The theatrically released C.H.O.M.P.S. from journeyman director Don Chaffey was one of a few attempts by the Hanna-Barbera cartoon empire to break into live-action family entertainment. An unlikely partnership with Samuel Z. Arkoff's rather notorious American International Pictures, it features high-speed slapstick and trained-animal stunts (pretty good ones) plus a veteran character-actor cast of scenery-chewers, in service to a proto-"cyber" comic premise.
Young inventor Brian Foster (Wesley Eure) hopes to please his prospective father-in-law (Conrad Bain), a home-security tycoon, with a computerized crimefighting breakthrough, the Canine Home Protection System ("C.H.O.M.P.S"), a lifelike robot dog with super-strength, super-hearing, super-vocalizations, etc. The automaton is modeled to look just like Brian's ordinary pet dog, so you can bet there will be mistaken-identity stuff down the line, as a rival businessman (Jim Backus) tries to steal the company secrets, hiring two bumbling criminals (Chuck McCann and Red Buttons).
In one gag that might raise eyebrows today, C.H.O.M.P.S. attacks an unarmed black guy (a newsman who accidentally says the beast's trigger command, the number one-hundred). Whew, a brother can't catch a break. Otherwise, largely harmless stuff, with Eure and endearing female lead Valerie Bertinelli evidently the only human performer not coached to do eye-rolling wild overacting. A dandy animated opening-credits sequence (recalling Fritz Freleng's "Pink Panther" work with a little Ralph Bakshi influence) may interest cartoon completists.
An ever-enthusiastic Wesley Eure toplines this "special edition" from home-video entities Code Red and Kino Lorber. It includes the PG edit of the theatrical feature (it has minor swear words, unlike a "G" version that was also extant), a filmed intro and reminiscence by Eure, and a commentary track bringing Eure together with scriptwriter Duane Poole.
Revelations include Poole saying he himself was a rough-draft casting of Shaggy for a live-action Scooby-Doo that would have been a subsequent Hanna-Barbera project, had they continued in this vein. One also learns C.H.O.M.P.S. made a surprise splash in Australia, though theatrical exposure elsewhere was fleeting. Indeed, the clownish antics can hardly lay a paw on the "Benji" pictures, despite the superficial super-dog resemblance. The would-be Disney competitor is a strong optional purchase for children/family collections.