Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World

1973, 1974 Scholastic edition
Alan Fennell
Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World
Original price unknown, bought used for 75 cents
Very worn paperback with split spine
C+

Digby was one of the many so-bad-they're-good children's movies that Southern Californian TV stations played frequently in the late 1970s and early '80s.  (Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and the Pippi films were also shown at least twice a year.)  The Digby book is reasonably faithful to the movie, but it lacks three things: the hilariously cheap special effects, the lilting but bouncy theme song, and a cast that includes Spike Milligan pretending to be German and a relatively young Jim Dale, years before he became the Harry Potter audiobook narrator for Americans.  (Stephen Fry is better, but that's a topic for another blog.)  What we're left with is a very cliched story about a dog that accidentally drinks Project X and becomes 30 feet tall.  It does include photos from the movie (including the incredibly fake-looking giant cucumber), so this gets a C+ rather than a C.