rivals, boost­ing their play-off hopes.

00:59:47 – Rocky the racoon’s sin­is­ter intent is reinforced.

01:06:42 – Bud­dy is reunit­ed with his pups. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this occurs in the sci­en­tists’ trailer/​laboratory.

01:09:28 – The Tim­ber­wolves are down 4 – 0 in the junior cham­pi­onship game. Even the pre­vi­ous­ly ani­mat­ed com­men­ta­tor appears to be los­ing interest.

01:11:50 – Andrea res­cues Bud­dy and the pup­pies, no thanks to Sher­iff Bob. She and Tam­my race across town to rejoin the team.

01:15:16 – Some slop­py play by the oppo­si­tion infield allows the Tim­ber­wolves back into the game.

01:13:28 – Despite being a fam­i­ly film, Sev­enth Inning Fetch fea­tures promi­nent adver­tis­ing for Bud Light, who at this point have all but missed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cash-in on the franchise’s popularity.

01:19:20 – The Tim­ber­wolves are down four in the ninth. They’re going to need a mir­a­cle to win this one…

01:24:56 – Josh returns home from col­lege just in time to watch Andrea ding one way down­field to clinch the game for the Timberwolves.

01:27:40 – In a famil­iar coda, Bud­dy is draft­ed to the Los Ange­les-based Ana­heim Angels. In his rook­ie sea­son he leads them to the World Series and – after mak­ing a final-out catch from first base – is named MVP.

Direct­ed by Charles Mar­tin Smith
Star­ring Misc Gold­en Retriev­ers, Kati­ja Pevec, Tyler Boissonnault

00:01:12 – Hav­ing mas­tered the three most pop­u­lar sports in Amer­i­ca – and soc­cer – Bud­dy is ready for a new chal­lenge. The open­ing cred­it sequence promis­es a spe­cial guest appear­ance from pro­fes­sion­al vol­ley­ball play­er, swimwear mod­el and some­time actress Gabrielle Reece.

00:03:49 – In keep­ing with series tra­di­tion, Spikes Back fea­tures two buf­foon­ish male vil­lains, here pos­ing as emer­gency plumbers. This time, how­ev­er, they’re not after Bud­dy but an enor­mous diamond.

00:06:37 – One pos­si­ble expla­na­tion for the sub­tle nar­ra­tive vari­a­tion through­out the Air Bud fran­chise is that the clown put Bud­dy in a coma at the start of the first movie, and every­thing that hap­pens sub­se­quent­ly is mere­ly a pro­jec­tion of an elab­o­rate dream loop. That, or it’s just lazy screenwriting.

00:12:28 – Andrea (Kati­ja Pevec) bids a teary farewell to Tam­my (Chan­tal Strand), who is relo­cat­ing to San Diego with her family.

00:13:45 – The Fer­n­field Sum­mer Fair is in full swing. Josh’s kid broth­er, Noah (Jake Smith), leads Bud­dy out to rap­tur­ous applause for the annu­al canine obsta­cle course competition.

00:14:29 – Famil­iar­i­ty is start­ing to breed contempt.

00:16:08 – The slack-jawed crooks fig­ure that Buddy’s unique skill set makes him the ide­al jew­el heist accomplice.

00:18:45 – Patrick (Alfred E Humphreys) now appears to be age­ing backwards.

00:21:50 – Andrea meets her new next door neigh­bour, Con­nor (Tyler Bois­son­nault), who hap­pens to be a keen vol­ley­ball enthusiast.

00:26:20 – The film intro­duces us to Buddy’s talk­ing par­rot side­kick, Pol­ly (voiced by Bri­an Dobson).

00:29:50 – Bud­dy eats Noah’s ice cream. Noah is under­stand­ably aggrieved.

00:35:32 – Con­nor teach­es Bud­dy how to play vol­ley­ball. Bud­dy is a natural.

00:38:09 – Stray­ing from the hith­er­to win­ning Gold­en Retriev­er-based for­mu­la, the film fea­tures a broad vari­ety of dog breeds.

00:38:30 – Bud­dy gets his head stuck in a vase.

00:40:12 – Is Bud­dy an alien?

00:45:47 – Nicholas Har­ri­son, who played the umpire in Sev­enth Inning Fetch, returns as the Fer­n­field High beach vol­ley­ball coach. His pre­vi­ous per­for­mance did not war­rant this.

00:49:12 – The Tim­ber­wolves nar­row­ly lose to two-time state cham­pi­ons the River­side Rats. The match is poor­ly attended.

00:55:31 – Bud­dy fills in as the Tim­ber­wolves replace­ment set­ter. Coach McK­ay shrewd­ly observes that he is not an Irish Setter.

01:02:43 – Mys­te­ri­ous­ly, there appear to be no cats in Fernfield.

01:05:55 – Bud­dy is kid­napped while Noah is busy buy­ing yet more ice cream.

01:10:48 – Bud­dy steals the dia­mond. In their haste, one of the bad guys trig­gers the alarm.

01:12:43 – Bud­dy makes a break for it. While in pur­suit, one of the crooks snatch­es a small child’s micro scooter.

01:13:11 – Bud­dy man­ages to out­ma­noeu­vre the perps at the now aban­doned Fer­n­field Sum­mer Fair. He ensures they are appre­hend­ed and for­mal­ly detained before high­tail­ing it to the beach.

01:17:12 – A vin­tage dis­play from Bud­dy leads the Tim­ber­wolves to an emphat­ic vic­to­ry over the River­side Rats. The team cel­e­brates by jump­ing off a near­by jet­ty. Bud­dy looks on apprehensively.

01:19:39 – Bud­dy is my Colonel Kurtz.

01:20:46 – Andrea and Tam­my reunite in Mal­ibu, where Bud­dy scores the win­ning point in a pro­fes­sion­al women’s vol­ley­ball game.

01:23:26 – It’s… over. Sweet Marley’s ghost it’s over!

01:26:40 – In spite of obvi­ous bud­get cuts and a com­plete absence of nuance, Spikes Back is some­thing of a return to form for the Air Bud series. That said, it’s not a patch on the orig­i­nal, though in all hon­esty every­thing beyond that blurred into a seem­ing­ly end­less aver­sion ther­a­py session.

1. Air Bud
2. Air Bud: Gold­en Receiv­er
3. Air Bud: Spikes Back
4. Air Bud: World Pup
5. Air Bud: Sev­enth Inning Fetch

Next time, Wish­bone revisited…