Adventures In Babysitting

About Adventures In Babysitting

Adventures in Babysitting is a 1987 comedy film written by David Simkins, directed by Chris Columbus, and starring Elisabeth Shue, Bradley Whitford, Maia Brewton, Anthony Rapp, Penelope Ann Miller, Keith Coogan, and a brief cameo by blues singer/guitarist Albert Collins. Although it is set in Oak Park and Chicago, Illinois, with much of the action taking place in the city itself, the movie was filmed primarily in Toronto.

Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue), a high school senior, agrees to babysit Sara Anderson (Maia Brewton) after her boyfriend Mike Toddwell (Bradley Whitford) cancels their anniversary date. Sara's older brother Brad (Keith Coogan), who has a crush on Chris, decides to stay home and hang around. When Chris' friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller) calls from a Chicago bus station, having made a failed attempt to run away from her family, Chris reluctantly takes Sara, Brad, and Brad's sex-obsessed best friend Daryl Coopersmith (Anthony Rapp) from their safe suburban surroundings into the city to rescue her. A flat tire on the highway with no spare and Chris' realization that she has failed to bring her purse launches the group into a series of unlikely predicaments, including detainment by a car theft ring (from which Daryl steals a Playboy magazine filled with incriminating notes), pursuit by the criminals, a blues club where they're forced (by Albert Collins) to sing of their ordeal before leaving, a gang fight on a train which leaves Brad slightly injured (as well as a moment at a hospital where the others are briefly led to believe Brad is dead), and a final incident with their pursuers on the Smurfit-Stone Building in Chicago.

This was the first PG-13 rated film released by a Disney film division and was released as A Night on the Town in the United Kingdom. In the scene in the bus station with Brenda, the actor who portrayed the hot dog salesman originally improvised his line as "then I don't have a fucking weiner!" Columbus loved the line, but executives at Disney wanted to keep the picture more family-friendly so the line was removed (although, ironically, the word "fuck" is used twice in the final cut). This scene was added to stretch out the bus station segments. It was not in the original script.