Problem Child is a
comedic Bad Seed. Ben and Flo, a childless couple, adopt
Junior, a seven year old who is the worst kid in the world.
Junior's idol and "pen" pal is a convicted killer.
Ben, who has an overbearing wife and father, had hoped Junior
would fill a void in his life as Ben has always wanted a son.
Despite all of Ben's efforts, Junior seems to be a hopeless
cause creating one castrophe upon another. When the killer
escapes from prison, and heads straight for Junior's home, an
interesting turn of events occurs.
When "Fuzzball",
the family cat leaps at Grandpa, the cat clings to Grandpa's
face, causing him to fall down a flight of stairs with the cat
clinging to his face the whole time. This scene was shot in
cuts using a real cat and a fake one. The actor first held the
real cat in front of his face, then the fake cat was used. In
the next scene, "Fuzzball" has his legs in splints
which were actually veterinarian splints that were cut to give
the cat better control and less stress.
In one scene, Flo
tosses her cat on the sofa and the cat meows in reaction to
her roughness. The actress feigned the roughness and the meow
was added to the soundtrack in post production.
For the camping
scene, a man in a bear suit was used and edited with scenes
filmed with a docile pet bear. A variety of exotic animals are
used in the circus sequence.
Although much of the
comedy in this film is derived from situations that put
animals in jeopardy, during the actual filming no animal is
mistreated. Indeed, exceptional care was taken by the trainer,
director and film crew to assure that the animals were treated
humanely and with consideration for their comfort.
Most of the filming
was done in the Dallas, Texas area and Bobby French, a cruelty
investigator with the Dallas S.P.C.A., an affiliate of
American Humane was on the set for the animal action. To quote
Officer French, "Dennis Dugan, showed me that as long as
he is directing a movie with animals involved, there will be
no reason to fear for the animals. He is an animal lover and
would not place any in a situation that would cause them any
harm. I found nothing during the time I was on the set that I
feel was abusive or cruel treatment of the animals. I wish
that all directors, film crews and animal handlers were as
good as I found these people to be."
After taking such
extraordinary care during filming, we were dismayed when the
promotion for Problem Child began. The publicity department at
Universal Studios distributed posters nationwide showing a cat
in a dryer and a child laughing at the cat's predicament.
Similar stand-up displays for the theatre lobbies were also
distributed. Apart from the fact that no such scene was ever
filmed, and was untruthful, we felt the ad promoted animal
abuse and said so to Roger Armstrong, Vice-President of
National Publicity for Universal Studios. We had hoped that
the offensive advertising would be withdrawn. This was not
done and although Mr. Armstrong originally discussed adding
some form of disclaimer to the ad, he apparently discarded
that idea and did not return any of American Humane's
subsequent phone calls. His response to a newpaper columnist
who inquired about the misleading posters, was that they are
"in the spirit of the film". American Humane has no
authority to censor and can only deal with the actual
treatment of animal actors, but we feel that this was a major
blunder on the part of the publicists for the film.
Because the
treatment of the animals during filming was so exceptional, we
are rating Problem Child "Acceptable". If we were to
rate the promotion of this film, however, it most definitely
would be "Unacceptable".
