If you'd prefer to watch the video version instead, ta da!
Radio Flyer, the 1992 movie, not the kid's little red pull-along wagon that's apparently iconic in America and can neither fly nor broadcast radio waves, revolves around the harrowing plight of two young brothers' naive attempts to escape an abusive homestead reigned over by a domineering stepfather. Pompously self-proclaimed, The King, Adam Baldwin portrays the alcoholic bully otherwise more mundanely known as Jack Marshall. By virtue of stylistic cinematography choices rather than shoddy camera work, we rarely get to see the face of this suburban devil directly. Obscured by crepuscular illumination and irregular filming angles, he's further demonised as the nemesis of children's worst nightmares, much like the overbearing housekeeper from classic Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Bobby, the younger, eight-year-old sibling played by Joseph Mazello aka Tim from Jurassic Park, is implausibly singled out as the exclusive human target of the drunken tyrant's vitriol and brutal assaults. Were it not for the intervention and ingenuity of his far wiser, more mature ten-year-old brother, Mike, played by future Hobbit, Elijah Wood, we're led to believe Bobby would be a sitting duck with a limited shelf-life. That Mike is left alone unmolested - supposedly owing to being more capable of defending himself - should offer an early clue all is not as it seems.His inverted comma-ed 'Big Plan' is to convert Bobby's Radio Flyer birthday present into an ultralight aeroplane to be launched from their secret cliff-top 'wishing spot' piloted by the tortured tyke and animal entourage. Fuelled by daydreams and, well, actual petrol, he's envisioned to soar away into a utopian sanctuary nourished by eternal sunsets, liberated from terror.
So Tom Hanks informs us anyway. In a mostly unseen narration role, he plays an adult Mike, relaying the defining events of his troubled childhood to his own enthralled offspring. Twist-tastically, as alluded to by this self-professed prevaricator, all this is potentially pure fantasy concocted by Mike as a self-defence mechanism to protect him from the horrific, not-so-Hollywood truth; that Bobby's maiden voyage was an inevitable suicide mission exit strategy.
Running with Hank's admonition that history is arbitrated by the tale's teller, reality could alternatively equate to a case of imaginary brother displacement syndrome. Perhaps Mike was the one really being abused and Bobby merely a figment of Mike's overactive imagination. By shifting the focus of his suffering to a third party, then extinguishing him, Mike might have been able to dissociate himself from his unfathomable situation, shielding his fragile psyche as only a child knows how.
If there's anything more unpalatable than child abuse in Hollywoodland, it's violence against our canine best friends. Guess what? The King also turns on the kids' German Shepherd, Shane, beating him within an inch of his adorably loyal life. In the aftermath, Shane lies motionlessly for what seems like an eternity, the director callously deceiving his audience into assuming he's dead! Just before our erratically pulsating hearts fracture jaggedly down the centre, Shane revives and we can breathe once again. Not exactly the soppy, heartwarming movie of the century, despite taking many of its Spielbergian cues from ET.
A strange choice then to base a licensed gaming adaptation upon you might imagine, yet it almost happened courtesy of prolific pop-culture IP hunters, Ocean Software. Snarky hindsight gloaters would no doubt sneer at the apparent logic bypass inherent in the decision-making process. Amongst them some members of Ocean's own staff.
In the 'Developer Lookback' article featured in Retro Gamer issue 23, Ocean artist, Brian Flanagan, expressed his doubts concerning the gaming potential of its irksome inspiration.
"We went after some crazy stuff, like Michael Jackson's Thriller for the NES and there was mention of a U2 bid - neither came to fruition. There was also Radio Flyer, a licence apparently based around a popular American child's 'pull kart' thing. After reading the script, it turned out the film was about child abuse! Great gaming material there."
Then again, Dennis was a slapstick celebration of child on adult abuse. No-one deemed that inappropriate when Ocean immortalised the precocious brat's bullying antics in a cute, cartoony platform game a year later.
Veteran pixel artist, Simon Butler, wasn't entirely convinced Radio Flyer made sense as a playable form of light entertainment either.
"A perfect example of just buying any bloody license and trying to make a game out of it. It was perfectly obvious that no-one had a clue what the film was about... but it had Tom Hanks in it... a voice-over part that he isn't even credited for as he asked for his name to be removed.
Directed by Richard Donner, the man behind The Goonies and Superman 1 and 2, so it had to be good... bound to be a game in there somewhere, eh?
Oh yeah right... if you fancy playing a game based on a film about two small boys terrorised and subsequently molested by their evil stepfather. Wonderful."
Former software development director, Gary Bracey, who was normally responsible for securing such licensing deals was quick to distance himself from the ill-fated project. However, was met with tough opposition from a certain anonymous colleague who shall remain nameless.
"Unfortunately, I can't take the credit for Radio Flyer - R.M. qualifies for that particular one. Believe me, it was the cause of many heated arguments between us as - from my perspective:
1) The script was no good (licenses were acquired on the strength of the scripts, as that was pretty much all we had to go by).
2) The story was about child abuse. A 'challenging' subject for a videogame, second only to 'Rainman' for innovative game design material.
Interesting that the pitch from Universal was that it's about a boy who goes on wonderful adventures via his flying cart! Thinking back, I must have been the only person to actually have read the script.
So, no, I'm afraid I can't take the credit for that. You'll have to find something else to have a go at me about (red rag).
As an aside, was the game ever actually developed? I genuinely don't remember..."
Radio Flyer was always going to be a movie plagued by its controversial, fundamental nucleus. Nevertheless, how the children affected dealt with their circumstances would be the key factor in determining how bleakly pessimistic it transpired to be. Drastic script revisions implemented before Radio Flyer's final cut landed in a cinema near you, soon, resulted in a radical shift in tone and appropriateness towards its target audience.
David Mickey Evans who wrote the first draft screenplay, selling it to Columbia Pictures for a record-breaking $1.25m, was also initially hired to direct the movie adaptation. A dream job that rapidly turned sour upon being axed by producer Michael Douglas owing to his perceived poor performance and inexperience. He was just 27 years old at the time and had never taken the lead on a film before. Radio Flyer's original cast subsequently followed him to the job seeker's queue, the assumption being that salvation could only be accomplished via a clean slate.
Veteran director, Richard Donner, was instead drafted in to extricate the calamitous project, almost doubling its budget to $35m in the process. His reinterpretation of Evan's earnest coming-of-age fable led to its imagination-conquering-adversity thesis metamorphosing into a metaphor for flight-of-fancy, intangible wish fulfilment with no basis in reality. Not even the rendition of it fabricated by the Wright brothers, nurtured by a steady diet of comic books and superhero cartoons. That's their genuine surname by the way, Wright. Subtle, eh.
Most critically, the finale was transformed into a Rorschach test for the audience who were left to ponder the intended significance, their own psychological predilections steering supposition.
For better or worse, published in 2014, Evans finally lifted the lid on his seminal, literally uplifting narrative via a novelisation known as 'The King of Pacoima'. Even the retrograde title is more grounded, notwithstanding mythical elements playing a more substantial role, and the Radio Flyer wagon remaining a prominent fixture on the book's cover.
'Robert Radio Flyer, The King of Pacoima' actually began life as a novella, written in the summer of '89 (hmm, sounds like a follow-up Bryan Adams song). When 26 publishers ignored the bait, a friend of Evans suggested adapting it for the silver screen. So the novel of the movie technically isn't a reverse-engineered, fleshed-out affair as is typically the case whenever the movie emerges first. Rather a tweaked revision of its manuscript foundations.
Judging by preview screenshots sampled from video game magazines, Ocean's cancelled title would entirely have revolved around flight mechanics, despite this aspect of the movie only occurring as a late resolution to the brothers' dilemma. Their officially licensed Super Nintendo tie-in was to be an overhead perspective, makeshift plane-navigating gambit, loosely comparable to certain aspects of Pilotwings.
Unveiled in the developer's 'Ride the Ocean Wave' upcoming lineup brochure, accompanied by multiple screenshots and captions, and further showcased at the Winter 1992 CES event, Radio Flyer must have reached a fairly advanced stage in its production cycle. A consideration clearly not carrying sufficient sway to grant pardon from beta oblivion. Radio Flyer was unceremoniously quashed long before its emotionally scarring potential could be wreaked upon any vulnerable minors falling prey to the same unfortunate predicament as the movie's protagonists. Would it really have been prudent to reinforce the misguided belief that children can evade an abusive home life by embracing fairytale pipedreams?
Evan's alternative vision was hardly any more judicious with regards to advising afflicted scapegoats. It makes one wonder how many distraught, impressionable victims considered emulating Bobby's solution. Meant literally or metaphorically, young children would likely take the conclusion at face value, catalysing a barrage of inadvisable exodus scenarios.
A more socially responsible script might have made provision for Bobby and Mike to confide in town Sheriff, John Heard, aka Kevin McCalister's dad from Home Alone. He did offer to help, after all, suspecting that something untoward was afoot. Then again, taking the sensible route in movieland is often anathema to cultivating gripping fiction. Who was craving a prematurely neat resolution, schmaltzy ending and predictable, Hallmark grade production? Bobby and Mike eschew the thorny issue by agreeing to keep stum for fear of rocking the boat at a juncture when their mum finally appeared to be happy. Plus, The King isn't beating Mary and she's too off with the fairies to notice that Bobby is hiding a deep, dark secret.
I suppose you have to applaud the risk-taking bravado of Donner and co., throwing caution to the wind for the sake of delivering a unique, thought-provoking peregrination of prepubescent emotion. I think. It's certainly memorable in its recklessness.
Had the movie unravelled in alignment with its blueprint, Evan's intention was to expedite a more aspirational, positive tone. One that intimated children are not defenceless pawns to be manipulated and mauled by omnipotent, morally bankrupt adults. That they can in fact take charge of their own destiny, overcoming seemingly unreconcilable trauma, even if it means resorting to implausible Houdini-style feats. All a smidgen "the future has yet to be written, make it a good one". Doc Emmett Brown would certainly approve.
Attempting to reconcile the contradiction, Evans, in a blog article addressing the butchered ending of his hijacked movie, elucidates that unwavering faith in the viability of the Radio Flyer masterplan made the preposterous possible. As if by magic. It's the miraculous potency of fledgling imagination and optimism that spares Bobby's life! That and an unhealthy fixation on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the musical fantasy film released in 1968, a year before Radio Flyer's plot takes place.
But nevermind all that mullarkey. In-game, such portentous, overarching themes appear to have taken a back seat in favour of nuts and bolts arcade flight simulation. 'Simulation' in the Codemasters sense that is. More specifically, it would have entailed harvesting a predetermined number of coins, dice or whatever to progress to the next level. To aid in this rudimentary pursuit, the plan was to deploy an overlayed mini-radar display, eradicating any tediously meandering guesswork.
DIY biplanes don't run on tortoise juice, so whilst navigating various diverse landscapes including our own California home town, an amusement park and whimsical dreamland, we'd be compelled by fuel collection, to remain airborne. Gusts of wind were to further challenge our aviation skills, blasting Bobby off course whilst attempting to avoid or obliterate obstacles such as birds, hot air balloons and flying saucers, thereby keeping damage to a minimum. Crowbarring Mike into the proceedings, he was to serve as an overseeing adviser, guiding Bobby around an assortment of impediments on route to his destination. A bit like a Big Brother figure. Hoho.
I'd be curious to discover what the ultimate goal would have been. Tricky because in the movie we're led to believe (by a self-confessed yarn-spinner) that Bobby spends the rest of his life exploring the clouds with only Samson and Shane for company, with no pragmatic explanation as to how that would work. A climax verging on supernatural, fusing seamlessly with the incredulous "seven secret fascinations and abilities" of the pre-teen childhood belief system introduced earlier.
To confirm Bobby's survival beyond doubt, the preliminary script wrapped up with a flash-forward visit to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Here an adult Mike and Bobby reunite, Bobby proudly bedecked in an Air Force uniform alongside the intact, inexplicably levitating Radio Flyer contraption. To emphasise the prestige of this groundbreaking invention, it's displayed equitably adjacent to the Wright Brothers' inaugural flying machine. Had this contrived epilogue been incorporated, surely it would raise as many questions as it laid to rest. Could the beleaguered audience possibly interpret the flimsy scene as anything more tangible than an apparition? More wish-fulfilment? Once you've cried wolf, everything has fangs!
All academic pedantry of course since Radio Flyer's corresponding game never came to fruition... irrespective of being listed for sale by Rochester-based Chips and Bits in Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 29 priced at $54. Big bucks for vapourware!
Given that the success of licensed games is inextricably dependent on the appeal of their preceding IP, Ocean's jinxed homage may well have been shunned by the public to the same extent as the movie on which it was to be based. That earned just $4.6m at the box office, yielding a major loss for Columbia Pictures and the production companies owned by Michael Douglas, Richard Donner and his wife, Lauren.
Excoriated for its ostensible trivialisation of child abuse, critically speaking, Radio Flyer was a depressing flop, no doubt scuppering cinema attendance at the time of release. On the contrary, it has since been more positively received by the general public, who are typically far more forgiving of its ethically dubious denouement and awkward juxtaposition of whimsy and gritty realism.
Whilst the movie is clearly driven by themes of neglect and vicious cruelty against defenceless children, it was hardly advocating such behaviour and Ocean had already created games based on more problematic material. RoboCop, for instance, is an 18-rated gorefest awash with foul language, blood-thirsty violence and unashamed criminality. Did anyone pause to consider the suitability of that particular hot property in terms of gaming translation?
Fleeing from a malevolent stepparent isn't a terrible premise on which to construct a video game in any case. Shane or Samson could have been deployed to dispatch The King in a side-scrolling platform segment. Earning funds to support the kid's ineffectual, ditzy mother (played by Lorraine Bracco on-screen) could have been achieved via a mini-game revolving around the recovery of abandoned golf balls, as in the movie. Any intrusion from The King could be dealt with via a mail-order anti-monster potion. Obviously.
Perchance another stage of this multi-genre romp could have focused on tackling the neighbourhood bullies who make Mike's life a misery while The King works on ruining Bobby's peace of mind. And naturally, it goes without saying that I'm going to say the melancholy, animatronic, southern-drawled talking bison should have been incorporated in the most surreal way technically possible. In the novel, Shane too has plenty to say for himself, so we'd require a strong cast of voice talent to hike the authenticity factor.
Regrettably, the game appears to have been dismissed as abruptly as its celluloid inspiration. Even the '100 Years of America's Little Red Wagon' commemorative book published in 2018 merely dedicates a single paragraph of text to the forsaken movie, timidly failing to mention its core motifs out of fear of being associated with unpleasant subject matter. Whatever deal - if any - the movie's producers forged with the Radio Flyer company appears to be a trade secret. It's as though critics and the public alike have collectively agreed never to broach the topic.
Following Tom Hank's lead, reshaping history has seemingly culminated in the Radio Flyer company erasing any unwholesome intricacies of the movie from its enduring, illustrious legacy. Normality restored, once again they solely cater to the idealism of carefree, sanitised childhood joy, emotional and physical abuse having been rendered an anachronism of '90s cinematic fantasia.
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