Disney’s Comic Film About an Android Has a Very Human Touch

Alan Thicke is best known to television audiences as understanding dad Dr. Jason Seaver on ABC’s “Growing Pains.”

Just a few weeks after “Growing Pains” concluded its seven-year run, he’s back in the thick of fatherhood in the new Disney Channel movie Still Not Quite Human, premiering Sunday. The comedy actually is a sequel to two other Disney Channel films: 1987’s “Not Quite Human” and 1989’s “Not Quite Human II.”

Sort of a live-action twist on the “Pinocchio” tale, “Still Not Quite Human” follows the adventures of scientist Dr. Jonas Carson (Thicke) and his teen-age son Chip (Jay Underwood), who just happens to be an android that Jonas created in his laboratory.

When Jonas is asked to speak at the annual robotics convention about the achievements he has made in humanizing androids, Jonas comes close to exposing Chip’s true identity. So close that an evil industrialist (Christopher Neame) kidnaps Jonas to learn his secrets, thus forcing Chip to come to terms with his android roots and save his father from a fate worse than death.

“Still Not Quite Human,” Sunday 7-9 p.m. The Disney Channel. For ages 5 and 14.

MORE KIDS’ SHOWS

In the animated special Dirty Beasts (Sunday 2-2:30 p.m. Bravo), based on the stories of children’s author Roald Dahl, animals finally get their revenge on the human race. In one story, a very bright pig realizes he’s dinner and kills the farmer instead. Another dirty beast, a pet anteater, quite literally eats a boy’s aunt. And in another tale, a flying cow drops a cowpat on anyone who says something negative about her. For ages 5-12.

A family is shipwrecked on a deserted island paradise and must do battle with pirates in Walt Disney’s 1960 action-adventure Swiss Family Robinson (today 3-5:30 p.m. Disney Channel), based on Johnn Wyss’ classic children’s novel. John Mills (father of Disney favorite Hayley Mills), Dorothy McGuire, Tommy Kirk, Kevin Corcoran and Sessue Hayakawa of “The Bridge on the River Kwai” fame star. For all ages.

The 1967 Julie Andrews musical-comedy Thoroughly Modern Millie (Monday 9-11:30 p.m. the Disney Channel) may be the first family film about white slavery. Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore play two young and naive small-town women who move to New York in the early ‘20s and discover their landlady (the legendary British comic Beatrice Lillie) is an agent for a white slavery ring. James Fox and John Gavin are the men in Millie’s life, and Carol Channing received an Oscar nomination for her role as a daffy society matron. For ages 8 and up and parents.

Get out your handkerchiefs for Lassie Come Home (Wednesday 4:30-6 p.m. Showtime), the 1943 melodrama which introduced everyone’s favorite collie to audiences around the world. After Lassie’s poor family is forced to sell her, the canine braves all odds and travels across Scotland to reunite with them. Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp and Elizabeth Taylor, in her first major role, are the two-legged stars. For all ages.

“Mathnet,” the popular feature of PBS’ award-winning weekday series “Square One TV,” goes prime time with the one-hour special Mathnet: The Case of the Unnatural (Wednesday 8-9 p.m. KCET and KPBS). Noted director-writer John Sayles (“Matewan,” “City of Hope”) plays Roy “Lefty” Cobbs, the right-handed pitcher for the River Vale Rowdies, who runs into trouble when he takes the mound.

It seems the number sequence game he’s been playing with his batgirl (Maddie Corman) no longer makes sense, so it’s up to the “Mathnet” gumshoes to save the national pastime. For ages 8-12.

Joanna Kerns (“Growing Pains”) and Danny Pintauro (“Who’s the Boss?”) host Sea World’s Miracle Babies & Friends (Friday 9-10 p.m. The Family Channel), a 1989 special which looks at how marine animals such as Baby Shamu the Killer Whale are born and raised. For all ages.

Nickelodeon presents the fifth installment of Totally Kids Sports (Saturday 5-5:30 p.m.), its magazine-style sports special produced by the National Basketball Assn. and hosted by kid reporters. For ages 7-15.