The Peanut Butter Solution

Did You Know?

• The original working title of the film was Michael's Fright.
• This film features the first English-language songs performed by Céline Dion (Listen to the Magic Man and Michael's Song).
• Skippy peanut butter paid for prominent product placement in the film.

Plot

Michael Baskin, an 11-year-old boy, lives with his father Billy Baskin, a struggling artist temporarily caring for the children while his wife is in Australia handling her deceased father's estate. After hearing that an abandoned mansion has burned down, Michael and his friend Connie explore the ruins. Connie dares Michael to look inside, where he has a frightening encounter with the ghosts of homeless people who died in the fire. This encounter gives Michael a mysterious illness called "The Fright," causing him to lose his hair. The ghosts visit him in his sleep and give him a magical hair-growth formula whose main ingredient is peanut butter. Michael's first attempt to make the formula is thrown away by his father and sister. The ghosts return, giving him a second chance and warning him not to add too much peanut butter. Michael ignores the warning and wakes up with hair that grows super fast. Connie confronts Michael, learns about the concoction, and applies some to his pubic area to fake puberty, but the joke backfires. Their hair grows so long it becomes a nuisance at school, leading to suspensions. Michael searches for a solution, and Connie discovers that yelling at the hair stops its growth.

Home media

The Peanut Butter Solution has seen multiple home video releases. In the USA, it was released only on VHS through New World Video, Anchor Bay, and Starmaker Entertainment. In Canada, a DVD box set with five other Tales for All films was released in 2006, and another box set with every Tales for All movie came out in 2011, with a separate DVD release in 2012; all these DVDs were in French only. A high-definition transfer from the original 35mm camera negative was used for a Blu-ray release in Canada on April 11, 2017, featuring French and English language tracks. On December 10, 2019, Severin Films released it on Blu-ray/DVD in the US as the first offering of their Severin Kids label, including an extended version with three minutes of extra scenes.