Do You Know the Muffin Man? (1989)

	Directed by: Gilbert Cates	COUNTRY USA GENRE Drama NORWEGIAN TITLE - RUNNING TIME 90 minutes
	Produced by: Jon Avnet Jordan Kerner
	Written by: Daniel Freudenberger

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Kendra Dollison	Pam Dawber
Roger Dollison	John Shea
Sandy Dollison	Stephen Dorff
Teddy Dollison	Brian Bonsall
Marvin Bernstein	Matthew Laurance	½
Stephen Pugliotti	Anthony Geary
Judge Allen	Graham Jarvis	½

Review

A film that wants to attract attention to a serious problem, and that arguably has a good heart, but that is a painful document of a distressing mentality that was predominant in its time. In my native Norway, there was a case very similar to that portrayed in Do You Know the Muffin Man? in which almost all members of a pre-school staff were accused of and tried for sexual acts with children in their custody. There was a period in the late 1980s and early 1990s when cases like these received a one-sided, biased treatment because of erroneous methods deployed by medics and psychologists, in addition to a riotous public uproar. The result was several miscarriages of justice throughout the Western world, and Do You Know the Muffin Man? mirrors many of the stances that led to these miscarriages. The filmmakers may have thought they were actually discussing here, but most of all, the film merely reveals their lack of insight. Some useful interpersonal drama, especially within the Dollison family, is spoiled by an unqualified (or extremely atypical, if you’re being kind) portrait of child molestation and pedophilia on the one side, and of courtroom action on the other.