Camp Latchkey: Midnight Madness!

When Disney tried to become more 'hip' and 'edgy', it decided to release Midnight Madness. Too 'hip' for Disney's normal audience but not 'edgy' enough for its target audience, the film quickly failed at the box office, its only claim to fame being that it featured a young Michael J. Fox.

Enter HBO. Not known for being family-friendly, it made a deal with Walt Disney Productions to air some of its late 70's, early 1980's live action films. One of which was Midnight Madness. The film was in heavy rotation during those long summer days when HBO would try to cater to all the kids spending their days at "Camp Latchkey". The overlooked film quickly gained a cult following- and a generation of fans.

Camp Latchkey: Clue- The Movie

 

It was a box office disappointment. Clue seemed to confuse audiences and critics alike, both of whom doubted that a film based on a board game and with the gimmick of different endings could possibly be good. Despite being packed with a talented cast, the film fell by the wayside in the mid 1980's.

Rather than carry on the conceit of different endings for home video, Paramount combined the three endings (which required purchasing three different tickets to watch in theaters) by suggesting that the first two were possibly how things happened, but that the third one was the truth. Unleashed on the video market, the film began to take off, in particular with the attendees of "Camp Latchkey" who would wear out VHS copies of the film and catch it every time it aired on basic cable. Cable channels found the film to be a nice mix of adult seeming situations that were mostly family friendly, so it was placed into heavy rotation. The film built up a huge audience.

 

So what made the film a favorite at Camp Latchkey? It is undeniably repeatable and extremely quotable. Plus, what kid wouldn't want to be in a huge mansion, solving a mystery? Clue might not have set the world on fire at first, but it has certainly made up for lost time over the last thirty years, building a huge cult of fans who have embraced the screwball film.

Camp Latchkey: Midnight Madness

 

While kids on TV and movies (and possibly rich kids) spent their summers at summer camp, middle class kids often went to "Camp Latchkey" which took place in their very own living rooms! Don't open the door for anyone and NEVER use the stove or oven!

One of the activities at "Camp Latchkey" was movie time, which was often reliant on whatever the television programmers chose to air. Through much of the 1980's, it was HBO's programmers who would influence an entire generation's viewing habits. One film that would fail at the box office but gain a cult following through repeated viewings was Midnight Madness.

 

Midnight Madness was a Disney film, but due to its more risqué nature, the Disney name had been stripped from the film by jittery executives. Rather than the Animal House style film that Disney Studios thought it had, however, the film's risqué elements were so mild that the movie feels like the cinematic version of a youth pastor who thinks he's 'hip' and 'with it' because he uses curse words like 'dang' and 'heck'. 

The film is about an all night trivia game that takes its participants on a madcap journey around Southern California. Led by a skeevy 'game master' who inexplicably attracts the buxom duo of Candy and Sunshine to do his bidding, the various teams must compete against each other solely for the honor of being declared the winner. The film had all the elements that Camp Latchkey's campers would find appealing- young people who freely went on an overnight adventure, challenging the rules that dictated they stay safely at home and asleep, attractive ladies who would provide many a pre-teen boy his first crush and the feature film debut of a 1980's superstar who would find mega fame by the time the film went into heavy rotation on HBO- Michael J. Fox.

 

Years later the rise of the internet would make Camp Latchkey alumni realize that they weren't alone in their love of the film and Disney would eventually embrace the film, placing its name back on the print in its DVD release.