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Twenty-five years ago, “Best in Show” taught audiences how to endlessly recite the names of nuts and how to drive your dog crazy over a stuffed bee toy.

The 2000 mockumentary directed by Christopher Guest portrayed a highly eccentric world of show dog owners at the fictional Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show, set in Philadelphia. Last summer, Guest and many of the other performers in the film reunited for an anniversary screening at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

The movie had a ripple effect through the real-life dog show world. Dog owners learned to embrace the mockery, and it spawned a real-life Philly dog show, the National Dog Show, to be staged in Oaks, Pennsylvania, this weekend for its 24th year.

Back in 2000, NBC television executive Jon Miller was taken by the movie and believed a dog show would make for entertaining television. He convinced one of the nation’s oldest dog clubs, the Philadelphia Kennel Club, to rename its event the National Dog Show and make it camera-ready. Every year, the show takes place in early November and is taped for broadcast on Thanksgiving Day.

“That first year we had 9 million people watch our show,” said David Frei, who has been an announcer on the National Dog Show since it started. “Now we’ve grown over the years. We have 25 million people watching our show every Thanksgiving Day.”

Frei said the National Dog Show does not stray far from its roots.

“‘Best in Show’ did not make fun of the dogs. They made fun of the people. We’re a target-rich environment,” he said. “I know all those people in that movie. I know those characters. I’ve been the guy who couldn’t get the Busy Bee to the dog show and got in trouble for it.”

The National Dog Show is unique in the world of dog shows as the only single-venue benched shows, meaning dogs in competition remain on-site all day, typically confined to grooming areas that are categorized by breed.

The benched aspect encourages audience members to visit the dogs and their owners at their leisure. Frei said that allows people to meet breeds they may consider adopting and talk to their owners, or simply get up close and personal with the furry stars.

“They get to get up and pet the competitors, hug the competitors,” he said. “You can’t do that at an Eagles game. You’re not going to hug Jalen Hurts. You get to do it at the dog show.”

The National Dog Show is often the first local presentation of dog breeds that have been newly recognized by the American Kennel Club. This year, the show will feature the Danish-Swedish Farmdog. At about 20 pounds, they are the smallest breed in the working dog category, often used on farms to hunt vermin. They are characterized as being energetic and affectionate.

Marty Greer breeds Danish-Swedish Farmdogs in Lomira, Wisconsin, bringing 15 to Philadelphia to enter the competition. She said a lot of people have never heard of it.

“A lot of them think it looks like a Jack Russell Terrier or a squirrel dog,” she said. “There’s a lot of misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, in these early days of being in the AKC. But the breed is from the 1700s. They even found dogs of this type that came over with the Vikings.”

Much like the movie “Best in Show,” last year’s best in show at the National Dog Show was a surprise: a pug named Vito, the first time that breed took the top prize in Philly. This year about 2,000 dogs will enter the competition, representing more than 200 breeds.