The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again

The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again is a 1979 Disney western comedy that brings back Amos and Theodore, the clumsy would-be outlaws from the earlier film, now trying to go straight and failing at every turn. An attempt to deposit their savings ends with them mistaken for robbers, and further trouble follows: they are wrongly accused in a bank theft, and their path later crosses with the United States cavalry, an army supply case and a scheme involving officers at a fort. Tim Conway plays Amos and Don Knotts plays Theodore, with Tim Matheson, Kenneth Mars, Elyssa Davalos and Jack Elam among the credited cast of twenty-eight.

Vincent McEveety directed, working from a screenplay by Don Tait, with Ron Miller producing. The film sits fifth in McEveety's directing credits as listed here, between Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo and Herbie Goes Bananas, during a run of studio family pictures. Made for about five million dollars, it returned roughly twenty-one million worldwide, a strong multiple of its cost. Audiences rate it 6 out of 10 on IMDb from about three thousand six hundred votes, and 6.4 out of 10 on TMDB from seventy-nine votes, close scores that suggest a modest but settled following for the sequel.