Mac and Me, the alien Mac, looking totally stupid Image via Orion Pictures By Joe Leone Published Jun 23, 2026, 12:05 AM EDT A New York native, Joe graduated from an avant-garde theater school upstate, where he was obsessed with sketch comedy. There, he and his lunatic friends founded The Sketchies — which still lives on at Skidmore College today. Living in New York City, a screenwriter friend of his then taught him how to write for film. This awakened a new passion in Joe. Since then his scripts have garnered over 200 festival selections, nominations, and wins all over the globe (including the BlueCat Best Feature award). Several of his screenplays have been made into feature films — some of them not that bad! Overall, he loves to create unique, hilarious, touching, and bizarre stories.
Hey kids, let’s get radical! That was the promise of many an 80s kids' flick, and, to be fair, a bunch did deliver a high quotient of tubular awesomeness . Then, on the other side of the family-friendly cinematic spectrum, there was a repugnant collection of unforgettably stinky stinkers …just stinking it up.
While the 80s were known for rampant consumerism and Reaganomics, the Me Decade spawned a slew of family films , all trying to cash in big time on popular kids’ goods. A lot of these mind-numbing movies featured laughably blatant product placement sequences disguised as business as usual, while others were simply a vehicle to sell kids toys without a hint of subtlety. And then, there were movies that were marketed as child-appropriate, but were anything but. Here’s the corrosive collection of unwatchable kids' flicks , in all their corny, cinematically awful glory.
Jackey Vinson as Lucas with a group of friends in The Wizard Image via Universal pictures Kicking this list off is a “film” that’s truly impressive for the amount of product placement shoved into it. It’s actually more like a strangely toned, live-action infomercial for Nintendo — which culminates in the much-anticipated release of the game “ Super Mario Bros. 3.” In a cinematic sense, there are little to no redeeming qualities in this convoluted mess of a movie , but as far as video game presentation goes, director Todd Holland ’s The Wizard is kinda rad.
The story starts off tonally bizarre , as the main character, Jimmy Woods ( Luke Edwards ), is an introverted kid who’s been traumatized by his twin sister’s drowning . But, buck up, kids, Jimmy’s plucky older brother, Corey ( Fred Savage ), rescues Jimmy before he’s locked up in a mental institution , and whisks him off to California for…a video game competition. They link up with a random girl, Haley Brooks ( Jenny Lewis ), and, utilizing Jimmy’s natural ability to slay video games, they hustle and hitchhike to the big tourney. The dialogue supplied to the kids is beyond weird, as they discuss topics way too mature for them. It’s a right old mess — but at least they get to play with the Power Glove.
Felix the Cat: The Movie, the cat smiles dumbly Image via Universal Pictures It’s true, kids: some animated movies are actually bad . Such is the case with the much-maligned Felix the Cat: The Movie . It was presented as a throwback to the old-timey cartoon, but the filmmakers went a little haywire with the execution. Director Tibor Hernádi ’s messy movie is a sloppy, slapdash attempt at kids’ entertainment , that went off the rails in all the wrong ways.
The titular cat, Felix (voiced by David Kolin ), goes on a mission to rescue a…