Clifford the Big Red Dog, the Scholastic standby from author Norman Bridwell that took Marmaduke’s simple “that dog’s simply too large” comedy format and made it heartwarmingly kid-focused, is getting the live-action movie treatment. The long-coming film, from Wild Hogs and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip director Walt Becker, looks to introduce the towering pooch to a new generation, but one question remains: How big is live-action Clifford, really?
The storybooks’ dog is inconsistent in size, but with his move into the more literal medium of film, perhaps some solid metrics can be nailed down. Thankfully, Paramount released a first look at Clifford the Big Red Dog (which stars Darby Camp as the little girl that gets Clifford from “a magical animal rescuer” played by John Cleese) and it’s one that offers up at least some point of reference for the classic character:
Ok, that’s an animated Labrador Retriever that looks like it’s just gone full Cujo on somebody, but at least it’s next to a handful of real dogs. We can use them to get a handle on what the official synopsis measures as a “giant ten-foot hound.”
Inspired by the below Tweet, I started looking into those calculations.
If these dogs are to scale and the average boxer’s height is 24 inches and Clifford is only 3 times the height of that boxer then Clifford is only 72 inches tall I want my goddamn money back I asked for a BIG red dog not some man on Tinder who says “I’m 6’1” if it matters” pic.twitter.com/3TE4EA16KE