That Creepy Dad From Beethoven

Wait, you must be thinking, Beethoven was a cute, family friendly movie!  How could you dare call out one of it's main characters as creepy?  Well, I'm sorry.  I'm here to destroy your fuzzy childhood memories.  The premise of this 1992 film begins when a St. Bernard puppy escapes from some sort of pet burglars and finds a home with the Newton family.  Hilarity ensues as the father of the family deals with the destruction, drool, and wacky hijinks involved with a large breed dog.  Eventually, a plot unfolds involving the pet burglars and their evil boss- some sort of black-market munitions/chemical tester.  Beethoven is recaptured and the family springs to the rescue with lots of "awwww" moments in between.  To be fair, there are worse family-friendly films out there, but rewatching Beethoven as an adult, I noticed a few things about the father, George Newton (played by Charles Grodin).

First, he seems adamantly opposed to having a dog.  This isn't that weird- lots of people just don't like them... but George Newton's dislike of dogs seems to stem from an obsessive compulsive disdain for disorder.  One scene stands out in particular, where Beethoven slobbers on George's pants.  George flies off the handle about how his schedule is ruined, because if he changes his pants, he has to change it jacket.  If he changes his jacket, he has to change his tie.  If he changes his tie, he has to change his shirt.  And he will never have his schedule back.  Seem a little off yet?  Well, get this... he owns an air freshener manufacturer.
 

Everyone's gotta work somewhere, I guess... 

Ok, still not THAT bad, right?  We just have a guy who flips out when his clothes don't match, who has an obsession with making sure things don't stink, so he's probably a neat-freak.  Oh yeah, and in his household's opening scene, we find out that he forces his entire family to wake up at 7:00 AM on Saturdays, seemingly for no reason.  These things could probably all be dismissed... but lets delve a little deeper into the mind of George Newton, shall we?

There's this memorable scene where he and his wife are discussing her returning to the work at his company...

Startled by a sound downstairs, his wife prompts him to go look.

It was just Beethoven, up to his old tricks.  He darts out of the room before George sees him.  But while he was downstairs, George's wife Alice got up to check the thermostat, because that's what you do when you think there's an intruder in the house.

Yeah, we all know what happens next.  While Alice is checking on the kids, Beethoven steals her spot in the bed... George comes back, lays down, and.... 

Hey, it's probably happened to all of us at least once.

And THIS... yes, this is why George is creepy....

Never mind that I'm a parent of a little girl- I think I can say unbiasedly that no married father with two young daughters living in the house should really be saying something like that.  Yeah, I can be a creepy guy, but this just seems wrong if you have little girls in the house.  Totally fine for, say, a younger couple with no kids... or maybe even an older couples whose kids have moved out long ago... but for this guy?

Still not convinced?  Later on in the movie, we find out that the main bad guy, the black-market scientific tester, is posing as a veterinarian (or maybe he really is one, and testing live ammunition on large breed dogs is just a hobby).  While Beethoven is in for routine vaccinations, he casually mentions to George that he's had to put down several large dogs like Beethoven because they occasionally turn on their owners.  Of course, he's just laying the framework for a plot to kidnap Beethoven a little later in the film, but his words really seemed to bother George.

Her expression tells you something...

"You promised you'd never bring that up again."

So there you have it.  Beethoven is the story of a very repressed crossdresser.  He wants to be fabulous, he wants to explore some very creepy sexual avenues, but he got roped in to the American Dream of living in the 'burbs, married, with 2.5 kids, a station wagon, and a dog.  Living this buttoned down life has only pushed him further into his neuroses, making him OCD, nervous, and not very likeable.

The movie, of course, ends on a high note and lays the groundwork for half a dozen awful sequels, but it really wasn't that bad for something you can watch with your kids.  And sure, maybe I'll ease up on George a little bit... his oldest daughter from the film looks like this now...

Insert creepy "daddy's little girl" quote here.