daveselove In some 50 years of movie watching this fits into my short list of classics. Warm-hearted, well acted, and with Knotts and Conway contributing some of the most hilarious scenes ever recorded. Without Knotts and Conway it would have been a pleasant but forgettable movie; they were a genius pairing. Unfortunately the sequel "Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again" released 4 years later wasn't as good and didn't do as well. I think I read that Apple Dumpling Gang was Disney's most profitable movie of the 1970's.

victoria333 I mean, it isn't the best cinematic experience out there, but so what? I probably had not seen this in twenty years and had only vague memories of Don Knotts 'hanging' around the bank with Tim Conway. This movie is really sweet and cute and fun to watch. You can see the way Disney used to make movies for children...the sets, the costumes, the character actors, the dialogue...even the music are all kid-friendly.There aren't that many modern movies from Disney that I would let children see, but I can almost always trust the ones made before 1984 (basically a legal decision happened in that year that allowed corporate infiltration into the creative process...1984 is pretty much the year that the USA started to really go downhill as far as business ethics in the movie industry as well as other big corporations targeting children as cash cows). Apple Dumpling Gang wasn't meant to be a huge blockbuster success with corporate sponsorship and marketing agendas, it is a film made by a company who knew and loved kids and made movies to entertain them and their parents at the same time. It is full of nostalgia.I highly recommend it for everyone!!! Oh, and Don Knotts, Tim Conway, and Bill Bixby are comic geniuses!!! It's definitely worth a rental to check it out for yourself, it sure couldn't hurt and you may be very pleasantly surprised. :)

jwrowe3 As it goes with most 70's Disney fare, this is an acceptable family movie. Most of their live action flicks of this period are best described as "hit or miss". Where, say, that "Pete's Dragon" is a "MISS", "Apple Dumpling Gang", is a solid "HIT". One wonders where Disney's creative minds were in this period, as some of the films of this period are just a little "off". As in seeming "out of date", and "stale". I guess they were all working on getting Disney World, and EPCOT off the ground in Florida, and gearing up for the much anticipated animated movie "The Black Cauldron". I have a book about Disney, that a relative got for me in 1975, that goes into a good amount of detail on that movie, even though it would be a decade(!) before it was released. "TADG" has just the right amount of excitement, comedy, cute kids, and bumbling to be watchable by almost anyone. Bill Bixby does a good job as the lead, and Susan Clark is quite watchable. The kids are not as "whiney" as most live action Disney kids, and David Wayne and Harry Morgan are most welcome. And then there's Don Knotts and Tim Conway! I usually get tired of "the bumbling duo" act, but there is just the right amount of screen time for them, to not become annoying.I'd suggest this to any parent who has to sit and watch along with the wee ones. I usually grab a magazine to read, but I found myself actually enjoying this warm hearted film.Miss some of the stinkers like "Pete's Dragon"(I hate that kid!), and enjoy this kind hearted little movie from Disney.

LeRoyMarko Typical Disney movie from the 70's. Same kind of predictable story, bad acting and poor everything else. Lots of ooohhhh and aaahhhh when we get to see the cute little children but you quickly go the yawning and the watch checking. To see Bill Bixby's character go around the town to find a family for the three kids that he accepted to look after for a while, you wish that he would have found somebody to take care of them. The story would have been finish and we would have saved about 75 minutes of our time. But even if he's better then a salesmen selling candles or vacuums from door to door, he's stuck with the kids anyhow. Too bad for us!From there, the story is so predictable that at the end, you'll ask yourself where you got the courage to sat through the entire movie.Of course, when criticizing a movie, you try to be as impartial as possible. But I don't think I would have like this movie even when it came out in 1975. Maybe if I would have been 5 years old at the time and even then.Don Knotts and Tim Conway's characters (Theodore & Amos) are not funny at all. In fact, Knotts and Conway gave two abysmal performances in this one. The scene with the ladder is not funny and way too long.Skip this one, by all mean.I gave it 59 out of 100. That's * out of a four stars rating system.