Having seen the trailer for Disney's new "Underdog" movie, in theaters today, I am still cringing.

Just when I thought Hollywood had run out of '60s-era pop-culture touchstones to corrupt and fumble — has "My Mother the Car" been taken? — "Underdog" redux has all the hallmarks of a film that lives up to its title, minus the "under" part. A soundtrack that mixes hip-hop beats and "Matrix"-style symphonics like peanut butter and tuna. A real live beagle as the star, voiced by Jason Lee as though he had studied Owen Wilson's grating turn as Lightning McQueen in "Cars." Butt-sniffing jokes that must have Wally Cox, Underdog's original voice, thrashing in his grave.

For my money and time, I'll take the real deal, out on DVD last week. "The Ultimate Underdog, Volumes 1-3" (Classic Media) not only covers the first 18 episodes of the series, which bowed in October 1964, but also features shorts with Tennessee Tuxedo (voiced by "Get Smart" star Don Adams), the Go Go Gophers and Commander McBragg, that swaggering windbag who's big on how-I-conquered-the-world tales.

And to think, all those characters were visualized by the same man who concocted the Trix cereal rabbit in 72 hours: "I started on a Friday, and on a Sunday night I said, 'I can't go to sleep until I get this.' And now it's been going for 50 years," says Joe Harris, now 80 and living in New York City. A talented illustrator, Harris came to Underdog by way of the advertising field. His two partners in creating the caped canine who speaks in rhyme were account executive Watts Biggers and copy supervisor Chester Stover; all three worked at Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, then one of Madison Avenue's top ad agencies.

Challenged by General Mills to fashion a vehicle for promoting Twinkles cereal, the three unveiled "King Leonardo and His Short Subjects," which became a top-rated cartoon soon after it premiered on NBC in 1960.

That was followed by "Tennessee Tuxedo" and then "Underdog."

The caped canine, says Harris, is historically important because Underdog was the very first animated anti-hero.