Film / Adventures in Babysitting (2016)

Adventures in Babysitting (2016) is a Disney Channel Original Movie and a remake of the 1987 film of the same name. It stars Sabrina Carpenter as Jenny Parker and Sofia Carson as Lola Perez. The plot kicks off when Lola and Jenny accidentally swap phones with each other, resulting in Lola taking a babysitting job that was meant for Jenny (out of desperate need to pay a parking ticket). Unfortunately, babysitting turns out to be a tougher job than Lola anticipated.

This film provides examples:

• An Aesop: Both Jenny and Lola learn a couple:
  • Jenny: It's good to focus on school and be responsible, but you should allow yourself to have fun once in a while. Also, sometimes you have to take a risk to get what you want.
  • Lola: Having fun and being a "student of life" is all well and good, but you have to take into account how your actions affect the people around you. Also, just because you might fail at something is no reason not to try.
• Adaptation Name Change: Chris Parker becomes Jenny Parker and the Anderson children go from Brad and Sara to Trey and AJ (and a third named Bobby is added).
• Battle Rapping: Between Jenny and Lola in the rap club, as each points out how the other is responsible for their current predicament.
• Book Ends: "Wild Side" by Sabrina Carpenter and Sofia Carson plays over the opening intro and the end credits.
• Brick Joke: At the beginning of the film, Jenny criticizes Lola for drinking a smoothie at the internship interview. At the end of the movie, Jenny herself is drinking a smoothie when she comes to tell Lola she's backing out of the internship. It's used to indicate her more relaxed personality as a result of the events of the movie.
• Camera Fiend: Lola is always taking pictures.
• Character Development: Both Lola and Jenny rub off on each other throughout the film. Jenny learns to relax and not be a Control Freak, while Lola learns to be more responsible.
• Chekhov's Skill: AJ meets her Roller Derby idol and learns to do her Signature Move. It comes in handy later when she has to evade the animal smugglers.
• Didn't Think This Through: Lola didn't really consider what might have happened if she tried to scalp the concert ticket. As an officer points out to her, she could have easily had both the tickets and her wallet stolen, not to mention that she could have gotten hurt.
• Domestic Appliance Disaster: Lola is distracted by the sight of a swimsuit when she was busy with launching a laundry session at the Andersons, at the very beginning of the evening. She pours too much washing liquid in the washing machine and it releases a pool of bubbles. Lola only notices hours after, when she finally gets back to the home at the end of the movie. Fortunately Jenny and Katy manage to wipe it off completely (as the rest of the mess, done by the dog in the kitchen, is cleaned up by the others) before the parents get back home.
• Establishing Character Moment: In their first scene together, Jenny and Lola are sitting together, waiting to speak with a professional photographer. Jenny sits properly in her chair, while Lola lies back and drinks a smoothie, immediately establishing them as the proper, well-behaved girl and the more casual, rebellious one, respectively. However, see Hidden Depths below.
• Extremely Short Timespan: With the exception of the epilogue, the whole movie is set over a 24-hour period, with most of the movie taking place at night.
• Fanservice: An early scene has Lola walking around the house in a one-piece swimsuit, as she has just come out of a hot tub.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Jenny and Lola spend most of the film as reluctant allies at best, but the events of the film eventually turn them into close friends.
• Hidden Depths: Lola is initially presented as a cool, devil-may-care rebel who ditched the traditional path of college to be a "student of life" and make a living as a photographer. Not only is her rebellious behavior limited to the occasional parking violation, but she actually did want to go to art school. She just didn't bother trying because she figured her grades weren't good enough.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Lola isn't nearly as uncaring as she acts. Her screwing up Jenny's date was done out of carelessness rather than malice and at the end of the film, she trades away her most precious possession, her camera, to make it right.
• Honor Before Reason: Lola risks her life, Jenny's life, and the lives of the kids in their care all because she won't give up her camera. The reason for this is that she won the camera in her first ever photography contest and considers it proof that she has talent.
• Ironic Echo: "There are moments in life when you just have to take a risk and go for it. This is one of those moments." Lola uses this to convince Jenny to try and steal money from her employers to pay the garage. Jenny throws it back in her face when Lola needs to pose as a socialite in order to help with the scheme.
• Lighter and Softer, rendering the big, bad, gritty, grimy city from the PG-13 original much less so in the Disney Channel remake. (the nasty 1980s Chicago, Illinois versus the glossy locations of 2010s Vancouver, Ontario).
  • The whole plot. In the original, an abused girl named Brenda runs away and her friend Chris has to pick her up from a bus station in "the city" and bring the kids that she was babysitting. One of the kids, Daryl, steals a Playboy because the Playmate resembles Chris, who is underaged. The Playboy has incriminating notes written in it by a Grand-Theft-Auto-style mafia, and the kids get pursued thusly. The remake, Brenda and Chris are renamed Lola and Jenny. Lola and Jenny are both babysitters, and must track down one of the kids who sneaked out to a concert in "the city" and bring the rest of the kids that they are babysitting. They get chased around by a couple of Home-Alone-style villains who want to get a camera that has pictures of some stolen pawn shop items. The bad guys are arrested and convicted in the remake. In the original, the bad guys get their Playboy back, but they're never arrested, they're still around, still looking for the kids who still know too much...)
  • Sexual harassment. Because the Playmate looks like the babysitter, the babysitter is subject to chronic verbal harassment by various people throughout the movie. The only sexuality in the remake is when people couple up in a consensual manner.
    Daryl: "You gotta see this month's Playboy cuz it has this girl in it who looks exactly like Chris. I'm serious! She's got these humongous boobs!"
    • Also, none of this from a middle-aged man to a 17-year-old girl...
      Hot Dog Vendor: "You slip me the cash and I'll slip you the wiener!"
  • Had Lola had been a run away rather than a babysitter, there probably would have been no mention of 3 people shooting up, a Chinese lady with no pants on, and a man showing her his gun who looks like he's about to go on a shooting spree. None of these things are very Disney, traditionally.
  • Less theft in the remake. In the original everyone is stealing everything from everyone else. Even Brenda has her glasses stolen off her face. In the remake, the theft is strictly related to the pawn shop. A child takes candy from the pawn shop, believing it to be free, and that's why the kids think the pawn shop guys are chasing them, rather than the photographs of stolen merch, and then the babysitters steal the pawn guys' car.
  • The remake doesn't make fun of homeless people with schizophrenia, especially the man who lives in a phone booth, a phone booth that Brenda occupies to use the phone, and he keeps yelling, "Get out of my house!" so Brenda kicks his stuff out and tells him he just moved. Later, the woman who stole Brenda's glasses sees that the man has moved back into the phone booth, and she yells, "Get out of my house!"
  • In addition to the mafia, there are violent street gangs battling over territory.
    Chris: "Excuse me. I couldn't help but notice that you're about to start killing each other. I was wondering if you could please wait until we get off the train?"
    Gang Leader: "Sit down, bitch!"
    • There's no excessive violence in the remake (except the roller derby at the police station) but no attempted homicide, no constant punching, kicking, guns, knives. The remake does feature the threat of a non-consensual haircut, though.
  • No adultery
    • A man named Pruitt constantly tries to kill the man who is sleeping with his wife.
      Pruitt: "Jesus! My wife's with the bastard again!"
    • Underaged boy gets involved with an adult college student and her boyfriend tries to assault the underaged boy
    • The babysitter's boyfriend is cheating on her with an "easy girl" they call a "sleaze" in the original. When confronted, the boyfriend says that the babysitter's legs are "locked together at the knee" and then the boyfriend gets his ass kicked literally and the babysitter ends up with another guy by the end of the movie. In the remake, the babysitter and boyfriend end up separated for the night due to a series of comical misunderstandings. They end up happily reconciled. The boyfriend in the remake seems to be a composite character of the two boyfriends from the original, minus the cheating.
  • No jokes with murder as the punchline
    Brenda: "I'm just in a really bad mood. My parents are driving me crazy. My stepmom is such a pain. If I don't get out of the house I'm going to spike her Tab with Drano." (Tab being a soft drink, Drano being a pipe cleaner)
    • In addition to the other examples mentioned, in the remake there is no humorous misunderstanding where a doctor claims that one of the kids died from his stab wound and everyone grieves, no laughing while leaving someone to die precariously balanced on the ledge of a skyscraper, no casual mention of how parents are going to "kill" their children.
  • No jokes with rape as the punchline
    Chris: "Now, boys, if either of you give me any grief, I swear to God I'll kill you. Dead, murdered, stabbed."
    Daryl: "Raped?"
  • No cussing.
    • Especially the part where Chris says, "Don't fuck with the babysitter!" In the remake, it is changed to, "Don't mess with the babysitter!"
    • There are two uses of "fuck," five uses of "shit," five uses of "bitch," three uses of "ass," one use of "piss," and one use of "bastard." There are also five uses of "hell," two uses of "damn," one use of "crap," and 24 uses of religious swearing.
    Daryl: "You got to be shittin' me."
    Chris: "Watch your mouth."
    Daryl: "Watch my mouth? You got to be shittin' me!"
  • No running away from home due to abusive parents
    Brenda: "I did it."
    Chris: "You spiked her Tab with Drano?"
    Brenda: "No, I ran away from home."
  • No prostitutes. One talks with Daryl, and reveals her age to be 17.
    Daryl: "You wouldn't believe what that girl would do for twenty bucks."
  • No scary stories about a serial killer using his hook hand to turn children's faces into pool of mushy goo that resembles a bowl of "SpaghettiOs with meat."
  • No homophobia. In the original, one character calls Thor a "homo" as an insult. Two other characters are offended ... not because of the homophobia, but because being gay is considered a bad thing.
  • No smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol.
  • In the remake, no one says that a ginger looks like a talking penis.
• Mythology Gag:
  • During the opening, Jenny can be seen briefly singing along to the song playing over the scenes. This mirrors the opening of the original film, where Chris does the same while waiting for Mike to show up.
  • Before leaving, the Coopers' mother says she left money in case Jenny wants to take the kids for ice cream. "Going out for ice cream" was the cover story Chris used for the events of the original film. Later, Jenny also uses it this way.
  • This exchange mirrors one from the original film:
  Mrs. Cooper: Take care of our babies.
  Jenny: I'll guard them with my life.
  • As does this one:
  Bobby: They'll kill you when they find out a total stranger is watching us!
  Jenny: And who's gonna tell them?
  (the kids give her a look)
  Jenny: Does anyone have to go to the bathroom?
  • And this one:
  Jenny: Your parents are never gonna ask me to babysit again.
  Trey: If they do, I'd ask for ten bucks more an hour.
  • The "singing the blues" scene from the original gets recreated, this time as an improvised rap number.
  • Jenny's "Don't mess with the babysitter" line is a G-rated version of Chris's "Don't fuck with the babysitter" line from the original.
  • The scene of the Love Interest showing up at the house to return an item belonging to one of the children is recreated, but with a twist: Zac specifically asked to borrow Emily's headphones so he could return them.
• Odd Couple: Jenny and Lola are pretty much polar opposites. Jenny is proper and well-behaved, will Lola is a bit more rebellious. Their first scene together highlights this difference.
• One Crazy Night: Much like the original, what should be a simple trip into the city quickly descends into chaos.
• Setting Update: The film is set in 2016 Chicago (indicated by a reference to an Ogden Avenue address) rather than 1987 Chicago. Tablets and cell phones exist and a mix-up involving the latter is what kicks off the plot.
• Sleep Mask: Katy, being a very stylish little girl, wear hot pink pajamas paired with a matching sleep mask on her head in the last scene.
• The Stinger: As the end credits roll the children are looking the pictures that Lola has sent them of their adventures that night. The last shot is one of Mrs. Anderson looking in horror at a picture she was sent by mistake of the Andersons' dog Lady Marmalade being hurriedly cleaned up by two of the kids during their (successful) attempt to clean up the house/their new car before the Andersons got home...
• Witch with a Capital "B": Jenny's opening rap verse makes it plain that she wants to substitute something else for the last word:
  See, it all started
  When our phones made a switch
  Lola lied to the parents
  She's been a real witch.