Adventures in Babysitting

Adventures in Babysitting

1987

Director: Christopher Columbus

Writer: David Simkins and Elizabeth Faucher

102 Minutes

Adventures in Babysitting gave hope to every single girl out there waiting for a guy to ask her to dance.

At least, that was the case in Chris Parker’s (Elisabeth Shue) life. But sadly, her “so cool” boyfriend stands her up and she is force to babysit the Anderson children, Brad (Keith Coogan) and Sara (Maia Brewton). As straw dog Daryl Coopersmith (Anthony Rapp) enters the group, Chris gets a call from her friend Brenda (Penelope Ann miller) who ran away from home to a Greyhound bus station in downtown Chicago.

Road Trip.

Should be an easy excursion, yet turns into an adventure in babysitting because of this:

Chris’s car gets a flat tire without a spare. A tow truck pulls up. A hook-handed mechanic picks them up. The hook-handed mechanic gets a radio call about his wife cheating him on. Detour. Chris’s car gets a bullet through the windshield. Chris and the kids get into a random car, which is being stolen. They go to a chop shop. Playboy. They escape the chop shop. Babysitting Blues. They get onto the subway. Gang fight where Brad gets stabbed. Hospital. See hook-handed mechanic. Window okay, need 50 bucks. Go to a frat party at the University of Chicago. Chris meets the guy wanting to ask her to dance. Get 45 bucks. To the auto shop. Thor. Get the car. See Chris’s “so cool” boyfriend at expensive restaurant. Sara runs off. Office building. Parents. Escape without Playboy. Eventually, Chris picks up Brenda.

“You wouldn’t believe the night I had,” exclaims Brenda.

That sums up the entire movie, except for Daryl’s interaction with the 17-year old hooker than ran away from home and as Daryl explains, “you wouldn’t believe what that girl would do for 20 bucks.”

In the opening scene above, Chris dances to the Crystal’s song Then He Kissed Me. The lyrics are fitting about a guy asking a girl to dance, then kissing her, then meeting his parents, and then marriage all starting when he kissed her.

It’s the American Dream for most teenage girls.

More so, this scene relates to anyone who has danced around the room, gazing at themselves in front of the mirror. This scene gets you on board with Chris. You like her. You relate to her. You want to be her. And then she gets dumped. All these things need to happen for you to like her because all she wanted to do with find a guy to ask her to dance.

Who knew she would find it at a frat party at the University Chicago after being accused of posing for Playboy.

Side note: Elisabeth Shue was in Playboy Magizine - November 2005, Vol. 52, Iss. 11, pg. 26, by: n/a, "Tease Frame: Elisabeth Shue"

But, Chris gets what she wants. And all ends well.

Adventures in Babysitting is a fun movie. If the movie were simply about Brenda learning about the do's and don'ts of the Greyhound bus station in downtown Chicago, it would have been cute. But, it’s so much more. It’s about four kids running around the streets of Chicago getting into unwanted mischief and mayhem before having to beat their parents’ home on the Eisenhower expressway.

But remember…no one leaves this place without singing the blues.