Why You Can Trust CNET Turner & Hooch's Lyndsy Fonseca explains how dog slobber is an art
On CNET's I'm So Obsessed podcast, the How I Met Your Mother and Marvel's Agent Carter actor talks about the fun of filming a show for Disney Plus with five dogs playing one of the title characters.
- Patrick's play The Cowboy is included in the Best American Short Plays 2011-12 anthology. He co-wrote and starred in the short film Baden Krunk that won the Best Wisconsin Short Film award at the Milwaukee Short Film Festival.
From starring on The Young and the Restless to How I Met Your Mother and Marvel's Agent Carter, Lyndsy Fonseca has had an eclectic career. She now stars in the new Disney Plus series Tuner & Hooch.
Lyndsy Fonseca transcends many Hollywood norms. She's regularly cast in roles that are both dramatic and comic, she's been in both films and TV shows, and after getting her start in her teens on the the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless, she avoided the heartbreaking fate that some young actors can experience. Fonseca's career successfully blossomed into adulthood with roles on shows like How I Met Your Mother, Big Love, Desperate Housewives and Marvel's Agent Carter.
Her latest role is as Laura Turner on the new Disney Plus series Turner & Hooch. On CNET's I'm So Obsessed podcast Fonseca explained how the show isn't necessarily a sequel to the original 1989 film of the same name that starred Tom Hanks.
"If you've never seen the original movie, it doesn't matter, because it's not like an immediate continuation. You don't have to know the plot of the film. You can just tune in to our show. Josh Peck and I play the kids of Tom Hanks' character," said Fonseca. "Because Disney Plus has the movie, you can watch it. And if you are a fan of the movie, it's kind of a continuation of the slobber and the dogs shenanigan. And we get right back into it."
Speaking of slobber, Hooch is played by five different dogs. There isn't a Cirque du Soleil performer in a motion capture suit playing a dog, like in the 2020 Harrison Ford film The Call of the Wild. But there is a lot of dog slobber in Turner & Hooch, and Fonseca explained how there's an amount of slobber that was just right for certain scenes. Sometimes a dog would have too much slobber and it would get on the actor's costume and they'd have to change their clothes. Other times the dogs didn't have enough slobber, so the crew and dog handlers would add fake slobber.
Though slobber can be faked, Fonseca said working with actual dogs helped ground the show.
"They [the dogs] just bring sincerity to the show and honesty. It's like therapy work with horses. That's sort of the point of animals. You can't lie. You can't fake it around them. If they're not calm and feeling safe, you're not able to shoot a scene," said Fonseca, whose character works as a veterinarian with parrots, puppies and hamsters, among other animals.
In the Disney Plus series Turner & Hooch, Hooch is played by five different French Mastiffs.
You can listen to my entire conversation with Fonseca in the podcast player above or on Apple Podcasts. She discusses the differences between fans of The Young and The Restless, How I Met Your Mother, Marvel's Agent Carter and Desperate Housewives. Fonseca also shares her love of tap dancing and her hope that there could be a How I Met Your Mother spinoff built around her character, Penny.
I'm So Obsessed is nominated for two Podcast Awards in the categories of TV & Film and People's Choice. You can vote for us between now and the end of July on the Podcast awards website.
You can watch Turner & Hooch on Disney Plus, with new episodes released weekly. You can subscribe to I'm So Obsessed on your favorite podcast app. In each episode, Connie Guglielmo or I catch up with an artist, actor or creator to learn about work, career and current obsessions.
