Midnight Madness

Midnight Maddness (1980)    PG   

Magical Disney Review Coming Soon 

Leon planned "The Great Allnighter" by picking college students to participate in his night long scavenger hunt...

Trivia: Disney released this film, its second to be rated "PG" by the MPAA (the first being The Black Hole), without any mention of its involvement, in hopes that teenage audiences might be more likely to see it if they didn't know that it was a Disney picture. (However, the cover art of the DVD release of the film in 2004 credits the film to Walt Disney Pictures.) http://www.imdb.com/

 In 1980, Disney was trying to find a new way to connect with audiences with their live-action fare. Past their animal-and-kid films that dominated the '70s, Disney wanted their offerings to stay fresh in the face of changing markets. That explains Midnight Madness, their first release of the 1980s, which definitively and appropriately marks the start of a new generation of live-action films. The film can be viewed as a tame Animal House of sorts - that appears to be what Disney was going for. While tame by cinematic standards, this is still kind of raunchy for Disney standards (what with all the talk of "giant melons"). Ultimate Disney

Other Teen Orianted Disney Movies

Take Down (1979)  (Not Available on DVD) PG

This was Disney's first "PG" rated film, five years before they launched Touchstone Pictures to expand into the "adult" market. The company's name never appeared on this title though: the only reference to the Disney name was that it was released thru Disney's Buena Vista Distribution company. (www.IMDB.com)

An unqualified teacher finds himself saddled with coaching duties after a small group of high school seniors form a wrestling team in a last ditch effort to end a 9-year losing streak against a rival school.

Tex 1982 PG

Coming-of-age adventure about two teenage brothers and their struggles to grow up, on their own, after their mother dies and their father leaves them.  IMDB Description

Tex is adapted from the book by S.E. Hinton. In 1967, at the age of nineteen, Hinton had The Outsiders become her first published work, establishing the author as a unique voice in young adult fiction. The material in Hinton's bestselling writing, including Tex, might seem like an odd selection for a studio that had just released Herbie Goes Bananas. But in the early 1980s, Disney was trying to find a new niche, and this was one of several projects (albeit, probably the most freewheeling) made to reconnect with audiences that had grown tired of formula wacky comedies.

Sex and drugs are subjects that had never come up in Disney films, and certainly not with the frankness here. Whether that's how it should or should not be, Tex is so good that you feel that Disney would have missed out on something special had they not attempted to make this one. Nonetheless, the type of realistic edge that marks Tex was fairly short-lived; when Disney launched their Touchstone branch in 1984, there would still be some less-than-cheery Disney films, but more mature subject matter would almost always be relegated to the Touchstone domain. (Ultimate Disney Review)