Dennis the Menace

MOVIE TITLE: Dennis the Menace
DIRECTOR: Nick Castle
YEAR: 1993
GENRE: Family Comedy
RATING: PG for mild violence
GRADE: Pass


Dennis Mitchell is a five-year-old boy known in his neighborhood for being a troublemaker and a prankster, hence why nobody wants to babysit him, especially not his grumpy next door neighbor George Wilson. When Dennis’ parents take a business trip and need someone to look after the little guy, George becomes their last resort. Without even trying, Dennis annoys the piss out of his caretaker in a series of gags that ultimately become the source of the movie’s funniest moments. Try as they might to have fun and play free, the children of Dennis’ neighborhood become fearful of a career criminal named Switchblade Sam, a nasty burglar who’s good at what he does.

I first saw this movie in the year it came out, which would have made me an eight-year-old going to school in the third grade. At that age, the slapstick moments would keep me amused for a long time, possibly well into my teenage years. Examples of these hilarious moments would be George pressing his thumb against a doorbell with a thumbtack taped to it, getting shot in the balls with a shop vacuum, and getting an Aspirin fired down his throat by Dennis and his slingshot. The cries of agony George lets out were very satisfying to my sadistic nature. It felt so good not to have empathy for those in slapstick situations.

My favorite moment of physical comedy would have to be when George uses the bathroom after Dennis was done bathing. The wet floor causes the old man to slip and do the splits while tearing a hole in his pajama crotch. Once he recovers, he tries to use mouthwash only to find out it had toilet cleanser in it. And then he uses a nasal spray bottle that actually had the missing mouthwash in it. Oh, the screams of pain and how they made me scream in pain myself as I held my ribs and back from laughing so hard. I actually had to have my parents explain to me that putting toilet cleanser in someone’s mouthwash could kill the person using it. I would have laughed anyways if George Wilson got poisoned. The howls of pain would have been worth him being rushed to the ER.

Now that I’m a grown man (sort of), I’m looking at this movie from an analytical point of view. Everything is there that should be from George Wilson’s believable change in alignment to the low point before that to the triumphant return of Dennis Mitchell and his newly earned status as the neighborhood hero. But now that I think about it, the scene near the end where Switchblade Sam kidnaps Dennis and takes him underneath a railroad bridge strikes me as a little creepy. The burglar has horrible dental and physical hygiene, stringy and dirty long hair that forms a horseshoe around his head, and he’s a demented sociopath. If this wasn’t a PG-rated movie, Switchblade Sam would come across to adults as a perverted pedophile looking for a sex slave. Maybe that’s what Roger Ebert meant when he says everything about Dennis the Menace was great except for the psychotic burglar. At least now Mr. Ebert can rest in peace knowing that creepy visual is no longer in his head. Goddamn, I need a shower.

Despite the creepy overtones of Christopher Lloyd’s Switchblade Sam character, I give this movie a passing grade because it gave me a great deal of entertainment when I needed it the most. I loved this movie as a kid and it’s one of the reasons I had a happy childhood to begin with. If only that movie could have been there for me during my college days when I was depressed and bored all the time. Instead all I had back then was The Brave Little Toaster, which has themes of abandonment and terror. What a life I’ve lead.

　

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

GEORGE: Was Dennis in our bathroom tonight?
MARTHA: Yes. Why?
GEORGE: I think the little rat put mouthwash in my nasal spray and toilet cleanser in my mouthwash.
MARTHA: Why would he do something like that?
GEORGE: Must you ask?

-Dennis the Menace-