GHCool All of these characters will be familiar to people of my generation that grew up on these TV shows. I vaguely remember watching this in my elementary school. This video is very strange because of its blending of name-recognition commercialism and realism in dealing with a serious topic, an "Alice and Wonderland" style, a realistic ending that doesn't quite solve the problem, and the fact that so many different characters from each with different copyright holders appear together. Its easy to laugh at this film, but its also kind of astonishing that it was ever produced in the first place.Did this show have an impact on its intended audience? Of course, its impossible to say for sure, but I'd like to think that it did. Seeing it now that I'm older and working in television animation was quite an interesting experience for me. Very few films, animated or otherwise, capture a moment in history so completely as this one captures the United States circa 1990.

Tiskit Tothead One of the greatest works of Anti-Drug propaganda, this time aimed at small children. The video opens with a Ronald McDonald House commercial that is humorous on a bad taste level ("Peel them taters!") Then look who's here, if it isn't then president George Bush and his wife Barbara, historically famous for raising the Anti-Christ. They give a well meaning message to the grade-school set, which obviously didn't take when you look at all that heroin those kids took a few years later. The half-hour animated special features simply everybody: Bugs Bunny, Winnie the Pooh, Muppet Babies, the Smurfs. Slimer from Ghostbusters, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield and Alf, a We Are The World of dope hatred. "Drugs don't stand a chance against these guys!" says the tagline. Besides the obvious lesson that smoking a joint will make you try crack the next day, we find that if you smoke pot, you will hurt the Muppet Babies inside your brain. You'll derail the roller coaster inside your mind and make Kermie and Piggie fall out. Of course, it was pot that put those Muppet Babies in the Roller Coaster in your brain in the first place, so puzzle that one. Also, when you bottom out and turn into a shrunken zombie, said to happen on the third day after your first joint, then you'll have to face the man in the mirror: Alf. This is ironic considering all the heroin the head writer for Alf was shooting at the time (read Jerry Stahl's Permanent Midnight). A drug war relic. Eight Leaves: Kind. A drug movie's drug movie. Will make your eyes red with happiness.

Pataloca How weird is it when you are a senior in high school, taking health class (which is supposed to be taken in 9th grade) and your teacher comes out of nowhere saying "I don't really feel like giving you guys more work for me to grade, so I'm going to put on an anti-drug cartoon from 199...something"?My point exactly. So, while sitting there, watching this piece of work (which they should show on television or at LEAST have on tape available for purchase) and remembering that exactly 14 years ago I sat in my living room watching Alf, Alvin, Simon and Theodore under a bed talking about how drugs are bad. (Simon had to be all smart by stating EXACTLY what marijuana was." I mean, this has to be some of the greatest stuff ever! WHY they don't do something like this again, or show it every year on National Anti-Drug Day (I don't know if there actually IS that day, but work with me)?Now, quality programming of this magnitude just can't be found anymore. And that's sad. Just like how it's sad that girl stole Mike's wallet, and he never did get it back.

ligl I was 9 when this aired, and in the habit of watching TV on saturday mornings, so I sure did see it.And it scared the living crap out of me.Drugs make your skin turn green and your eyes sink in, and your brain goes all haywire and you'll DIE!! The Muppet Babies said so!So, to experience the full effect of this movie, be 9 years old. Preferably 9 years old in 1990, or you won't know any of the characters. Alternately, you can appreciate it by just having a really keen sense of pop culture irony.Fun fact! A whole day of Congress was devoted to talking about this thing. It got gummint funding, so they talked about it, in the context of the drug war. The best statement made in the proceedings (as far as I remember, paraphrasing): "Gentlemen, we have a new weapon in the war on drugs. It is not a some tool or a some other tool or a caterpillar bred to eat cocaine . . . it is a cartoon." I wonder how many congresmen's eyes were rolling.Anyway, this thing is an amazing artifact. For the then-hip clothing of the kids, for the lingo, for the fact that it's a bunch of cartoon characters telling you that drugs are bad.