Problem Child

Plot

A young boy is just short of a monster. He is adopted by a loving man and his wacky wife. The laughs keep coming as the boy pushes them to the limits.

Release Year: 1990

Rating: 4.6/10 (11,818 voted)

Director:
Dennis Dugan

Stars: Michael Oliver, John Ritter, Jack Warden

Storyline
A young boy is just short of a monster. He is adopted by a loving man and his wacky wife. The laughs keep coming as the boy pushes them to the limits.

Writers: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski

Cast:

John Ritter
–

Ben

Jack Warden
–

Big Ben

Michael Oliver
–

Junior

Gilbert Gottfried
–

Mr. Peabody

Amy Yasbeck
–

Flo

Michael Richards
–

Martin Beck

Peter Jurasik
–

Roy

Charlotte Akin
–

Lorraine

Anna Marie Allred
–

Kid #3

Adam Anderly
–

Catcher

Robert A. Anderson
–

Boy in Chair

Cody Beard
–

2nd Baseman

Jordan Burton
–

Kid #1

Eli Cummins
–

Umpire

John S. Davies
–

Paramedic

Taglines:
Attila the Hun. Ivan the Terrible. Al Capone. They were all seven once.

Release Date: 27 July 1990

Filming Locations: 955 N Galloway Ave, Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Opening Weekend: $10,000,000
(USA)

Gross: $53,470,900
(USA)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

81 min

Did You Know?

Trivia:

The doll that Junior takes the bow-tie from in the orphanage is a "My Buddy" doll that is missing its striped shirt and tennis shoes. When sold in stores, the doll never originally came with a bow-tie.

Goofs:

Continuity:
During the "I wonder if he's got change for a 20" scene, Junior has far more money in his drawer than he took from Big Ben's wallet.

Quotes:

Little Ben Healy:
We're doing what everyone has been doing to him, I mean it's easy to give up on a kid.

Flo Healy:
Damn straight it is.

Little Ben Healy:
But isn't that what's wrong with the world today? Problems just don't go, Flo! So the question here is what are we going to do with our little problem child? I'll tell you what we are going to do. Something no one else has ever done to him before. We're gonna love him…
[…]

User Review

This Is Funny

Rating: 7/10

I'm not a fan of comedies but any movie that starts with a scene of
school children writing to their penpals with the following dialogue :

" Dear Queen Elizabeth . How is England ? "

" Dear Bishop Tutu . How are you ? "

" Dear bow tie serial killer . I have all your newspaper articles "

has something going for it , and the best thing about PROBLEM CHILD is
the amount of very bad taste comedy . It's almost like a Farrelly
Brothers comedy ( THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY , KINGPIN etc ) in both
feel and execution . Okay so it's a goofy movie , okay some of the
acting is poor , and okay you can see some of the jokes coming a mile
away ( Oh a bear costume . I bet a real bear will turn up within the
next five minutes ) but I watched it on TV one wet Sunday afternoon and
had a few laughs

I can't help thinking that the poor response from many forum members
might be down to the fact that this was marketed as a " family comedy "
. I can just imagine many parents renting this from the video store ,
taking it home and watching it with their cherubs only to find it
features attacks on religion and family pets . I reckon Joe Stalin
would have enjoyed this movie as much as I did