“Grandma, sometimes I hear you still, ticking, coming near me in the dark.”

Justin’s rating: This would be a much, much different movie if it was made today. Probably best it wasn’t.

Justin’s review: I’m convinced that there was a worldwide pact among filmmakers in the ’80s that any movie aimed at kids had to contain some element that would scar them emotionally for life. I mean, we had so many family flicks where so many parents were being bumped off left and right that we all kind of assumed it was going to happen to us.

If it did — and I wasn’t rooting for that outcome, mind you — I would hope that the end result would be something like The Electric Grandmother. This one-hour TV movie is based on the premise that kids who lose a parent get a consolation prize in the form of an android.

Timothy, Tom, and Agatha suffer the loss of their mother in the opening moments of this movie, but it’s OK because a mysterious helicopter drops giant puzzle pieces with their names on it. Those pieces, when put together, turn out to be an ad for “electric grandmothers” from an even more mysterious company.

They go there with their dad and discover an eccentric inventor and his dream factory. It’s a pretty cool place, Willy Wonka-lite even, that emphasizes whimsy and imagination over logical sense.

This results in the family getting their own android grandmother on a 30-day trial (if anyone is dissatisfied, it’ll be returned). Their grandmother is played by Maureen Stapleton (Addicted to Love), a plump, genial Mary Poppins who will band-aid all psychic wounds and pull this morose clan together. She’s the perfect maid, making all of their favorite breakfasts while quoting Shakespeare.

However, little Agatha is highly resistant to this new mother surrogate, for obvious reasons. So whatever tension and conflict there is settles around how the android will win her undying allegiance before the trial period is up.

If all this sounds a little odd for a TV special, it’s because NBC elected to adapt a Ray Bradbury short story (and original Twilight Zone episode!) from the ’60s and made sure to include elements to keep kid viewers off balance. So it’s half TV special-of-the-week, and half “let’s have an android grandma live in the basement and possibly be one malfunctioning circuit away from going Terminator on them all.” She doesn’t, of course, but there are moments that you feel she could. And you know it would be terrifying.

The movie leaves one crucial question unanswered — does this electric grandma love and care for the kids merely because of her programming or because she actually does? That’s going to haunt me for years to come, I think.

The quick runtime pushes the plot along fairly quickly and doesn’t allow for a lot of breathing room. There’s only 48 minutes for a whole story arc with an epilogue where the kids, now grown up, visit the factory once more to see their adopted grandmother.

Stapleton is perfectly fine as the electric grandmother, but there simply isn’t enough time to show her doing much more than making breakfast, reading a few bedtime stories, and saving Agatha from a 1940s jalopy. I did find it a little suspicious how she claimed she could never die and thus was better than their mom, who apparently failed them all in this department.

However, I thought the fairy tale approach worked well for this story, and the ending was pretty great. So I’m not inclined to bag on a film that’s so full of wholesome vibes.

Intermission!

• Let’s kick off this movie with a creepy robot grandma in the dark and a dead mom
• Kids lose their mom? Tell them to “stop moping” and raise a toast to the living!
• Helicopters dropping giant puzzle pieces with your name on it is very normal
• Yes, let’s enter the seedy nondescript dark warehouse with all enthusiasm
• Machines are only limited by your imagination
• “My name is Agatha and I don’t believe in electric grandmothers.”
• “I think that sounds like a lot of mumbo-jumbo.” “Thank you!”
• Androids arrive in metal sarcophagi
• She can shoot hot chocolate, orange juice, and milk from her finger, just don’t ask how it’s made
• The grandma shutting down for the night in the basement is so dang weird… she keeps rocking while “asleep”
• “Now you see, I can’t be killed!”
• All the robot grandmothers in the retirement room
• Timothy built a base on the moon