Another of the live-action movies that TCM ran as part of their salute to Hanna-Barbera is one that was more squarely aimed at kids than the previous movie Baxter!. This time, the movie in question is C.H.O.M.P.S..
Rascal is a dog owned by Brian Foster (Wesley Eure), who works for the home-security company run by Ralph Norton (Conrad Bain) and is dating the boss' daughter Casey (Valerie Bertinelli). The opening scene has Rascal being chased by a dog owned by neighbor Mrs. Flower (Hermione Baddeley), who doesn't have all that much to do with the plot other than her dog whistle causing a major plot point. Brian is a bit of a tinkerer, and in his garage/laboratory, he's working on an animatronic but hyper-realistic dog that could be used in building security the way a German Shepherd or Doberman might: the hope is a dog that can guard but have more strength and energy than a real dog.
The prototype, named "Chomps" for "Canine HOMe Protection System", shows potential, but also has some glitches since it's activated by numerical voice command to the point that anybody who knew about such a thing could just start calling out numbers to get the dog to stop. And who's going to remember all of the numerical commands out in the real world? Also, Brian hasn't bothered to file for a patent on his invention, something which would obviate much of the plot of the movie. The other issue is that, as I implied above, Mrs. Flower's dog whistle also causes Chomps to go haywire.
Brian thinks he's finally gotten Chomps to work, and wants to show him to Mr. Norton, who obviously (and understandably) doesn't believe that this sort of invention can actually work. But Chomps actually foils a crime where there's a TV reporter watching, leading Norton to be more interested in the idea. Norton, however, isn't the only one interested. Since Chomps shows up on a live TV news report and Norton is stupid enough to use the incident for publicity purposes without having all the IP rights to Chomps locked up, Norton's rival Gibbs (Jim Backus) also wants Chomps. And Gibbs has a plant, Ken Sharp (Larry Bishop) in Norton's business. Sharp has hired a couple of small-time incompetent crooks, Bracken (Red Buttons) and Brooks (Chuck McCann) to get Chomps.
Gibbs offters to buy out Norton, but Norton also has another much more lucrative offer to merge with a major defense contractor, pending an experiment with Chomps. Unfortunately, Norton unwittingly brings Rascal to the experiment since Chomps was designed to look like a real dog and Brian used his own dog Rascal as the model. At the same time the defense contractor trial is set to take place, Sharp has his two hired burglars trying to get the plans to Chomps while Gibbs has secretly shown up to where the trial is taking place. Can Chomps save the day? Of course he can, since this is the sort of movie that couldn't possibly have anything but a happy ending.
Frankly, C.H.O.M.P.S. is a dumb movie, but it's endearingly dumb because it's so unbelievably amateurish. The plot is paper-thin, the acting on par with the sort of sitcom that's churned out in one take, characters like the two burglars are impossibly stupid, and Chomps is repeatedly shown in slow-motion in a way that looks obviously phony and bad. I can see why it didn't get very good reviews on its release. But is has a bit of charm.
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