The Peanut Butter Solution

We all experienced it-things that freaked us the fuck out when we were kids. Things we didn't really grasp or understand. Things that just didn't look right in our eyes as a child or just extremely disturbing happenings whether it be in a film or video game or t.v. show or what have you... and The Peanut Butter Solution seems to be the grand champion of childhood trauma. I have been scouring the internet for the better part of 3 or 4 years now trying to find a damn full, un-cut posting of this somewhere so I could experience it for myself, and pinpoint where all of these bizarre and twisted childhood memories were coming from. Not from yours truly, but from everyone else because I never had the horrific pleasure of watching this when I was 10 years old. Nope. I was to busy being emotionally damaged by the likes of the hell scene in All Dogs go to Heaven or the really fucked up clown scene in The Brave Little Toaster. That was (and still kind of is) my childhood damage I need to repair. But a lot of other adults in my generation have been really just hurt and bent by The Peanut Butter Solution. It was a quest that I had to embark upon because a kids movie that messed up that many people has to be seen.

And now that my search is over, all I have to say is "what the hell did I just watch"?! Ok, so... Michael and his friend Connie are screwing around on their way to school, they find the house that burned down the night before, Michael climbs in, gets frightened by something and loses all of his hair. Sounds stupid, right? Well, it gets much, MUCH more fucked up as it progresses. The only other details I'm going to displace here (in case you haven't seen it) is that after that happens, the rest of the movie entails kids getting kidnapped by a weirdo art teacher that calls himself The Signor, and he forces the children to wear orange prison-jumpsuit type outfits and make paint brushes for him to sell. Connie also puts a bunch of the peanut butter solution on his nuts and has pubes that grow so damn long and thick that the hair flows out of the bottom of his pants. Michael's hair gets so fucking long that it becomes a distraction in school and is kicked out because of it. There is much more out of context, awkward happenings to absorb in this film that would just take to long to talk about, but all I can say is even as an adult, this movie was just wrong and disturbing. I can't believe that this was made for children. I just can't. 

Your sister looks like a wretch, kid.

"Pizza face!"

The Asian kid eats the grapes.

Who cares about the ants, just step on them!

"Don't use your imagination!" You're an art teacher, teaching art to kids, and they're not supposed to use their imagination?! You sir are fired!

A mountain of trash makes children act brash.

I hate cats too.

   Michael is as bald as Sinead O'Connor!

How does a kid lose all of his hair from getting the shit scared out of him anyhow?

Bananas, eggs, soil, peanut butter... sounds like a disgusting concoction that could rival any application of Hair Club For Men's formulas.

      Ah, the sensational smell of crackers, eggs and purely voracious disappointment.

 I'm not going to say anything else about what happens in the film, but I do want to touch on the music briefly. The score for The Peanut Butter Solution is filled with candied, jellied, warbled keyboard synth riffs to ease anyone's twinge for weird, fever-dream music. After all of this time trying to dig up this kiddie-damage corpse, someone on Youtube finally posted the entire movie un-cut. And this is another one of those treasures that never made it past the VHS era. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, but in some really messed up way I'm glad it's there to ease everyone's pain as to whether or not they were dreaming what happened in the movie or not. Even being all grown up, the idea of smearing peanut butter on your bald head to grow your hair back is absurd, but so is having pubes so long they billow out of the bottom cuffs of your jeans. Jesus Christ. I'm not eating pb & j's for a while.