This short was a few years before my time but I did have the misfortune to see it only once, and that was in about 1998 on CITV. Basically, it's a Cartoon Drug Prevention Scheme starring the most famous Cartoon Stars of the day including ALF, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Muppet Babies, Garfield, TMNT, etc. For a kid growing up at this time it would have seemed like a Miracle, all these stars coming together in one place seemed almost biblical. So with pretty much every kid with a TV set waiting for this amazing spectacle to appear, first thing we get is George Bush Senior and the First Lady, and by no means in Cartoon form either. I'm sure for a kid they'd either consider it a damning blow to their confidence or a preceding advert featuring George Bush giving a lecture on the American home. It's not the best way to start a cartoon special featuring all your favourite cartoon characters and after the first 5 seconds, most children would have switched off completely to all he had to say, so basically it was a waste of the Presidents time.
But after he's done with his speech, the cartoon starts and everyone is on the edge of their seats waiting to see what adventures were in store for them and their Cartoon Characters. Marijuana...
Yes, for a child uninitiated in the indecencies of the adult world, this seems pretty unbelievable, their favourite Cartoon characters who'd they'd be expecting to be flying off on some mystical adventure over the rainbow are going to spend the next 25 minutes lecturing them on drug abuse, and that's what this whole Cartoon is all about, each individual Cartoon Star coming up to this kid with drug problems and telling him that he's going to be a walking corpse soon enough. They even have an Alan Menken song just to rub it in. At this point, most kids would probably be searching their house for their father's draw of Nostalgic firearms so they can either shoot the TV or shoot themselves. But thankfully I didn't get to that part because I lost all interest after about 10 minutes.
Basically, this Cartoon is flawed to begin with. It is trying to give a life lesson in such a way that no child would be interested. A more subtle lesson would be much better, like the one given in Ozzy and Drix about smoking and other abuse to your body. You could say that its like an Animated Xanadu, all your favourite things coming together in one place but for a pointless reason. Also, the whole lesson is flawed from the start as it basically says that if you smoke marijuana all your cartoon characters will appear. I think I'll test this theory by going out, getting a joint from my local dealer, smoking it, coming back and I expect Alvin and the Chipmunks to be sitting on my bed so I can shake their hand and break out a musical guitar number with them. If they're not there when I get back, I'll be demanding a refund pronto...
But after he's done with his speech, the cartoon starts and everyone is on the edge of their seats waiting to see what adventures were in store for them and their Cartoon Characters. Marijuana...
Yes, for a child uninitiated in the indecencies of the adult world, this seems pretty unbelievable, their favourite Cartoon characters who'd they'd be expecting to be flying off on some mystical adventure over the rainbow are going to spend the next 25 minutes lecturing them on drug abuse, and that's what this whole Cartoon is all about, each individual Cartoon Star coming up to this kid with drug problems and telling him that he's going to be a walking corpse soon enough. They even have an Alan Menken song just to rub it in. At this point, most kids would probably be searching their house for their father's draw of Nostalgic firearms so they can either shoot the TV or shoot themselves. But thankfully I didn't get to that part because I lost all interest after about 10 minutes.
Basically, this Cartoon is flawed to begin with. It is trying to give a life lesson in such a way that no child would be interested. A more subtle lesson would be much better, like the one given in Ozzy and Drix about smoking and other abuse to your body. You could say that its like an Animated Xanadu, all your favourite things coming together in one place but for a pointless reason. Also, the whole lesson is flawed from the start as it basically says that if you smoke marijuana all your cartoon characters will appear. I think I'll test this theory by going out, getting a joint from my local dealer, smoking it, coming back and I expect Alvin and the Chipmunks to be sitting on my bed so I can shake their hand and break out a musical guitar number with them. If they're not there when I get back, I'll be demanding a refund pronto...