Kidco (1984) Reviews

• Entertaining fantasy

  biker4512001-10-11

  This is one that I wish I could have seen as a child. As an adult I know just too much of the realities of business to believe everything in the story. But, it was simple enough to toss aside my adulthood and step into my childhood for a while and see the fantasy of this story. The Cessna children are always hatching schemes to make money, mostly ones that are on left side of legal, but this time they come up with an apparently legal means to fill the bank account. Their father manages a horse ranch and they start mixing the manure with hay to make fertilizer and sell it to, first a golf course, and later other businesses. They do quite well until their competition sics the regulatory agencies and the tax man on them. The acting isn't always the best, but that only would make it more real for children. I liked this movie, and I suspect that children would also. After all, I don't think its target audience was anyone over the teen years, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was enjoyable to this adult.

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• Pretty watchable movie

  matrix292008-10-03

  KIDCO is a very watchable movie about children creating a Fertilizer Distribution Business, resulting in these children being sued by a rival Fertilizer Salesman (the character of Orville Peterjohn) who once held local dominance in town. Orville Peterjohn, angry at losing his monopoly on his Fertilizer Sales business decides to sue KIDCO under a variety of corporate regulations, state requirements for submitting documentation to the variety of agencies as well as failure to pay sales tax. The courtroom drama being precisely a strong Conservative message (without dipping into hysterical rants) about how there are too many forms to submit for approval in the basic creation of a new business entity. The movie plays out with some tiny "twist surprises" in the courtroom scene, but at no time drives off into insultingly stupid territory or insults the children as human beings or insults the legal system (as it is) despite having the courts becoming "the tool of oppression" working on the behest of the character of Orville Peterjohn. The children here are wonderfully sane, rational, logical, emotionally normal, and very human. The courts, family, and townspeople all remain believable human beings and not grotesque insane idiotic parodies of human beings as is so common in "children's entertainment" these days. The movie moves through the story at an enjoyable energetic pace and did not bore me as a viewer. There are no explosions or cartoon characters or "zany sound effects" or digital animation, just regular human people of a normal intelligence level sanely seeking to better themselves and their families with creative wit and enduring the challenges of a short realistic courtroom drama about defending their interests from the tyranny of a business rival. My summation is that this movie is wonderfully not insulting to the intelligence of the children or the adults viewing this movie. If your children are vapid overstimulated psychotic idiots, then you should take them to go see "The Bee Movie". If you want better for your children and your children want a better life for themselves, then get them a copy of this movie. ======== KIDCO did have a few minor audio editing problems (no audible audio distortion or distracting unnatural audio noises, just a bit more editing was needed to lessen standard human audio of feet shuffling bodies as they flump into a sitting position on chairs and so on). The movie was professionally lit and framed to best set the proper mood for the movie in a natural manner. The acting was exceptional for a movie for children and the script, although only simplistic at points to not drag the movie into tedium. Ron Rifkin provides a very comprehensive (and handsomely bearded) performance as the lawyer for the plaintiff.

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• A Diamond in the Rough (Many Spoilers)

  ColeSear2003-02-02

  Kidco is another one of those fantastical films of the 80s with a grounded theme. It was written by Bennett Tramer who went on to create probably the most famous television show that's "So Bad It's Good," called Saved by the Bell. This film tells the story of Dickie Cessna, played aptly by Scott Schwartz. We start off watching his Keno scheme at school which is busted by the principal. He's the quintessential 80s hero; anything for a buck but he's the little guy because who's gonna come after him? The crummy feds of course, to paraphrase Dickie. We first meet with these agents when they come to inspect his father's ranch because the board of taxation needs to appraise his assets. First, Dickie gives them bad directions and then when they arrive his sister's lead them to the barn where they supposedly live and put on this act of misery. Dickie's father tells him he has to stop running scams in school so he takes him up on the loophole. Yet then he stumbles on to a legitimate business opportunity when he sees they throw away piles and piles of manure everyday and all the local companies are complaining that Orville Peterjohn, the town tycoon, is charging them an arm and a leg for fertilizer. They are then charged with not paying sales tax, not having a seller's permit and not listing the contents of the product. Not only are they brought to trial but Dickie and Betty Cessna decide to defend themselves. This provides for some of the most hysterical moments in this film. At one point Dickie decides he needs to deliver a speech to state his case and says in closing 'The United States could've been the greatest country in the world but they had to go and bust Kidco.' This is also a film that deals heavily with the fundamental differences between children and adults and Dickie says "Youth is wasted on the young. Children should be seen and not heard. Your honor, if we believed in cruddy old sayings like that Kidco wouldn't have made a cent." While Dickie's vocabulary is lacking he is always brutally honest and has no problems insulting a lawyer which is always fun to watch and what this film has which I think is great is a triumphant defeat. They get out of the sales tax because their father has already paid sales tax on the hay and oats the horses ate that became the manure. It's a great moment because you see it coming and Dickie says "Your honor we're getting taxed at both ends!" The judge under heavy media and political scrutiny to be easy on the kids quickly dismisses the charges. Then the prosecutor reminds him the other charges still stand before the court. There is a plea bargain struck because there's really no way they'll be absolved. They'll be given a special seller's permit and must pay practically all their profit's worth in fines. The triumphantly they walk outside. There is a gathering of thousands of kids and Dickie gets up before them and starts talking riling them up. Neil, a cub reporter who's been helping them out give him a box full of orders for Kidco T-Shirts then Dickie grabs a bullhorn and says: "And we wanna tell you, you just made us enough dough to pay our fine…and buy supper for ever kid in San Diego! Maybe now those bozos will pick on someone their own size" then he announces plans for a new shirt with his picture on it. And the kids chant 'Kid-co, Kid-co, Kid-co.' Some of the details in this film are really what make it work instead of baseball pennants over his bed Dickie has Pennants of Ford, Standard Oil and General Motors. And at the very end there are protest signs that read: 'In Kids We Trust,' 'Peter Pan Lives," "Children's Coalition," "Kids Liberation" "Suffrage for Kids" and "Equal Rights for Kids." These signs are fantastic. The whole tone of the movie is perfect. In many films made in the United States children are given little or no respect as people they are portrayed as stupid, whiney, troublemakers. Few and far between are the films that treat them with any respect. This film screeches for and demands that respect. Not only that but it's a great portrayal of big business in the 80s where kids were also looking for money and identifying themselves with corporations. Kidco might be a strange and unusual little film but it is most definitely funny and it is definitely a film of the 80s,a nd I think it's great.

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• Good comedy! Great fun for whole family!

  cday572007-02-16

  When this first came out on premium movie channels - our whole family watched it every time it was on. Then we taped it on a VHS tape. Took a couple of trips to Callifornia from Illinois (driving the whole way) had a VHS player and small color TV that would run off car battery and selected movies for kids to watch in transit to keep them occupied and also for us 2 grownups to watch and relax when we'd stop and have our meals/breaks. That was one of the movies taken on those trips and we eventually wore it out because we watched it so much! I wish that Kidco would come out on DVD so I can get a copy for myself and for each of my kids (4) so they can sit and enjoy it with their families like we did. While the acting may not be up to some peoples standards, the message that the movie gets across is great for kids, parents (even parents-to-be!) - the whole family unit. IF you can find it - enjoy and be prepared to laugh!

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• Of course I liked it; I was in it.

  voumeguy2006-03-15

  While I was in first grade at Thornydale Elementary, in Tucson, AZ., the crew from Kidco did a presentation at our school's assembly hall asking for extras. I took the "permission slip" home to my parents and begged them to let me be in the movie. They signed the forms, and we went to a large casting call. I call it a casting call because I don't know what else to call it. I didn't get in the movie, but some of my friends were in the courthouse scene. We all received Kidco t-shirts and felt like we were movie stars (even though most of us were not in the picture.)Looking back, nearly twenty-five years later, this was a fun and interesting event in my life. I saw the film again in the mid-nineties, and enjoyed it. It has some of the same moral thematics as "The Goonies," but presents them in a less fantastic way--or does it?

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