First produced in 1987, the short film The Day My Kid Went Punk tells the story of Terry Warner (Jay Underwood), a clean-cut teenager and aspiring violinist who lands a summer job working as a daycare counselor at a luxury hotel.

Feeling that he’s been neglected in favor of his high achieving older brother and his younger sister, Terry acts like a typical middle child and decides to change his image right after leaving home for his job.  (It worked for Jan Brady!)  He decides to become a punk.  (Jan Brady never went that far.)  Could this have something to do with his mother (Christine Belford) being the nation’s leading expert on the “Punk Syndrome,” that is terrifying parents everywhere?  Or could it just be because Terry knows that he’ll never be as cool as his father (Bernie Kopell), who might claim to be named Tom Warner but who is obviously just Adam Bricker living in the suburbs?  Every time Tom looks at his “punk” son, you can just see him dreading the thought of word of this getting back to Captain Stubing.

(Incidentally, the family in film is clearly named Warner but, in all of the advertisements that I’ve seen for this special, including the one at the top of the post, they’re identified as being the Nelson family.)

Needless to say, Terry Warner is, in no way, a convincing punk and judging from the film’s dialogue and plot, it would appear that the film doesn’t really know the difference between punk, goth, and heavy metal.  Everyone at the hotel is a bit taken aback by Terry’s appearance but he proves himself to be a good worker and the kids absolutely love riding horses with him.  I guess the message is that you shouldn’t judge someone based solely on how he looks.  That’s a good message except that it’s ultimately undercut by Terry himself and his decision abandon his punk look as soon as it inconveniences him at school.  So, I guess the message is that teens should dress the way they want unless it keeps them from winning first chair in the school band and parents shouldn’t worry because teenagers are so shallow that they’ll abandon anything after a month or two.  The film suggests that Punk is less of a syndrome and more of a fad that whiny middle children go through during the summer.

(Myself, I’m not a middle child.  I’m the youngest of four and I’ve never felt particularly ignored, even if there were times when it seemed like being left alone would be a nice change of pace.  That said, I definitely went through some phases while I was growing up.  During my junior and senior years of high school, I always made sure that I was wearing at least one black garment and I wrote emo poetry under the name Pandora DeSaad.)

Anyway, Halloween’s approaching and this very (and I do mean very) campy short film feels like a good way to welcome a month that encourages everyone, young and old, to think about putting on costumes.  Here is The Day My Kid Went Punk!