The movie is about Egyptian excavations in South Carolina, rum and fake art making in the Caribbean, a quick lesson about mushrooms and difference between gold and lead, the history of the Great Stone People, and it manages to incorporate a massacred rendition of Rigoletto. But no talking dogs.
The script was written experimentally by two people in a week-long session. When one slept, the other wrote and vice versa. Neither one knew what the other had written while he slept. Connecting editing was done by George Binkey.