Looking for a 80s kids (probably TV) movie/afterschool special that I saw at a very young age.

A grade school kid embarrasses himself at school in front of the girl he likes, so he pretends to be sick to not have to go to school the next day. When he's home sick, he decides he is going to commit suicide by asking for ginger-ale so he can slip in some stuff from a chemistry set that he thinks will do the job. His best friend, (who has a bowl cut and glasses, uses the catchphrase, "holly cow" frequently, and likes eating penutbutter and brussel sprout sandwiches) camps out in front of his house to see if he will actually do it. Nothing happens because the stuff he puts in the ginger-ale turns out to be harmless.

My son was a kid back then and does not remember this show. I've done my own research and can't find it either, despite your excellent description and clues. Hopefully, someone here will come up with the name.

An idea --- call the children's reference desk at your local publlc library. Someone may remember, or they will check several databases.

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Originally Posted by Wondergirl

An idea --- call the children's reference desk at your local publlc library. Someone may remember, or they will check several databases.

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Thank you, that's a good idea! I'll try that! Thanks so much for your help, hopefully I can come up with a title for this!

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Originally Posted by Paperpuu01

Thank you, that's a good idea! I'll try that! Thanks so much for your help, hopefully I can come up with a title for this!

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Please repost here when you find out!

I know it been years, but I'm back to happily report that I've finally figured it out
The show in question is called, "WHAT'S WRONG WITH NEIL?", it's an episode from a Canadian anthology series, "FAMILY PICTURES" from 1989.

A few days ago, a redditor PMed me out of the blue in regards to an old reddit post I made about this, he had previously helped figure it out for a friend who gave him the same description but remembered that it aired the same day as the World Cup semi final in the UK in 1990.

He then looked through some old UK TV scheduling archives on the day of the World Cup broadcast, and sure enough, there was a program called "What's Wrong With Neil?" with a matching synopsis that aired on BBC ONE (London) that very day.

Then a contributor on the "Retro Junk" forum ran with that, and tracked down blog post by the writer of the piece, that filled out the rest of the information.

6 years of actively looking for this, and it's finally found!!!

Now the next step is to find a copy, I'm considering emailing the writer to see if he has his own copy, he seems to be open to receiving emails and contact from fans from what he says on his blog.