Showtime revisits ‘Reefer Madness’

updated 10:41 a.m. ET April 22, 2005

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - A six-foot hookah sits in the middle of the room, a remnant of an orgy a few days before.

Behind a curtain in the execution chamber, FDR, a gangster’s bloodied moll and a chorus of dancing inmates gleefully sing about the evils of “the demon weed” to a boy strapped to an electric chair.

George Washington, Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty wait in the wings. And Jesus has left the building.

Stepping onto the otherworldly set of Showtime’s “Reefer Madness” was not unlike entering the land of Oz — though it’s doubtful the munchkins would have spent their days rolling chamomile joints beneath plastic marijuana trees.

Welcome to premium cable’s adaptation of “Reefer Madness,” the popular 1999 musical based on the 1930s film that became a cult classic in the ’60s and ’70s — with college kids often lighting up to watch it at midnight theater showings.

Premiering 8 p.m. ET Saturday, the raucous, high-energy comedy spins a tale of two all-American, gee-whiz kids who fall into a downward spiral of sex and mayhem after one puff of a joint.

But this isn’t a cautionary tale about pot, says Kevin Murphy, who co-wrote the musical and teleplay.

“It’s about the lengths people will go to convince you to think the way they want you to think,” he says. “‘Reefer Madness’ is a prime example of people using scare tactics to convince people to enact laws against drugs, gays in the military or whatever.”

Directed by Andy Fickman, who also helmed the stage musical, “Reefer Madness” is a film-within-a-film.

A reefer rampage
A black-and-white movie frames the story. It features Tony winner Alan Cumming (“Cabaret”) as the smooth-talking huckster who shows a film, “Tell Your Children” (the actual title of the original anti-marijuana film), to parents in a small town, warning them of the “unspeakable scourge turning all your children into hooligans and whores.”

A color film illustrates the tragic tale of young Jimmy (Christian Campbell) and his doe-eyed ingénue, Mary (Kristen Bell).

Their puppy-love fantasies are dogged by Jack, a drug pusher played by Steven Weber, who hooks Jimmy into his den of dopeheads, which include Jack’s maligned girlfriend, Mae, played by Ana Gasteyer, a tarty blonde (Amy Spanger), and a wild-eyed addict (John Kassir).

Overnight Jimmy becomes caught up in a reefer-induced rampage of promiscuity, theft and murder. Not even Jesus (Robert Torti), descending to earth for a Vegas-style number, can save him.

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