BiblioPrincess

This movie started me on a deep research dive, because I overcome being deeply disturbed by trying to understand. And it finally made me break down and get an account. Things I learned during my google binge: This godawful abomination started as a bedtime story the director Michael Rubbo would tell his son (shades of Geostorm, anyone?). The producer Rock Demers started his production company and the "signature children's series" Tales for All as a response to learning about child suicide rates in the '80s because he wanted to "give [kids] an appetite for life, in spite of everything." Said production company/Demers is trying to make a remake: "Our goal in tackling a remake was to connect the dots between these ideas and give audiences satisfying conclusions to the unanswered questions asked in the original. What does Micheal see during the great scare? Who sends the ghostly intruders? Why does Micheal’s hair grow out of control? And most importantly, once he learns that he can paint his way into another reality, what will his quest be? As we tackled all these elements, the full potential of the story unfolded and we began looking at a tremendously powerful story of grief and the importance in believing in that we do not see." Also according to IMDB trivia "Producer Rock Demers has said when he and director Michael Rubbo began the film, their goal was to create a "gentle, frightening film." He felt the theme was "If something frightens you, find out why. In most cases you'll discover it wasn't so frightening after all." This movie was syndicated on both Canadian and US television. In Canada, because Canadian children's films were few and far between, and in the US because Disney/Eisner bought it and just...played it. All the time. Skippy peanut butter paid for product placement (what a weird message to send to consumers. Use our peanut butter and grow 6 ft long pubic hair, kids!). The best thing I found is this article by Courtney Fathom Sells. An excerpt: "I even became unable to wear striped jersey shirts to school because Michael sported one in the film and I felt almost definite that I would soon see a similar fate if I continued to mock his costume design. When I noticed one of my pals wearing such garb at church one Sunday, I prayed to God to forgive him, for he had clearly not seen The Peanut Butter Solution." Sells is a maker of short documentaries, and even made a film called The Fright about how this movie traumatized the kids who watched it. Unfortunately, I can't find the film online anywhere despite my librarian sleuthing skills. If anyone wants to reach out to Sells via his website to see if he'll re-release it, I would love to watch. Oof. What a movie.