TV Review : CBS Airs Movie on Child Sexual Abuse

A parent in “Do You Know the Muffin Man?,” a CBS movie about mass molestation at the Tiny Tots preschool, can’t compute all the danger signs of sexual abuse: “There’s gotta be a reasonable explanation.”

There’s an explanation, as we learn, but the concept of “reasonable” doesn’t stretch far enough to make sense for reasonable people.

The fact that our community is absorbed by the events, or non-events, at our own McMartin Pre-School and its legendary trial (now plodding toward an end) makes this concocted drama all the more curious for us. It airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8.

“Muffin Man” writer and co-producer Daniel Freudenberger borrows heavily from the McMartin transcript--an evolving sense among parents that something’s wrong, very probable physical evidence, many parents “in denial,” supposed mutilated animals and odd rituals, uneasy testimony by tots, anguished parents taking their traumatized children out of the trial.

This production is well acted (Pam Dawber and John Shea as the folks and a winning young boy, Brian Bonsall, playing their son); it’s well-enough directed by Gil Cates (except for some heavy-handed characterizations, like Tony Geary’s oozing defense attorney); the scenes are nicely lit and neatly photographed. But this is faint praise.

While “Muffin Man” may not scream like exploitation, it tries so hard to define the evil that it all comes out too easy in black and white--some might say dangerously easy. Plots are contrived. Kids don’t talk like that. Courtrooms don’t happen like that.

The producers try to cover too much of this tricky territory. Even giving all hands the benefit of doubts, the subject demands more careful handling. No cigar.

(For viewers “in crisis,” the network will display the national child abuse hot line number--(800) 4 A CHILD--from Child Help. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, (800) 843-5678, also will take calls for people wanting a pamphlet on “How to Choose Day Care.” It was produced for an upcoming ABC film, “Unspeakable Acts,” which details a grim, true-life preschool scandal in Country Walk, Fla.)