It doesn’t get more 1991 than this.
By the time the nineties rolled around, we 80s latchkey kids were growing up and corporate America was heading for a full-fledged yuppie burnout. So as a product of perfect timing, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead takes aim at the big Gen X fantasies: no parents, no rules, no plans and an endless junk food budget – and forces them headfirst into the cold, cruel reality of the then-boomer-dominated job market.
But not to worry, the teens learn a valuable lesson about responsibility.
Keith Coogan literally learns in a week what I’m still struggling with 35 years into thankless adulthood.
DTMTBD is middle finger at the idea of job qualifications, and it tells us that sometimes, just sounding like you know what you’re doing is enough to survive a high stakes job. Fake it ’til you make it. That’s a takeaway that’s served me well.
It’s a perfect time capsule of the early 90s when we slackers thought we could show the establishment a thing or two if we just had the chance. Or the ambition.
In life, Mamma Celeste always lands face down.
Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead arrived on Home Video today in 1992, after a June 7th, 1991 theatrical release.