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Poster for Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
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Released
1991 · FILM

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

A carefree teen must become the de facto head of her chaotic household and land a high‑stakes fashion gig—by lying about her age—to keep her siblings fed and safe when their beloved babysitter suddenly dies.

“No rules. No curfews. No baths. No nagging. No pulse.”

Directed by
Stephen Herek
Written by
Neil Landau, Tara Ison
Rated
MPA · PG-13
Runtime
105 min
Comedy
Streaming on
  • Tubi

Synopsis

Sue Ellen Crandell is a teenager looking forward to her mother's summer absence. With a babysitter in charge of her energetic younger siblings, Sue Ellen enjoys the freedom to socialize and have fun. However, when the babysitter suddenly passes away, the Crandell family faces a financial shortfall. To help out, Sue Ellen secures a position in the fashion industry by falsifying her age and experience on her résumé. As she manages her siblings' unruly behavior, she begins to understand the challenges of adult life.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 24

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Larry BockShot by Tim SuhrstedtScored by David NewmanDesigned by Stephen Marsh

Box Office

1991 · Box office

✅ Made its money back — grossed 2.5× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$25.2M

Budget$10.0M
Worldwide gross$25.2M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Fast Food Family - Eine Familie zum Quietschende
  • Fast Food Family - Eine Wahnsinnsfamiliede
  • Panique chez les Crandellfr
  • Non dite a mamma che la babysitter è mortait

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