You probably thought you were "the shiznitz" when you were a kid. But truth be told, you weren't, and you don't even have to go digging around for old photographs to prove it. For example, remember all those
awesome movies you loved as a child? Yeah, most of them sucked. With that in mind, we thought we'd look back at some of our most embarrassing
childhood faves. Prepare yourself, because it ain't pretty.
This film is excellent proof that movies based on real-life toys will always be terrible. When My Pet Monster first came out, Snyder the villain seemed like one of the most talented actors our tiny child eyes had ever seen. Now we know he's just a guy who did a few episodes of "Maniac Mansion." Oh, he was also in Tommy Boy.
Now that we're all adults, this movie sends out a big flashing Emilio Estevez Red Alert. But as children, that alert was missing, so we didn't know any better. Although this scene, in which kids mistake a guy in a limo for a common drug dealer (in the middle of small town Minnesota) should have been enough to tip us off about this movie sucking.
Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls, 1995
In case you were wondering why Jim Carrey will never win an Oscar, this movie is the reason why. Sadly, it is no exaggeration to claim that this scene is the best in the film. At least the first Ace Ventura had some great laughs.
One of those terrible 'kids can think of the smartest booby traps and totally beat grownups in a fight' movies inspired by Home Alone, with the added "bonus" of ninjitsu. Thanks, John Hughes. You've got a lot to answer for when you meet your maker. Oh, wait, you already have. Sorry about that. (Too soon?)
Peanut Butter Solution, 1985
Not everyone watched this movie as a child, but those who did will be haunted forever. It's about a kid who is so frightened by the ghosts of homeless people who died in a fire that he loses all of his hair. Luckily, the ghosts appear to him in a dream and give him a magical peanut butter solution that will make it grow back. Unfortunately, the kid makes it wrong, and his hair won't stop growing (oh, and his friend puts it on his crotch and grows the world's biggest bush in about 5 seconds). Then, the long-haired kid is kidnapped and other kidnapped children are forced to make magical paint brushes out of his really gross hair. Yes, none of it makes any sense, and it also doesn't help that the acting is really terrible.
For all the hipster appeal this movie has (Old Nintendos! Jenny Lewis!), it's still impossible to hide the fact that it's really, really bad. It's pretty much a gigantic advertisement for Nintendo with a bad plot and terrible writing (kind of like that movie Hip Hop). For example, here's an action-packed scene where we get to watch the bad guy pretend to steer a car via his Power Glove (courtesy of some dude on YouTube who thought it would be really awesome to Photoshop himself standing on top of a GameCube).
Did you forget what the early 90's were all about? If so, the trailer for Surf Ninjas pretty much encapsulates everything that was so very wrong with that period of time. For example, a movie that could star Tone Loc and Rob Schneider. What in the hell were people thinking back then.
For some reason kids love hyperactive and totally annoying characters that make adults close their eyes and imagine what their own brains would look like splattered on the wall behind the couch. This is probably the only thing that can explain Howie Mandel's burst of popularity before he was relegated to "Deal or No Deal." That, and maybe cocaine.
It's not often in a chlidren's movie that you get to see a kid in a wheelchair launched off a cliff. However, the production quality of this movie was so freaking awful that there are several shots of the wheelchair zipping down the hillside despite the fact that the wheels aren't even moving. Really, this is just so fundamentally wrong on so many different levels.
Also from the Howie Mandel handbook: the old "raised by wolves" trick. Typically not fodder for comedy, but hey, this movie isn't actually very funny once you're over the age of 10, so there you go. But in all fairness, it might be at least as funny as an episode of "Howie Do It?" Ugh, there is no god.
Apparently in the 80's showing a scene from a racing game in a children's movie was supposed to be really intense and action-packed. The conversation the writers had probably went something like this:
Writer 1: "We need something like a chase scene."
Writer 2: "Right, but kids can't drive."
Writer 1: "But, they can play video games...are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Writer 2: "I think so -- we should just go kill ourselves right now."
Ernest Goes to Camp is a classic. And we still might watch Ernest Saves Christmas or Ernest Scared Stupid and not tell anyone about it. But magic shoes? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? Do you see that ball in Ernest's hand? That's the Ernest franchise and the hoop is the toilet.
Even though Fred Savage (who pops up for a third time on this list) is pretty awesome as a pissed-off, pint-sized curmudgeon, at this point in history it really was kind of hard to imagine that Judge Reinhold wasn't actually an 18-year old boy pretending to be a grown up. Plus the music in this scene sounds like the stuff that came out of those cheap plastic toy guitars everybody used to get for Christmas. Well, everybody but the poor kids, I suppose.
This movie is dumb as hell, and, much like Xanadu, we got sucked into watching as children because there's lots of rollerskating. For example, guess what happens when the evil woman from Superman II shows up to say she's invented a robot that gets pleasure from causing others pain? If you guessed "it kills a guy by scratching his nose pretty bad," you were right!
Anything with Pauly Shore
Dear Parents of the world; we are all so very, very sorry for making you watch Jury Duty 34 times. To make up for it, we'll foot the bill for your nursing home stay. It's the least we can do. We're not paying for meals, though, since it was your idea to go to most of these movies in the first place.
