A kid, a blank check, and a million dollar shopping spree. What could go wrong? This nineties flick starts as every child's fantasy, but quickly turns into a quiet lesson about money, maturity, and the loneliness that comes with having it all.
But in the end, is a dream life still a dream if you're living it alone?
Welcome to Family TV Uncovered. If you're tired of wasting time searching for clean, family friendly entertainment, you're in the right place. I'm your host Jennifer, a lifelong TV enthusiast who grew up on the kind of shows, I now spotlight for parents like you.
So, skip the scrolling because I'm here to help you discover timeless classics and forgotten TV shows that are perfect for your family. Welcome back listeners. Today we're gonna talk about a pretty good movie that my family and I enjoy watching at least once every couple of months. And that movie is called Blank Check.
Blank Check is a Disney movie that came out in 1994 and it stars Brian Bonsall At the end of my last episode, I had mentioned a little kid from Family Ties, that stars in this movie. That little kid is Brian Bonsall.
Brian Bonsall played the youngest sibling named Andy in that TV show. And here we are years later grown up and stars in this film.
So what makes this movie a great family flick? And that is the fact that it's, funny, it's from a kid's point of view and what kid doesn't imagine what they could do with all the money in the world, how they would spend it, the things they would have and be happy. Right.
Those are the kinds of questions that are tackled in this movie in a fun way. This is by no means a serious movie, it can be a conversation starter between parents and their kids, and the true meaning of happiness in life.
And if you're an Apple fan, the funny thing about this too is you'll be taken on a little bit of a flashback journey to Apple's early days with the old Mac computers when we used to call them Macintosh.
So what's the plot of the movie? The premise of the movie is that there's a crook named Carl who nearly kills Preston Waters, the character played by Brian Bonsall by running over his bike, and he gives the boy a check, but he's in a hurry to get out of the situation and ends up giving Preston a blank check.
Preston's a pretty resourceful kid. You can see from the beginning of the film, he's not an average 11-year-old because he's very money oriented and money focused, and he figures out a way to cash it. You may be wondering, exactly how much money did Preston get? He wrote the check out to himself for a million dollars.
The crook, Carl, ends up realizing his mistake later in the movie, and obviously ends up going on a journey looking for Preston because he wants his money back.
Anyways, we see Preston enjoying his windfall, spending money on all the things he ever wanted, and, among all of the things that Preston buys, he buys himself his own house. What kid wouldn't want his own house? and he fills up his house with all kinds of goodies that make his life happy.
Now, obviously if you have a million dollars, you're buying everything in the world that you could ever want. You get instant gratification but we see during a particular scene with the music and the focus on Preston and being alone among his worldly treasures, it does depict the fact that money doesn't buy happiness.
And that's, the main lesson of this movie. My kids understood that at a very young age when they watched this movie for the first time. It's important that children today get that same lesson because we're inundated with advertising telling us that this'll make us happy that'll make us happy.
Oh, if you only own this and buy the newest, gadget, and so on and so on, that you'll be happy in the end. It's, a really good lesson to teach our kids to be happy with what we already have and that most of us, are far richer with family and friends and whatever material items we may have.
The movie shines a little light on that. Overall we can all agree what matters most in life is not money. It's family friends, and the time we have on this earth to spend with them. However, this movie isn't without its controversy.
Preston has a little crush on an older woman. I don't know when that part of a boy's life starts to happen when, they start developing crushes. I don't think my oldest has gone through that yet. Anyways. Preston has a little crush on this older woman who works at the bank, in the movie. Her name is Shay Stanley, her role, you don't really know it until later on, but she's an undercover FBI agent investigating, a case of money laundering.
During the film, Preston being his grownup self. trying to show off for her takes her out on a date. She calls it a date, and it may be innocent. I really don't know what the writers were thinking when they wrote this into the story, but they go on a date. It's very innocent.
But as a parent, you're thinking, why would this woman who's like 30, even consider going out with an 11-year-old boy? And the fact that she's an FBI agent makes it all the little more awkward. I'll leave that up to you to be the judge of that.
There's a couple of scenes that you may want to know about before you let your kid watch the movie. And that's in one scene when Preston and Shay are on a date and they're at a outdoor place and, there's a square in like a courtyard that's got a bunch of holes in the ground where the water comes up to make different designs. I don't know what you call it, anyways, they're playing and having fun with it. And her dress may come up just a little too high.
Then towards the end there's another scene that may seem inappropriate,. You can find exactly what they're about by going to my website at familytvuncovered.com slash episodes and download your free Pause and Preview Guide where I provide the exact time codes of these particular scenes and give you a little summary of what the scene is so that you can watch it first before you let your kid watch it.
That way, you know, ahead of time where to skip ahead if you don't want your kids to see certain things. Overall, this is a great family movie to watch. It's something you can sit and laugh about and talk about. together. It's a fun movie. It makes you laugh, it may open some conversation about life, money, and, greed in general with your children.
I recommend watching the movie. Of course, I highly recommend you download my Pause and Preview Guide so that you can get a heads up on questionable things in the film so you know exactly what is in the movie and decide for yourself if it's something you wanna watch with your family. Where can you watch Blank Check? You can watch it on Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and others. I will leave links in the show notes for the platforms that you can watch this movie on.
That brings us to the end of this family TV uncovered episode. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about Blank Check. Now, if Blank Check reminds us that money can't buy what matters most, next week's episode will take that truth even deeper we're gonna take a look at a real life story, one that turned tragedy into a nationwide call to action.
It's powerful, heartbreaking, and it's still saving lives today. Don't miss this one. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review and help me grow this show and share this episode and others with family and friends that you think will enjoy this content.
Thank you for listening. Have a great rest of your week and I'll catch you in the next episode.