1996 was a big cultural year for America. We hosted the Atlanta Summer Olympics, which was subsequently bombed by terrorists, killing one person and injuring over 100 more; the first three-parent baby was conceived through mitochondrial donation in New Jersey, of all places; The Ramones played their final show while Bob Dole was officially nominated for President by the Republican Party; the story of the Reagan CIA‘s role in crack cocaine importation to fund the Contras is published in the San Jose Mercury News; and a 3-year old boy fell into a 20-foot deep gorilla enclosure at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, ending with Binti Jua, a female lowland gorilla sitting with the boy until he was rescued…basically the opposite of Harambe.

But in the midst of all of this craziness in our country, Walt Disney and Buena Vista Pictures released a little Sinbad vehicle called First Kid.

Like most Disney family films around this time period, it starts off relatively safe in a boys-will-be-boys goof-off kinda way, turns needlessly melancholy, and then gets straight-up bonkers. So let’s begin.

Sinbad plays Secret Service agent Sam Simms, a fat goofball who is essentially always a cunt-hair away from being fired. Why he’s qualified or continues to keep his job doing one of the most no-nonsense jobs in the country is beyond even him.

Brock Pierce plays the title character; First Kid, Luke Davenport, son of President Paul Davenport, and all-around little piece of shit teenager.

The movie starts out with Luke treating everyone around him, especially his personal Secret Service Agent, Agent Woods, like utter garbage. Woods is kind of a dickhead, but he doesn’t seem to deserve Luke’s bullshit. Eventually, Luke pisses Woods off so thoroughly that the Secret Service Agent grips him up, and is promptly fired…and replaced by, you guessed it, fucking Sinbad.

But don’t sleep on Agent Woods, because he’s not out of the picture just yet.

After seeing Luke get his ass handed to him by that punk bitch Zachary Ty Bryan from Home Improvement, Sinbad decides that it’s now his duty to not only teach Luke how to fight, but to help him get laid. Again, Luke is a young adult teenage boy.

Sinbad proceeds to risk his entire career, freedom and reputation, go against Luke’s parents (the President and First Lady, remember), and technically kidnap the First Kid to help him score with some school crush.

You see, Luke can’t relate to any other kids because he’s constantly under protection and surveillance as the First Kid. He eats lunch alone, and gets bullied by Zachary fucking Ty fucking Bryan from Home Improvement. And even though Luke is a dick to Zachary Ty Bryan as well, we’re supposed to feel bad for him because he cries about not having any friends or family time.

The only time Luke gets to talk to anyone freely, it’s either Sinbad–a grown ass man–or, his mysterious anonymous online-pal “Mongoose12.” Not creepy at all.

Luke and Mongoose12 really “get” each other and chat almost every day. Remember, this is in the mid-90’s, a time where the Internet was new, and we were very naive about child predators using clever pick-up lines like “ASL?”

After Luke defeats Zachary Ty Bryan (who we think is the villain of the film), the Secret Service bursts into the school dance and Sinbad is fired and forbidden from speaking to the First Kid ever again. Remember, this is in the mid-90’s when a Secret Service Agent putting a child’s life in danger is met with a slap on the wrist, apparently.

So, while Luke is under “White House arrest” with a homing device attached to him, his bestest online pal, Mongoose12 starts offering him advice on how to escape from the White House and meet up at a local shopping mall…as normal kids do.

But what happens when Luke follows through with this fool-proof plan?

It turns out that cool-kid Mongoose12 was none other than Agent WOODS, the disgruntled Secret Service Agent from the beginning of the movie! And he’s gone over the edge. Woods kidnaps Luke, and now the President has to figure out a way to get him back!

Who should he turn to? The police? The FBI? The numerous other Secret Service Agents who aren’t incompetent or homicidal? Fuck no, call up Sinbad! He can’t possibly screw up again!

Oh, and boy oh boy did things get worse because of it. Agent Woods was planning on returning the boy to his parents and taking credit as the hero. But when Sinbad showed up and Woods got found out, he decided he was just going to murder Luke.

Agent Woods tries to shoot Luke but Sinbad takes the bullet. Don’t worry, he lives, and Woods is taken to justice.

In the end, Sinbad is regarded as a hero and given the option to guard to the President (for some reason, based on one act of heroism)…which he declines so he can keep fucking Luke’s biology teacher; a subplot that no one could have predicted.

Then Luke hits a street hockey puck into Sinbad’s stupid face, and that’s how the movie ends.

If you thought that final hostage scene came out of fucking nowhere, you weren’t the only one. Apparently, 1 and a half minutes of the film were cut from its British Home Video release because the scene was deemed too graphic for a PG-audience.

Yikes.

This movie is so bad-ass that it almost became Disney’s first PG-13 movie. Well, technically, The Black Cauldron came the closest…but who gives a fuck?

—X