The made-for-cable musical satire Reefer Madness is based on the award-winning play of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the notorious -- and deliciously awful -- 1936 anti-marijuana film originally titled Tell Your Children. A smarmy lecturer (Alan Cumming in the first of his three roles in the film) arrives in a typical small town of the late '30s to warn the populace of the dangers of the "evil weed," bringing along a lurid propaganda film to dramatize his message. In broad, unsubtle, and hilarious strokes, the movie-within-a-movie shows how even a squeaky-clean pair of highschoolers named Mary Lane (Kristen Bell) and Jimmy Harper (Christian Campbell) can become hopeless dope addicts by succumbing to the lure of marijuana. Reefer Madness is not only a savage skewering of the original black-and-white movie (some of the musical's campiest lines are taken directly from the earlier script!), but also a devastating attack on what playwrights Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney consider to be the real reason that the 1936 movie was made: to frighten the public out of their wits in order to keep them under the thumb of an oppressive government. Thus, the musical manages to take a number of not-so-veiled swipes at xenophobia, racism, McCarthyism, the Bush Administration's Homeland Security policy, and even the recent FCC clampdown on "offensive" TV fare (one of the film's highlights is a garish nightclub number featuring Jesus Christ). The ebulliently staged songs include "The Stuff," "Down at the Ol' Five and Dime," "Lonely Pew," "Listen to Jesus Jimmy," "Mary Jane/Mary Lane," "The Brownie Song," "Tell 'Em the Truth," and the title number. Officially titled Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, this film first aired April 16, 2005, on the Showtime cable service.

Columbia/Tri-Star's DVD release of this 1985 cult horror favorite features a clean-looking, crisp-sounding transfer of the film, but remains a let-down thanks to a lack of special features. Beyond simply owning this great horror-comedy in the DVD format, the only real reasons to purchase this version is to see the letterboxed version of the film (in its original 2.35: 1 aspect ratio) on side one and to be able to hear the heavily '80s-influenced soundtrack in Dolby Surround Sound (English track only). Unfortunately, those are all the extras this disc has to offer unless you've been dying to catch the film in French or Portuguese. The lone addition is the original theatrical trailer which gives away most of the film's ending. The picture quality is excellent and Richard Edlund's special effects are captured in the ideal technological display. Side two also features the full-screen version of the film for those averse to letterboxing.