Nerding Day: The Hawaiian Sweet Rolls Movie

The week after Halloween is the perfect time to discuss The King’s Hawaiian Sweet Rolls Halloween Movie because, as I’ve mentioned several times in my articles before, no one can stop me. In 2018, King’s Hawaiian Sweet Rolls created a production company called Fresh Baked Films, made precisely one children's movie, and then shuttered that production studio for good. It was a film about a lot of things... heritage, rolls, culture, whether it's acceptable to give trick-or-treaters rolls, family, and mischievous Hawaiian spirits who love rolls.

The biggest problem with this movie is that there weren’t enough rolls in it. If a bread company is going to bankroll an entire film, I expect the main character to be a superhero powered by carbs like Birdman is powered by the sun. I want to see a bread guzzling Superman wailing on a hoagie midair so he has the strength to fight crime. If you, like me, are a King’s Hawaiian Sweet Rolls super fan and were watching this for the rolls, you will be disappointed!! Throughout this article, I will point out some places where more King’s Hawaiian Sweet Rolls could have been added to the story.

There's not a single carb in this movie for the first twenty-three minutes. It's just three dumb kids surfing, and then they fall into an underwater cave and find an ancient box they definitely shouldn't open, but of course, they do open it, and it's got a little pineapple-headed guy statue in it, and one of kid's has a super smart Grandpa who's like, "You didn't open the box did you? Because that would be super bad" and they lie and say they didn't and go trick or treating. That's where we first see the rolls!

The very first house they trick-or-treat at is home to an anthropomorphic cheetah human in a leather daddy outfit. They could have made him look like a human in a costume, but they chose not to, and the children think nothing of this. When they see him, they say "Wow, cool!" to this reject from kink night on the island of Dr. Moreau.

When the kids say "trick-or-treat," the Cheetah man responds "treat," and holds out a tray of Hawaiian Sweet Rolls. The nerdy kid replies "I love these King Hawaiian Sweet Rolls. They're the best." The name of the brand is King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, but they clearly say King Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, which is embarrassing, especially for a film boasting such a talented voice cast. Vanessa Williams and Mark Hamill each have about five lines in this movie, and Noah Schnapp from Stranger Things voices one of the three main characters. Anyway, next, there's a close-up of the rolls.

The close-up of the rolls isn't the best because of the limits of the animation style. I'm not going to lie; they look kind of disgusting. They give off the vibe of a tall pile of cold scrambled eggs or warm potato salad. I get why they cheaped out on animating the kids, but animating the rolls this badly is frankly irresponsible. The rolls are the actual protagonist of this movie.

So, earlier, when the kids opened that box and lied about it, they released an evil Hawaiian spirit called Pineapplehead. Now it's stalking them because it gets its powers from the moon (disappointingly not carbs), and one of the kids has a necklace that's a piece of moon rock. As the children run from Pineapplehead, they are rescued by a group of good island spirits called Menehune. The Menehune happen to love King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls.

From this point on, the movie is an absolute desert of King's Hawaiian Sweet Roll content. The Menehune are good at building things out of palm trees, so they build a little helicopter and take the kid up to visit the fire goddess who lives inside a volcano on the island, and is voiced by Vanessa Williams. The fire goddess wears a lava bra, which is not only impractical but uncomfortable. I see this as a missed opportunity to incorporate more rolls into the story. This is how you make a bra for roll fans, Fresh Baked Films:

The fire goddess tells the kids to lure Pineapplehead down to the beach, and she will use her sway with the god of the ocean and the god of the sky to help them defeat him. Together the kids form a plan that involves raising their dead, buff, and, for budget reasons, identical Hawaiian ancestors – along with the previously mentioned three gods – to take down a ghost with a Pineapple for a head. To be fair, Pineapplehead has also been growing larger the longer he's exposed to moonlight, and he ripped an enormous skateboard off of a sign for a skateboard shop and has been boarding around the town, causing havoc. Do you know what he hasn't been doing, though? He hasn't eaten a single King's Hawaiian Sweet Roll. That is his real crime.

Meanwhile, the kids are suddenly concerned with people in town freaking out about the cursed ghost they released and then ignored so they could go trick-or-treating and obtain their delicious rolls. We see a 9-1-1 operator reassure a frightened woman by saying, "Ma'am, pineapples don't grow that big." Imagine being such a Karen that you try to call the cops on a skateboarding pineapple ghost.

The kids send the Menehune into town to create a diversion while they and their rag-tag team of gods and ghosts take care of Pineapplehead. For some reason, the Menehune decide what will really distract people from a rampaging twelve-foot-tall ghost is a second rampaging twelve-foot-tall ghost only friendly and spewing candy. So they build a fake Pineapplehead to do exactly that. Sure, this means some people will hear about the candy-spewing pineapple monster and be disappointed by the person-stomping pineapple monster, but that's not what's important. You know what I'm going to say here: why not have the decoy pineapple monster shoot rolls at the unsuspecting public? Here's how it should have looked:

I feel like I should mention this is where Mark Hamill makes his brief cameo appearance. He plays a cop who tries to arrest the decoy pineapple monster. After he is knocked out and left in the street with his eyes open, the protagonist's grandfather steals his cop car to help the kids, gods, and ghost takedown the real Pineapplehead. The kids don't need his help, but the movie needed a ROLL with only five lines for Mark Hamill to play, and this is how they wedged that into the plot. It would have been the perfect spot for, I don't know... a roll:

Unsurprisingly, Pineapplehead is defeated by the army amassed against him. He was just skateboarding in peace around his native land. His only crime was being too tall and squirting juices, and now he's sentenced to be locked in a trunk for eternity. We didn't arrest Wilt Chamberlain for the same crimes, but I guess when your head is a pineapple, you don't have rights. Now, I know the main question on your mind right now: how did the ghosts they raised from the dead feel about King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls? They've all got six packs, so they probably don't eat a ton of carbs, but I bet they would make an exception if someone would only offer them a roll! I've digitally added some to this scene for the real Rollheads:

The kids learn a lesson about not opening haunted boxes and also respecting their heritage or something. Then, finally, we get what we're looking for-- a long shot of the Menehune relaxing on the beach and enjoying some delicious rolls.

There was so much talent attached to this film! One of the screenwriters also wrote for Edward Norton's Incredible Hulk movie. How did it only gross fifty thousand dollars at the box office? I think we all know why. If they had simply added a few more scenes where people discuss the merits of King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, they could have saved this film!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Daniel Hill, finally! The great taste of King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls in person form!

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