The Kurt Russell era at Disney Studios started with The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes which is a misleading title. Because when Russell gets shocked and the computer knowledge and memory retention is programmed into him, he's not wearing tennis shoes. In fact if he had he would not have been grounded and would have gotten the electric shock.
Although Kurt had appeared in several Disney features with this one he started starring in them on a regular basis and eventually quite properly worried that he would be fatally typecast in Dexter Riley type parts. Fortunately for his career he wasn't.
But for about 8 years or so after this film he was Disney's all American kid lead in a lot of teen comedies. Seeing Kurt and his fellow students at Medfield College you would hardly know there was anything like a counterculture war going on with kids doing things like tuning in, turning on, and dropping out, to dodging the draft, to protesting at the Pentagon.
Here the kids are doing nothing more than trying to aid their favorite professor William Schallert from hidebound Dean Joe Flynn. But after the computer comes and it's a large machine and Russell gets shocked from it, everybody wants a piece of him with his retentive memory. Including the guy who owned the computer gangster Cesar Romero. He forgot to erase the files of his business and when Russell starts blurting out his private information on a college bowl show on television, Romero decides he's got to be eliminated.
I won't say more other than Russell finds out who is friends really are. The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (who really didn't) is an innocuous and quaint Disney film. I think the younger generation who now own their own or have access to same in schools and libraries will get a laugh out of Joe Flynn's reluctance to enter the modern age and the monstrosity of a machine he bought.
Although Kurt had appeared in several Disney features with this one he started starring in them on a regular basis and eventually quite properly worried that he would be fatally typecast in Dexter Riley type parts. Fortunately for his career he wasn't.
But for about 8 years or so after this film he was Disney's all American kid lead in a lot of teen comedies. Seeing Kurt and his fellow students at Medfield College you would hardly know there was anything like a counterculture war going on with kids doing things like tuning in, turning on, and dropping out, to dodging the draft, to protesting at the Pentagon.
Here the kids are doing nothing more than trying to aid their favorite professor William Schallert from hidebound Dean Joe Flynn. But after the computer comes and it's a large machine and Russell gets shocked from it, everybody wants a piece of him with his retentive memory. Including the guy who owned the computer gangster Cesar Romero. He forgot to erase the files of his business and when Russell starts blurting out his private information on a college bowl show on television, Romero decides he's got to be eliminated.
I won't say more other than Russell finds out who is friends really are. The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (who really didn't) is an innocuous and quaint Disney film. I think the younger generation who now own their own or have access to same in schools and libraries will get a laugh out of Joe Flynn's reluctance to enter the modern age and the monstrosity of a machine he bought.