When I watch a movie, there are two of me in the same seat. There’s that regular movie-going guy who likes blood and boobs and things that explode, the kind of movies we call POPCORN MOVIES. But there’s another fellow who accompanies him. This guy likes some of the same things as his friend, but he is a seeker and connoisseur of SERIOUS CINEMA. This guy doesn’t just want to see a movie, he wants it to change his life. This one might just do that.
Words crawl across the television: “The motion picture you are about to witness may startle you. It would not have been possible otherwise to sufficiently emphasize the frightful toll of the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America in alarmingly increasing numbers. Marihuana is that drug – a violent narcotic – an unspeakable scourge – the real Public Enemy No. 1!”
CINEMA: Duuude.
POPCORN: Um . . . dude?
CINEMA: Yeeeeah, my friend, what’s. Up. It’s sooo good to see you. Here, pull up some couch. Take a load off, man. I just started the. You know, movie again.
POPCORN: Heh, REEFER MADNESS. You feelin’ alright, dude?
CINEMA: Oh yeeeeeah. I was just, you know. Prepping the. For this week. You know, the movie. I was kind of hungry and. You left this huuuuge plate of brownies in the kitchen. So I, um. Had some.
POPCORN: Uh, dude. How many did you have?
CINEMA: All of them. They were soooo good. The more I ate, like, the hungrier I got. I’m feeling kind of. Sleepy, though. Kinda funny too. You know. Not sure if I feel like. Yeah.
On the television, Dr. Carroll is addressing a group of parents at the local PTA: “You must stand united on this and stamp out this frightful assassin of our youth. You can do it by bringing about compulsory education on the subject of narcotics in general, the dread marijuana in particular.”
CINEMA: Are you aware? Heh-heh-heh. Of the unspeakable scourge? Of the dread marijuana? The assassin of our youth?
POPCORN: Uh, yeah. Think I read about it once. So we gonna do this movie or what?
CINEMA: What movie? Oh hey, look. They’re talking about how they bring it in. You know, to the country. Heh. It was. Mexicans. Your boy would be proud. Mister . . . Trump. Do you think he’s seen this?
Dr. Carroll reads a letter of vital importance from the Narcotics Bureau: “My dear Dr. Carroll, the suppression of the use of marijuana and of the forces lurking behind it are the most important jobs this department is now engaged in . . .”
CINEMA: Did you know? There was some, um. Political upheaval in Mexico it. Led to the revolution in 1910. The was a wave of, um, wave-um of. Immigrants. Flooding the American southwest. They brought their, uh. Tortillas. Shit, no.
POPCORN: Marijuana?
CINEMA: Not right now, thanks. But that’s what they brought. Those Mexicans because. It was, you know, what they enjoyed. No big deal. But the police. There was resentment and fear and people are racist. Sometimes, you know. So. The police they said. Said it aroused blood lust and gave the Mexicans . . . s u p e r h u m a n strength.
POPCORN: I am only Juan, but weeth this I am Reefer Man.
CINEMA: Ha. Starting in 1914, local laws started cropping up. Huh-ha, you see what I did there? Cropping up . . . to criminalize marijuana, but it. Wasn’t so much to control the pot, but to control the Mexicans.
POPCORN: Yeah, dude. But that shit had already been growin’ here since the beginning. In the form of hemp, man. Matter of fact, it was a required crop at one time. Pretty sure George Washington had some in his backyard.
CINEMA: I find it very unlikely that he, you know. He was sparking up as he crossed the Potomac. But anyway the. Uh, the campaigns against the marijuana menace depicted, you know. Mexicans, black people, jazz musicians, and prostitutes. And they were all trying to lure Pat Boone away from his clean-cut cardigan sweaters, ha.
Television: “No doubt, many of you do not believe that these things happen, that they cannot happen to you. You may also believe that the facts have been exaggerated.”
CINEMA: Hey, when did you start the movie?
Television: “Let me tell you of something that happened right here, in our own city. You probably read about it in the papers; however, I’ll give you the real facts behind the case. There was an apartment near one of our high schools. It was run by a woman known as Mae Collins . . .”
POPCORN: Damn, dude. Check out Mae’s place. She must be sellin’ a lotta pot.
CINEMA: Heh, she needs to hire a. Maid, though.
Jack: Hey! Come on, Mae, get up!
Mae: What time is it?
Jack: Time to get up and give this place a going-over. It looks like the Marines have landed.
Mae: Well, that bunch last night was high enough to take over the Marines and the Navy.
Jack: You better get on the job. Some of the kids may be over this afternoon.
Mae: Oh Jack, we can get along without dragging those young kids up here.
Jack: Oh, why don’t you button up your lip? You’re always squawking about something. You got more static than the radio.
CINEMA: Did you know? That this movie was originally financed by a church group. It was intended as a . . . um, a morality play about. The dangers of cannabis. Holy shit am I hungry. It was called. Called, um.
POPCORN: TELL YOUR CHILDREN, dude.
CINEMA: Not yet. That’s a conversation I’m just, um. Not ready for yet. But that was the original title of this movie. Did you know?
Cut to a SCHOOL CROSSING sign. Teddy, Kenny, and Ralph are walking down Main Street, talking about the party Teddy is going to have at his grandmother’s house on Friday. All of these high school students are dressed like businessmen and appear to be in their mid-20s. After Teddy and Kenny leave, Jack approaches Ralph. They are obviously acquaintances, and Ralph begins to talk about Mary, down the street a little way.
CINEMA: There was a, uh, director and producer. Dwain Esper. Heh, dwain the tub. He, um, had already. Heh. He was, like, an exploitation director. He had already made his own marijuana. Um, marijuana movies. There was SINISTER HARVEST in, shit, I don’t know. Nineteen thirty, maybe. And . . . DEVIL’S WEED. Nineteen, nineteen . . . Ida know. He exposed all those weird orgies and. You know, wild parties unleashed by smoking pot.
POPCORN: Dude, where were these parties when I was young?
CINEMA: I know, right. Freakin’ at the freaker’s ball. But he, um. He. Hee. Hee.
POPCORN: Esper?
CINEMA: Yeah, him, and he . . . acquired TELL YOUR CHILDREN. He added some scenes and. You know, to make it a little sleazier. And started showing it all over everywhere, calling it. Numerous titles. Like, THE BURNING QUESTION. Um . . . DOPED YOUTH. LOVE MADNESS, and, finally, REEFER MADNESS.
Ralph and Jack approach Mary in her open convertible. Mary’s brother, Jimmy, is in the back seat and her boyfriend, Bill, is standing beside the car. Ralph introduces Jack, who slyly asks if Mary and Jimmy want to join them for some laughs. Mary declines, but Jimmy is eager to go. Cut to a malt shop with a piano playing and kids dancing. Jimmy is really enjoying the piano and a girl named Agnes.
Jimmy: He really swings out with a mess of jive! Wanna dance?
CINEMA: Bah-hahaha! A mess of jive.
POPCORN: Dude, there was a real case. Victor something. He killed his family with an axe in Florida in, like, 1933. Supposedly ol’ boy was smokin’ too many jays and it made him crazy. They kinda based this on that, even though it turns out he was schizo.
CINEMA: Yeeeah, schizophrenic with homicidal tendencies. Heh-heh. They, um, used that case to. To pass the federal Marijuana Tax Axe . . . uh, Act, in 1937. Heh. It effectively outlawed sales of the dreaded demon weed.
POPCORN: Demon weed, heh-heh. They been growin’ it for, like, at least five thousand years. It’s one of the oldest crops. Probably started out in Asia, but it can grow anywhere. Like, dorm closets and shit. If you put it in, like, a field, it starts to crowd out all the other grasses –
CINEMA: So it’s like. A weed.
POPCORN: Heh, yeah.
CINEMA: Weed. We’d. Weeeeeed.
POPCORN: Yeah, dude. Weed. If they get enough light and nutrients and, like, love, the plants can get anywhere from three feet to, like, twenty.
CINEMA: Twenty feet?? Holy Matthew McConaughey! That’s a seriously. Huge plant.
POPCORN: Yeah, dude. Like, Jack could climb that shit and find himself a giant. For real, man. But it’s pretty much just, like, Jamaican dudes that can do that. They sing to the plants and worship ’em and shit. It’s like magic.
CINEMA: Bibbidy-bobbedy . . . boo.
POPCORN: They been using the stalks forever, dude. To make rope and canvas and paper and shit. All these big scientist dudes and doctors and psychiatrists say it’ll be called the miracle drug someday.
CINEMA: Patience, cancer patients. Heh-heh-heh-heh.
POPCORN: Yeah, they swear by it. Pot smoke don’t hurt your lungs the same as cigarette smoke either. Shit’s good for high blood pressure too.
CINEMA: Say, man, you got a joint?
POPCORN: No, not on me, man.
CINEMA: It’d be a lot cooler if you did. Heh-heh-heh. That was from, um.
POPCORN: DAZED AND CONFUSED, dude. Yeah, I know.
Ralph, Jimmy, Bill, and Blanche show up at Mae’s apartment. The whitest high-school kids ever are jitterbugging crazily to jazz music. Someone somewhere laughs maniacally. Jimmy joins Agnes on the couch, while Blanche lures Bill down beside her. Mae sees Bill and proceeds to the kitchen to ask Jack about him.
Jack: Bill Harper. He’s alright. Blanche got herself quite a yen for him.
Mae: Not bad. I didn’t think she had that much taste.
Jack: She knows what she’s doing. She’s got Ralph nuts about her, and now she’s got her hooked up with this new kid
CINEMA: Duuude. Bill’s supposed to be with Mary. What’s he doing??
POPCORN: Gettin’ that hook in him, bro. Marijuana, it makes men into monsters and women into whores. Keep watchin’.
Jack needs to go across town to replenish the supply, so he asks Jimmy to give him a ride. Jimmy eagerly agrees and they leave. Bill offers Blanche a cigarette. She is uninterested, but when Mae enters with a tray of ready-rolled joints, she nearly dives for one. Ralph takes one too. To prove that he’s not afraid, Bill warily reaches for a joint and lights up. Reefer in hand, Ralph laughs like someone insane.
POPCORN: No way is this dude that messed up just from the ganja.
CINEMA: What are you people? On dope?!
POPCORN: Ha! . . . FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, right?
CINEMA: Yeeeah.
POPCORN: Alright then . . . I know you don’t smoke weed, I know this. But I’m gonna get you high today, cuz it’s Friday, you ain’t got no job, and you ain’t got shit to do.
CINEMA: That’s too. Easy. The title is right in there. That’s Chris Tucker in FRIDAY.
POPCORN: Yup. Ask me what’s in this shit, man.
CINEMA: What’s in this shit, man?
POPCORN: Mostly Maui Wowie, man, but it’s got some Labrador.
CINEMA: What’s Labrador?
POPCORN: My dog ate my stash, man.
CINEMA: Yeah?
POPCORN: I had it on the table and the little motherfucker ate it, man. I had to follow him around with a little baggie for three days, man, before I got it back. Really blew the dog’s mind, ya know?
CINEMA: You mean we’re smoking dog shit, man? UP IN SMOKE. Everyone knows . . . that.
POPCORN: Okay . . . You ever see the back of a twenty dollar bill . . . on weed? Oh man, there’s some crazy shit, man.
CINEMA: That’s the same movie as this . . . Marijuana is not a drug. I used to suck dick for coke. Now that’s an addiction. You ever suck dick for marijuana?
POPCORN: D’oh! Bob Saget, dude. HALF BAKED. Alright, here you go . . . I don’t know what kind of trip you’re on, but I hope you have a return ticket.
CINEMA: Duuude. I have. No. Idea.
POPCORN: MUPPET SHOW, man.
CINEMA: Huh-huh-huh. Oh, wait. Here comes my favorite part . . .
Jack handed Jimmy a marijuana cigarette before going in to see his supplier. When he returns to the car, Jimmy is high and ridiculously hopped up.
Jimmy: Let’s go, Jack! I’m red hot!
Jack: Better be careful how you drive, or the first thing you know, you’ll be ice cold.
But Jimmy is not careful how he drives. The car races through the streets of 1930s Los Angeles, tires squealing, while Jack yells at Jimmy to slow down. They pass the same tire shop three times and the same billboard and gas station at least twice. Jack is still yelling at Jimmy when the car thumps into an old man, knocking him to the ground, dead. Jimmy never slows down, somehow speeding like a madman while stoned out of his mind.
CINEMA: Heh. He. Heh-heh. He never even. Heh-heh-huh. He – omigod, he never even looked! Huh-huh-huh-huh!! Never looked. Just . . . boom! and vroom-vroom. Buh-HAHAHAHA!!!
POPCORN: Heh-heh. No way would that ever happen, dude. No way.
CINEMA: Better ask your. Huh-huh-huh. Buddies out there. In Colorado. Huh-huh.
POPCORN: No, man. There’s been no reefer madness out there since they made the shit legal. That was, what, over a year ago?
CINEMA: I don’t. No, I haven’t really. Heh. I haven’t kept up. With that.
POPCORN: No reefer madness. Folks ain’t stoned any more than they already were. Mexican cartels haven’t taken over the state. And check this. Colorado, man, they collected, like, $76 Million in taxes from pot sales, man.
CINEMA: Seventy-six million??
POPCORN: For real, dude. Hell, we could fix the roads here in Michigan for that.
CINEMA: And the, um. Schools.
POPCORN: Legalize it, man. Don’t criticize it. Legalize it –
CINEMA: Yeah-uh, yeah-uh.
POPCORN: – and I will advertize it.
CINEMA: Some call it tamjee . . .
POPCORN: Some call it the weed.
CINEMA: Some call it mary-wanna.
POPCORN: Some call it ganja.
CINEMA: Some call it blunt or boo-yah.
POPCORN: Oh, wait . . . am I sensing a challenge?
CINEMA: Oh, yeeeah. The . . . gauntlet has been thrown down. You cannot defeat my. Powers.
POPCORN: Then bring it on, dude.
CINEMA: Cannabis sativa. Pot. Weed. Bud. The Chronic. Dope. Doobie. Doobage. Grass. Herb. Dutchie. Jazz cigarette. Mary Jane. Kaya. And . . . loco weed.
POPCORN: That’s weak, dude.
CINEMA: I’d like to see you . . . do . . . better.
POPCORN: The bionic. The bomb. Bammer. Sensie. Buddha. The brown Buddha. Toot. Biff. Binger. Bishop. Budski. Kush. Cheeba. Choke. Crippy. Joint. Jay. Jib. Endo. White rhino. Sweet leaf. Juicy fruit. Herbstein. Detroit magic. The stuff. Dro. Dub sack. Hog-leg. Hooter. Hydro. Keef. Nib. Nugget. Onion. Smoke. Spliff. Toke. Tea. Tunechi. And . . . Cousin Mary.
CINEMA: You . . . forgot tetrahydrocannabinol.
POPCORN: No. No . . . I just hadn’t gotten to it yet, homegrown. Happy leaf. Chief. Chino. Cigga-weed. Ditch-weed. Doja. Dub. Fatty-boom-blatty. Giggle stick. Hippie lettuce. La-la. Left-handed cigarette. MJ. Mexican dirt-weed. Mighty Mez. Reggie. Schwag. Shake. Skater. Skunk. Thai stick. Whifty. And . . . Mother Nug.
CINEMA: But. What about . . . nuggets? Blaze? Sticky bud? Hooba? The fetid finger? Hay? Hash? Resin? Wizard? Ace? Or . . . Puff the Magic Dragon?
POPCORN: Oh, it’s on, bitch. Sticky-icky-icky. Frodis. Grapes – that’s purple weed, in case you don’t believe me. Guy Smiley. Goofy Boots. Headies. Smeed. Sh-bang-a-lang. Mannie Fresh. Moss. Skizzzunk. Irish mind bomb. Electric puha. Sweet G. Oregano and parsley. Boogity-brown. Bobby Brown. Dagga. Scooby Doo. African broccoli. Bubble kush. Gangster. Boom. Pakalolo. Mota. Blue hair. Creeper. Maui Wowie. Acapulco Gold. Texas Tea. Viper. Widdle. Long-Beach. Gang dang. Snickle-fritz. Old Toby. Kevin Bacon, just because. Kimo sabe. Jupiter’s beard. Yarndi. Jesus. Jibber. Shuzzit. Backyard boogie. Kine bud. Some bad-ass Daniel Nuggetstone. And . . . wacky tobacky.
CINEMA: (applause)
POPCORN: Thank you, thank you. All hail the king.
The events unfolding on the television grow ever more surreal. Within the span of twenty minutes, the following things occur: A vicious woman-beating. An attempted rape. A shooting. Bill wakes up with a gun in his hand and is sent to prison. No one is spared a drink of the devil’s smoky nectar. In the apartment, Ralph is losing his mind with guilt.
POPCORN: Oh wait, dude. Here’s my favorite part.
Blanche: You want me to play something for you?
Ralph: Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. Play something.
Blanche leads Ralph to the piano and begins to play a stormy piece of music. Ralph lights a joint for himself, then another for Blanche. He is looking more unhinged by the minute.
Ralph: Play it faster! Faster! Play it faster!!
Blanche, with a wild look and a joint in her mouth, plays it faster.
POPCORN: This guy is gone-gonorrhea. Just look at him.
Ralph smokes and smokes, his fingers twitching. Urging her to go faster, faster, faster. She plays at a nearly cartoon-like speed. Ralph leaps up from the piano bench, drops down into another chair. He tosses the lit joint on the carpet and holds his head with his hands. The look on his face is one of utter melodramatic madness.
CINEMA: Heh. Heh-heh-heh. Do you k n o w what . . . would make this movie just s u p e r?
POPCORN: No, man, what?
CINEMA: If I was s t o n e d . . .
– The Cats and the Fiddle, 1939