HOW KIDS' BOOKS FILMS AND BOOKS HAVE CHANGED

I remember this from childhood. They must have replayed it in the 80s. It's so odd and obviously drug inspired.



It burned into my memory I guess because it was so odd.

I remember the below movie that my dad rented for us kids when we were little. REALLY weird. A boy loses his hair after a great fright (first it turns white) and ghosts come to visit him to give him "the peanut butter solution" so that he can grow it back... only he makes the solution wrong and his hair grows like crazy. A painter guy kidnaps the boy to make paintbrushes out of his hair because his hair is magical. You can walk right into the painter's paintings. You can't make this stuff up!



This is the crazy part: It says a movie for the whole family. I DISTINCTLY remember one part of the movie. The boy's friend puts "the peanut butter" solution down his pants and grows pubic hair out his pant legs. Um.... This would never fly today!

Despite the insanity and the pubic hair incident, there's something missing in today's movies for kids and dear I say even books. They're too sterile and SAFE. You can't do this and you can't do that and a parent might complain about this or that and what you end up with and not much of anything! This is why I do nonfiction. There's something in telling a real story that is unusual that still excites me. People ask me constantly why I stopped writing fiction and this is why. Everything in fiction has been done and I'd just be repeating things. I want to do something new!

But this post isn't about me. I want to talk about kids' movies and books in general. I just think thinks have changed. They're very different. For better? For worse? What do you think?