TO paraphrase the over used song employed in Disney’s latest dismal recycling of “The Shaggy Dog” – who let this dog out?

Disney’s need to keep Tim Allen on a short leash – for sequels to “The Santa Clause” and “Toy Story” – is presumably the reason the studio decided to exhume this particular undistinguished property.

“The Shaggy Dog,” which struck me as poky even as a pre-adolescent back in 1959, was Disney’s first live-action comedy. It starred Tommy Kirk as a teenager who was magically turned into a sheepdog.

Title notwithstanding, the new “Shaggy Dog” is more a remake of the 1976 sequel, “The Shaggy D.A.” (1976), which picked up the story with the same character as an adult.

This time around, Allen plays Dave, a politically ambitious L.A. prosecutor who periodically turns into a canine after he is bitten by a bearded collie.

The collie, who is 200 years old, has been kidnapped from Tibet on the orders of a mad scientist (Robert Downey Jr., wasted), who wants to develop a drug that will give its users an extended life.

Not much makes sense in the flea-bitten plot credited to eight writers, which has Dave prosecuting a science teacher who set a fire to stop the scientist from experimenting on animals.

Mostly it’s an excuse for Allen to mug like a dog – running on all fours, chasing Frisbees and sticks, growling, and letting his tongue hang out.

Most creepily, Dave lifts his leg when he relieves himself.

When Dave actually does turn into a dog – played by an actual sheepdog – Allen delivers lots of dopey voice-over dialogue.

It all ends with a chase on the freeway involving Dave and a bunch of computer-animated mutated animals.

Though the movie has a blue-chip cast – Kristin Davis of “Sex and the City” plays Dave’s wife; Zena Grey and Spencer Breslin his children; Danny Glover his boss; Philip Baker Hall is Downey’s boss; Jane Curtin a judge; and Craig Kilborn a neighbor – no one is allowed to nudge the annoying Allen out of camera range for long.

The shambling direction by Brian Robbins (“Hardball”) and cheesy special effects make for an endless 92 minutes.

Most of the kids who stuck it out at a half-empty screening the other evening seemed at least half asleep by the end.

“The Shaggy Dog” is the kind of dubious “entertainment” that is killing the idea of going out to the movies for many families.

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THE SHAGGY DOG

[*] (One star)

Call animal control.

Running time: 92 minutes. Rated PG (mild rude humor). At the E-Walk, the Village East, the Battery Park City, others.