Snow Buddies

Infobox Film
name = Snow Buddies


caption =
director = Robert Vince
producer = Robert Vince
Anna McRoberts
writer = Robert Vince
Anna McRoberts
starring = Dominic Scott Kay
Mike Dopud
John Kapelos
Charles C. Stevenson
Dylan Sprouse
music = Brahm Wenger
distributor = Walt Disney Pictures
released = February 5, 2008
runtime =
country = flagicon|USA
language = English
budget = $4 million
preceded_by = "Air Buddies"
followed_by = "Space Buddies" [ [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1164647/ Space Buddies (2008) (V) ] ]
website = http://adisney.go.com/disneyvideos/liveaction/snowbuddies/
imdb_id = 1079448

"Snow Buddies" is a 2008 direct to video in the "Air Bud" series and was the first to receive a G rating from the MPAA since "". It was released on DVD on February 5, 2008.

Cast

*Dominic Scott Kay as Adam Bilson
*John Kapelos as Jean George
*Mike Dopud as Joe Bilson
*Charles C. Stevenson Jr. as Officer
*Lise Simms as Meg Bilson
*Josh Flitter as Budderball (voice)
*Henry Hodges as Mudbud (voice)
*Liliana Mumy as Rosebud (voice)
*Skyler Gisondo as B-Dawg (voice)
*Dylan Sprouse as Shasta (voice)
*Jimmy Bennett as Buddha (voice)
*Tom Everett Scott as Buddy (voice)
*Molly Shannon as Molly (voice)
*Kris Kristofferson as Talon (voice)
*Jim Belushi as Bernie (voice)
*Paul Rae as Phillipe/Francois (voice)
*Lothraine Blutheau as Icelandic Sledder
*Whoopi Goldberg as Miss Mittens (voice)

Plot

The movie follows the story of Buddy and Molly's offspring in Washington. The puppies are playing hide-and-seek one morning when Budderball finds an ice-cream truck. Rosebud spots the hapless canine and follows him in an attempt to help. Hilarity ensues when Buddha finds them both in the truck and B-Dawg and Mud-Bud end up in the truck which is shipping to Alaska.

In Alaska, the Buddies meet Shasta, a young husky whose owner wants nothing more than to mush. The puppies take a vote to help a grateful Shasta to pursue his dreams. Unfortunately, as Shasta has no parents, this puts the puppies in a predicament as there is nobody to teach them how to become snow dogs and the local population of older puppies sneers at the thought of them learning how. Luckily, they find Talon, his father's mentor, in the mountains. Although initially reluctant, Shasta manages to persuade Talon into teaching the over-zealous puppies into becoming his new protégés by reminding him that "It's not the size of the dog that counts but the heart of team".

When Shasta introduces his owner, Adam, to his new sleigh team, the child is delighted at the prospect of his dreams coming true and the team pursue vigorous training routines often to comedic effect.

Adam begins building a new sleigh with her team of hard-working puppies. Talon proudly watches as the team's efforts come to fruition and it seems as though they are cooperating as a team. The older town huskeys, however, are not impressed and begin to plan their downfall. They reveal to the Buddies that Shasta's parents died when the ice beneath them shattered to dishearten them.

Back in Washington, Buddy and Molly find Budderball's toy American football on the back of the ice-cream truck and proceed to take the same route the puppies did to Alaska.

Talon calls the puppies to the mountain late on night to view the Northern Lights before he departs telling Shasta that knows all he needs to know and that he can become the great leader that his father was. The following morning, the puppies enter the race with Adam. After being reminded by how treacherous the race is by the sheriff, the puppies begin their trek.

Meanwhile, Buddy and Molly go looking for the puppies in Alaska where the rescue dog Bernie informs them of their participation in the race and, without further hesitation, the trio try to find the puppies. Adam's father also begins looking for his son.

The team manage to make it to the midway checkpoint without much difficulty.The sheriff finally checks his email and finds out that the puppies in his town are actually the missing puppies from Washington. The snowstorm becomes more and more dangerous as Adam's father gets snowed in and Adam's main competitor and owner of the rival snow dogs begins cheating by sabotaging the competing sleds. Adam and the team take shelter in an igloo provided by an inuit until the storm subsides. They come head to head with their opponent, Jean George and Adam gets injured.

Luckily Adam recovers. Jean George's dogs, the bullies from earlier get into trouble when the ice beneath them shatters. Jean George continues and abandons his dogs while Adam and the puppies begin a rescue operation despite Shasta's fears of his parents' deaths. The puppies pull the dogs out of the icy waters and Jean George resumes the race without any gratitude.

Jean George's dogs realize they owe nothing to their owner and everything to Shasta and the Buddies, and so, slow down causing Jean George to lose the race.Adam is victorious and the Buddies reunite with Buddy and Molly. Jean George gives out to his dogs and they respond in kind by chasing him around the Arctic. The Buddies, all seven of them return home via airplane.

Controversy

Disney imported 25-30 under-aged golden retriever puppies into Vancouver, Canada for the filming of the movie. Many of the puppies contracted the highly contagious parvovirus, against which puppies are usually vaccinated at 8 weeks of age. At least 15 puppies showed signs of the illness, including parasitic infections of giardia and coccidia, and all thirty were removed from the set. Three were euthanized. After the enforced removal of the first set of puppies, Disney hired 28 older puppies to continue filming. These puppies were also exposed to the virus, increasing the death toll. At least five puppies are reported to have died during the making of the movie. [ [http://www.americanhumane.org/site/PageServer?pagename=nr_news_releases_snowbuddies American Humane: Newsroom: News Releases: Snow Buddies ] ]

Production notes

*In this film, Jimmy Bennett, Henry Hodges and Liliana Mumy replace Dominic Scott Kay, Spencer Fox and Abigail Breslin as Bud-dha, Mudbud and Rosebud with Molly Shannon, Tom Everett Scott, Josh Flitter and Skyler Gisondo reprising their roles as Molly, Buddy, Budderball and B-Dawg. Also, the child actor who voiced Bud-dha in the sixth "Air Bud" film stars as Adam Bilson.
*This is the second "Air Bud" film Paul Rae appeared in. In the sixth "Air Bud" film, he starred as Denning.
*The girl that owns Rosebud in the film has a ' poster in her bedroom. Both "Snow Buddies" and ' are Disney film franchises.
*The aircraft that returns the puppies and adult dogs to Fernfield at the end of the film is a deHavilland Beaver owned by West Coast Air, a Vancouver based airline.
*When Budderball got into the ice cream truck, he saw the flavors: Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry, Rocky Road and Mud Pie.
*Second appearances of Budderball's football, Bud-dha's baseball, B-Dawg's basketball, Mudbud's volleyball and Rosebud's soccer ball.
*This was the first "Air Bud" film not to feature Sheriff Bob due to the death of Patrick Cranshaw on December 28, 2005.
*In this film, Dylan Minnette replaces Slade Pearce as Noah Framm with Richard Karn and Cynthia Stevenson reprising their roles as Patrick and Jackie Framm.
*Shasta was played by two Siberian Husky pups from Arcticsun Siberian Huskies, Hugo and Tux. Hugo and Tux come from a long line of Disney movie stars who appeared in Snow Dogs and Eight Below.
*This was the first "Air Bud" film to use the 2006-present Walt Disney Pictures logo. It was also the first "Air Bud" film to use a Walt Disney Pictures logo since "".

References

External links

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* [http://www.westcoastair.com West Coast Air website]