“Adventure, humor and suspense are interwoven when a maverick newspaper woman teams up with THE KIDS WHO KNEW TOO MUCH.
Don’t miss Sharon Gless, Larry Cedar, Lloyd Haynes, David Sheiner and THE KIDS WHO KNEW TOO MUCH in a special 2-hour presentation on Disney’s Wonderful World”.
40 years ago, on 3/9/80, Walt Disney Productions’ classic TV movie “The Kids Who Knew Too Much” premiered on “Disney’s Wonderful World”.
A small-time pickpocket (Erik Stern aka: Jack Lemp) gets killed when betraying a fence (David Sheiner), his thugs (Michael Dante, John Milford and Don Knight), and the connection they have to a crooked senator (Jared Martin) and police commissioner (Richard O’Brian) who are going to try to assassinate a Russian Premier (Ben Astor). A boy (Rad Daly) stumbles upon it with his friends (Dana Hill, Christopher Holloway, and Kevin King Cooper), as well as an unsuspecting reporter (Sharon Gless), along with the photographer assigned to her (Larry Cedar). Accordingly their lives will be in major danger.
“The Kids Who Knew Too Much” is a taught, exciting adventure, with a tight plot, and plenty of incident laced with humor. Directed by Robert Clouse, who had done the Disney classic “The Omega Connection” a year earlier, the movie doesn’t have the budget of the previous film, but is beautifully interwoven in its story that makes it very involving.
The cast is wonderful, with Sharon Gless as an endearing lead as the reporter, Larry Cedar as the klutz photographer, Lloyd Haynes as the policeman who tries to find out what is happening, and the kids who knew too much, who are very likeable. Rad Daly, the boy who discovers the initial victim, is the son of Jonathan Daly who appeared in many Disney films in the 70s (like the priest in “Superdad”). This was one of the earliest roles of Dana Hill, very funny as the girl in the gang, and she would have a sad series of health issues that would end her life at only age 32; her humor is quite skilled at times.
Still the film is stolen by two veterans, amazingly in their only Disney film: Jackie Coogan as Mr. Cline, who helps the kids, and Bill Quinn as a very helpful member of an old folk’s home. They are total delights. Henry Slate appears as a studio guard, and Roger Mobley, “Gallegher” himself, appears in his last Disney film as a police sergeant.
The film was produced by Kevin Corcoran, and executive produced by Ron Miller. Originally announced as “Whisper In The Gloom”, the exciting score was done by Disney veteran Buddy Baker.
In 1975 the anthology show began showing films in a 2-hour format, giving the whole film in one evening, but outside of some reruns (“Sammy The Way-Out Seal”, “Smoke”, “The Boy Who Talked To Badgers”, and much later “The Strange Monster Of Strawberry Cove”) their new TV movies were not premiered in those occasional special longer presentations. In 1977 “The Wonderful World Of Disney” presented a full TV-movie premiere for the first time with “The Ghost Of Cypress Swamp”, followed the next season by “The Million Dollar Dixie Deliverance”, “Child Of Glass” and “The Young Runaways”. The 1978/79 season only had “The Omega Connection” premiere in a complete 2-hour format. “The Kids Who Knew Too Much” would be the last to premiere in a 2-hour showing, though it was obviously originally slated for a 2-part presentation, since it doesn’t have theatrical style titles as the previous films had when premiering complete in one evening, and be a full 95 minutes. The film only runs 90 minutes, and was followed by the classic Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy cartoon “Clock Cleaners” to fill the running time. The film would be repeated in two parts on 7/16/83 and 7/23/83, the third to last film that would air on the original anthology show.
“The Kids Who Knew Too Much” is the last really wonderful Disney made for TV movie of the original studio. There would only be two more 2-part films, which were a bit lesser, though one other TV film that was produced wouldn’t even air on the anthology show, having to wait to premiere on The Disney Channel in 1983, “Strange Companions”, which ironically is quite good.
“The Kids Who Knew Too Much” shows the quality was still there as the studio’s direction was beginning to change. It is a modern and very exciting film that should have been better promoted at the time.
“Fire Fire Fire Is The Name Of The Game”