Ben takes to Junior immediately, even though the boy continues his rampage-setting fire to his bedroom, Ultrapatriotic sporting-goods retailer, Big Ben has secretly sold out to the Japanese so he can run an 'America First' campaign for mayor of his appropriately named hometown, Cold River. A sad-sack slug, Ben is browbeaten by both his battle-ax wife and his monstrous father, Big Ben (Jack Warden). Killer.' Emulating his hero, Junior begins wearing a bow tie, which makes him deceptively appealing to Ben and Flo (John Ritter and Amy Yasbeck), a childless suburban couple. There, Junior's 'antics' range from throwing his food and swinging a nun by a rope outside the window to striking up a pen-pal correspondence with serial killer Martin Beck (Michael Richards), the 'Bow Tie Sadly, the movie does not) with Junior being dumped in an orphanage run by draconian nuns. The reason for the lad's continual relocation becomes apparent when Junior, left at a mansion by his mother, promptly urinates in the face of his wealthy new 'foster' mother. Is shuttled from doorstep to doorstep, steadily working his way down the social ladder. Michael Oliver stars as Junior, an orphan who, as the movie starts,

However, PROBLEM CHILD, Hollywood's attempt to re-enact THE BAD SEED for laughs, proved that no mere standup comic or series TV star-cartoon or human-could hope to match the crassness of a major-studio feature. Ed O'Neill won rating points for 'Married with Children' by scratching his crotch, Andrew Dice Clay and Roseanne Barr got plenty of media attention for grabbing theirs, and Bart Simpson T-shirts When it comes to comedy, 1990 will go down in history as the year of the ill-mannered slob.

Michael oliver problem child