User reviews

Such a memorable part of my childhood. I recorded it off TV on VHS and watched it many times. Not because I was needing an intervention on drug use, just because I liked seeing all these cartoon characters together who normally never would be. Introduced by then-President George Bush and his wife Barbara, this is a made-for-TV drug PSA starring many of my favorite Saturday morning cartoon characters (and others that weren't my favorites). The characters include Garfield, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, the Smurfs, the Chipmunks, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Alf, Slimer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Michelangelo, Muppet Babies, and Huey, Duey, and Luey. They all come together to help a kid who's been seduced into using drugs by the villainous smoke monster "The Man in Charge." It's the kind of thing that ticks off certain crowds today and I'm sure it ticked them off then, as well. Watching it for the first time in at least twenty-five years, I see the preachiness of it more but it's well-meaning so I don't mind that much. The animation is decent for the time, with a couple of weird sequences that stand out. There's also a song, which is as corny as can be but adds to the camp appeal. Overall it's of interest as a nostalgia piece for people like me and as a curio for animation fans. Will it keep your kids off dope? No, of course not. Will it hurt? No, of course not. It's just fun. If baby Kermit & Miss Piggy taking a kid on a "trip" doesn't make you smile, you need to put out an APB on your sense of humor.

This film spends a lot of time preaching against marijuana. However, the plot and visuals are so insane that it seems more like the poster-child for LSD.

Plot: The heroic struggle of Michael as he battles his drug addiction while being subjected to the humiliation brought on by the likes of Winnie the Pooh and Papa Smurf.

Yea, yea, there's a good message, but it's obscured by the fact that the writers have taken a rather stale PSA idea and tried stretching it into 30 minutes. This includes a song sequence, where you're told that there's a million, rational ways to say "No!" such as "I can't smoke pot, I have homework!"

The writers can't make up their minds what to do with the characters they've brought in royalty-free. At first we see they all have to hide from the human characters, but within five minutes we see them all running around in plain sight without anyone noticing. Soon they begin interacting with the human cast, and the only one who's even slightly disturbed by this fact is not the drug-abusers, it's the little sister who talks to her teddy bear (Pooh, by the way.) Further, there's the little drug demon floating around. Because you know, pushers don't give kids drugs. He too is ambiguous - while he might be symbolic of Michael's addiction and hence is not supposed to be seen by other people, he laters goes and haunts little Corey to get HER into drugs. So I guess he's...uhhh.....moving on!

The whole plot finally culminates in some insane sequence in which Michael is in what would appear to be the Saturday Morning Carnival of Souls, aka a theme park from hell where the various cartoon characters beat him up and ignore him and stuff. For example, Miss Piggy eats him in a sandwich and spits him out. If the writers were not high when writing this, I must recommend they try getting high because they can't get crazier than this. Of course, the film ignores the fact that Michael's been having highs for two years by this point, so why this tripping sequence would frighten him is beyond me.

I realize I'm completely whaling on this film, but I actually just saw it again because I went through the trouble of tracking it down on eBay because of it's sheer infamy of being a BAD cartoon. The level of unintentional humor is is brilliant. Take this scene for example - Michael's dad is rooting through the fridge for a beer. He notices many of them missing and mentions it to his wife. The ever-observant Mom tells him "Don't worry, you probably just drank them last night watching football." While we're obviously supposed to be learning that Michael is drinking beer (in addition to the pot and crack), we instead read further in and realize - Hey kids, it's okay to have chemical dependencies as long as you're a grown-up! Scenes like this are worth the tiny price tag of this film. Oh yea, and the fact you get to hear Simon the Chipmunk say "Marijuana."

I remember seeing this when I was 9-years-old and it blowing my mind- the fact that Alf AND the Muppet Babies AND Slimer would all be hanging out together was a truly amazing event in my life- perhaps THE most important moment of my developmental years.

However, I just recently realized that the show had an anti-drug message! It's subtle, I know, but it's there. My theory now is that all the "Cartoon All Stars" involved were just fulfilling their community service. Remember that time Theodore from "Alvin & The Chipmunks" got loaded and drove that school bus into a sidewalk full of people? Or when Brainy Smurf was indicted for his part in the magic mushrooms ring? Or when Tigger was caught BUI (Bouncing Under the Influence)? This was the result of their collective animated illegalities.

Anyway, my main question is: "How come I liked this so much as a kid but became a marijuana addict in college?"

This TV special was actually shown at my elementary school (I can't remember if I saw it on TV). Taking the most popular cartoon characters of the day (Bugs Bunny, Garfield, a Ninja Turtle, etc.), as merchandise that come to life to save a boy from drug addiction, Cartoon All-Stars acts as a public service announcement warning kids to stay away from marijuana and other illegal drugs.

It's a novelty to see all these characters in one cartoon (copyrights usually prevent that), and the underlying purpose is noble, but the end result isn't impressive at all. The laugh count stands at zero (maybe kids would like it more), and the musical number is a bust. As a story it lacks consistency and logic (the character made out of smoke can go through a brick wall, yet is trapped in a garbage can). More to the point, as a public service announcement, it's a failure. The cartoon is too heavy-handed; the kid seeing himself in green (looking into a magic mirror and then a crystal ball), seems over the top and dishonest. More importantly, did it work? Did this special actually stop kids from trying drugs? As I mentioned, my class and I saw this in school; I never did any illegal drugs, but plenty of others did. At most, after watching this a child may take the message for a little while, but by the time he or she gets to high school they've outgrown Winnie the Pooh and will likely experiment with marijuana anyway.

So what do we have at the end of the day? Cartoon All-Stars turns out to be a historical oddity, a place to go for unintentional comedy and surreal material. It also glorifies consumption of corporate merchandise- the Garfield lamp and the Kermit clock, both likely made in Asian sweat shops, will save the day. But that's a different issue. Show this to your kids if you feel you must, but don't expect any results.

When I was in seventh grade, our health teacher made us watch this movie. He prefaced it with a Serious Business Discussion about drugs, and then somehow managed to show us this with a straight face. Yes, it's THAT ridiculous . . . people were laughing hysterically throughout the whole movie and several people commented that if being high meant you got to meet the Smurfs, they wanted to get high.

The teacher refused to comment on whether or not he intended this movie to seriously affect us.

We were all born in the same year this movie was made, but I for one had seen all the cartoons with characters in the movie except The Smurfs, so it's not really true that you can't like it if you weren't young in the late eighties/ early nineties.

The only thing that could possibly have made this movie better is if the Care Bears were in it.

Do you kids love Kermit and The Chipmunks and Bugs Bunny and a dozen other cartoon characters? Then you'll love their preachy anti-marijuana short film, featuring characters at random who have nothing to do with the plot, and are only there so kids can say "Hey, I love that character, I don't want to smoke!" This is a seriously bad movie, and just on how bad it was, we can only hope it turned more kids to pot just for future reference that movies like this are horrible and don't work!

The plot makes no sense at all. This kid Michael is just flung from one set piece to another, with well known 80s cartoon characters inhabiting various set pieces. The thing just feels like a stupid nightmare, and undoubtedly the director took a few tabs of acid to come up with such odd and trippy sequences. The characters who normally would try to be making jokes aren't funny in the least, and this thing just comes off as really preachy. Marijuana is shown throughout, and the villain of the film is an anthromorphic smoke creature, but never are the actual effects of marijuana use touched upon. The cartoon characters talk about how it ruins lives, but never actually talk about what it does. The only results from smoking actually shown are Michael looking in a mirror and seeing himself as a weird goon. Of course, pot smoking makes people look like the phantom of the opera, that makes sense. Well kids, now that you know that, don't do it.

The song in this thing is ear piercingly bad. Most of the kids that watched this had to have gone deaf from this out of tune cartoon warbling.

There was literally no reason for most of these characters to appear, except to cover all the popular cartoons of the era. Slimer from Ghostbusters, the Smurfs, the Chipmunks all have pointless cameos that add nothing. Most of the roles are pointless, but their's are the worst.

This is an overly preachy short, that tries to hit kids despite that it has no logic behind it's method, and what better way to tell kids what not to do than with all their favorite cartoon characters together talking about it. This is a horrible mash-up of characters, and despite that it may have worked to help kids not smoke, it scares without information, instead of informing and using logic. And if smoking pot will make all your favorite cartoon characters appear, then why not try it?

My rating: BOMB out of ****. 27 mins.

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.

The US spent the entire 1980s freaking out about the possibility of children using drugs, and Nancy Reagan's solution was JUST SAY NO. Therefore it's no accident that a cartoon got made telling the tykes to avoid controlled substances.

Well, aside from the fact that "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue" features characters that people in the 2010s likely will have forgotten ever existed, its message is all wrong. While we should focus on keeping children from using narcotics, moralistic grandstanding is a guaranteed failure. The so-called War on Drugs has devastated entire communities in the US and overfilled our prisons, all the while turning Mexico into a near failed state. The right choice is what Portugal has done: it decriminalized drugs and treats drug usage as a health issue, not a crime. In fact, drug usage has DROPPED in Portugal ever since they decriminalized drugs. Many states in the US have allowed medical marijuana for years. Washington and Colorado both voted in legalized recreational marijuana use - soon to become law in Oregon - and their economies have benefited from it (my conclusion is that opposition legalized recreational marijuana use is, well, anti-capitalism). In fact, I heard a speech from Rick Steves (host of a travel show on PBS) stumping for Oregon's recently passed measure, and he noted that many European countries provide people with needles during their treatment to ensure that they don't buy the drugs from dealers. Pragmatism has proved to be the right way, while criminalization is the modern equivalent of prohibition (which only succeeded in strengthening the mafia).

What I'd like to see is a short in which a boy is in a religious fundamentalist family shoving their ideology down his throat...but then the characters from cult movies and TV shows or anything liked by nerds/geeks - Elvira, Ash (of the "Evil Dead" movies), Spock, etc - explain science to him until he has the courage to tell his parents that he doesn't accept the religious dogma. Maybe some of them smoke a joint at the end and remind the audience that marijuana is NOT an addictive drug.

A truly impressive collection of characters. I remember seeing this long ago when I was a child. Now that I'm older I understand what a big deal it was that sooo many celebrities came together to allow a lot of the biggest animated characters to do this show. It should be shown again.

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.

As a kid, this special aired on some channels. Basically bringing a lot of cartoon characters from the four different channels, it was allowed because of one thing: the special was made to be a anti-drug special (as this was back when TV stations aired PSAs meant to tell kids to say no to drugs, with one even having the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in one where a kid is nearly bullied into doing drugs because the friend called him a chicken). Now, this is one special that will never see release again because of rights issues with the characters involved, but as an adult, I'd say it is for the best.

So, basically, a plot is a boy named Michael is doing drugs and alcohol, and one day, he steals the piggy bank of his sister, Corey. However, the theft is witnessed by Papa Smurf, who lives in a comic book, who then calls some of the cartoon characters (who pose as inanimate objects) to take action. This leads to Michael going through the most messed-up intervention of all time, while the special's main villain, Smoke (a puff of smoke that looks like something out of the Beetlejuice cartoon, and voiced by George C. Scott, best known for his portrayal of George S. Patton in the movie Patton) plans to keep Michael on the drugs with lame excuses.

Yeah, as I said, this is one messed-up intervention to the point where it makes you think this whole special was made on the one thing it tells you to say no to. While people freak about about Simon knowing about marijuana is and Bugs Bunny knowing what a joint is, I can let it pass, as it helps to teach kids that the different illegal drugs have different names (besides, Bugs Bunny has been in a cartoon where he actually makes a cigarette, and another where he snorts tobacco, so that explains why he knows what a joint is).

But that's not the worst of it, while the special does show the dangers of drugs and even a scene Bugs uses a time he took from some coyote to show Michael how his addiction started, it is still far from good. The film adds in some references that kids would not know about (in the scene where the toons see Michael emptying the piggy bank, ALF makes a reference to Leave It To Beaver, which adults may get. but kids back then who never saw that old show would not, and another where he shows Michael what he'll become due to drugs, and when he asks who it is, ALF says it's not Freddy Kreuger, which kids would not know, but older viewers would since it's a reference to a series of films the target audience is not old enough to be watching), but some scenes are actually horrible and portray the characters trying to help poor Michael doing stuff that would basically kill him (one scene has the Muppet Babies lock Michael in his own brain when he trips on a skateboard, and another scene has him in a nightmarish amusement part, and one part has Dewey, one of the triplets from DuckTales, try to run him over in a roller coaster cart). Those scenes are classic textbook cases of out of character portrayals, and are so dark, I am shocked the companies owning the characters even allowed the creators of this short to portray their characters as such. They should be glad they never got complaints back in the day of kids who saw the special having nightmares of said characters locking them in a burning building or trying to run them over.

While it does teach a good moral, and ending is good, the special is horribly executed. While the idea of having these beloved cartoon characters come together to teach an important lesson sounded good on paper, the scared straight aspect of some scenes (especially the carnival scene near the end) makes it fall, as it seems too scary for the target audience the cartoon characters used targets, and the fact said audience would not get most of the references, makes this one confusing special. Thank goodness this only happened once. Imagined if this sort of idea continued, only with different characters and different topics (like 90's cartoons talking about guns and school shootings, or cartoon characters from the 2010's talking about bullying). This special is long out of print, and will never be reissued due to rights issues with the characters used (whoever wants to re-release this will have to make deals with the companies who own said characters, with some of them having changed hands over the years, as well as redo the intro message to have the current POTUS and FLOTUS talking about the special), but it has been posted on sites (including the home video release, which also has the Ronald McDonald Children's Charities commercial airing before and after the special). Best viewed to laugh at.

As a kid I was raise and told how bad drugs and alcohol are bad for you and this video is part of the reason I avoid Drugs and never join the club.

I remember renting Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue as a kid a few times and seeing it on TV.

It is pretty cool how all these animation studios and networks actually join forces to help created this Public Service Announcement video feature your favorite cartoon characters plus some of my favorite cartoons were apart of this program.

Alf from "ALF: The Animated Series" Alvin, Simon Theodore from "Alvin and the Chipmunks" Huey, Dewey, and Louie from "Ducktales" Garfield from "Garfield and friends" Bugs Bunny and Daffy from "Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies" Baby Kermit, Baby Piggy, Baby Gonzo "Muppet Babies" Winnie the Pooh and Tigger from "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" Slimer from "The Real Ghostbusters" Papa Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Hefty Smurf from "The Smurfs" Michelangelo from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

It's not too often you ever seen a crossover like this and from many different TV series which were very huge at the time. Growing up with these shows this special has that nostalgia feel to it.

Each character does their part in this special and make it special to see a crossover with a message to stay drug free.

The plot does it very well and gives each character their own right to shine the voice acting works very well and there are some moments of humor to lighten the mood but keeping it message in the plot along with the animation being impressive and why I love hand drawn cartoons.

Just take the time to show it off you might be surprise and it will inspire you to stay away from drugs

I give Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue an 9 out of 10

If there's one thing I want to distinguish myself from all the other great reviewers here, it's that I am the Queen of Finding Strange Movies in Thrift and Dollar Stores. That said, you can't possibly imagine how happy I was when I found this one.

I can even remember that Saturday morning when *every* station simulcast it, so you were stuck if you wanted to watch something else (then again, I guess that was the idea). As a kid, I didn't know if I liked the way all the different characters were stuck together (there are some crossovers that just do *not* work). But I guess the special had it's intended effect. Don't do drugs because you will have nightmares about the Muppets.

Now, if you watch this as an adult, on the other hand, you will be treated to the *strangest* anti-drug movie this side of "Reefer Madness". I think I'll just leave it at that before I get into trouble.

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.

Somehow, I didn't watch this when it aired, but I think it was three years later, after its airing, that I would have the opportunity to watch it when I rented a VHS copy of it from Blockbuster. I remember seeing the special on that itself, as I'm not sure if I saw the prelude with the late President George H.W. Bush giving that speech about the fight against drugs, but I know for sure I didn't see the musical performance given by some kids and the promotion of McDonald's after the end credits. I wouldn't know about that until I read that being mentioned elsewhere on another site. The purpose behind the making of this may have been the point, but like several others, I was just excited about the crossover thing with these mostly '80s cartoon characters from various shows of that same decade and that was what drew me into it.

Other than seeing the various cartoon stars of the day come together, again, now I'm not quite sure what I saw in it after watching. I guess I almost always wasn't that good at discerning and analyzing what was wrong with nearly anything I viewed on T.V. or VHS. This isn't one of my favorites. After reading others' reviews and comments on both here and on other sites, I now see it for what it really is more than not: A promo for the well-known characters' various shows more than about drug prevention. I remember seeing another drug prevention, PSA cartoon at some point in elementary school that had completely original characters rather than mostly established ones with newer characters. I hadn't seen it in years, but I did an online search for it and tried putting "D.A.R.E. cartoon" into the search engine, to be exact, it's actually called D.A.R.E. America. I wasn't sure of the title, but that was the first thing that came to mind and I found it on my first and only guess/try. I found video of that for viewing at Youtube, three copies, but unfortunately, they all have a Spanish dub only. Now that seemed so much better than this. Also, I thought the running time of it was closer to half an hour, but it's really just a little more than 12 minutes.There was a comment on another site stating that this get-together of mainly '80s animated characters could'd revolved around them battling the ultimate foe. That sounds like that would'd been a much more interesting idea. I like the sound of that more.

I can't explain too much about it that other reviewers before me hadn't explained what the problems are with it. But I'll try to mention what was already covered differently and more short-handedly. The point of its message being too preachy (though I probably wouldn't had gotten what the big deal with that would be back then, when I was little/younger), the inconsistencies (like with the Smoke character being able to pass through walls, but not a trash can), the explanations of why drugs are so bad for anyone being too vague or not specific enough. Therefore, all of these are what would make for bad writing. The established characters are somewhat themselves, but in this, they're also not 100% consistent. It may be nice too see them all in one place, but it's such a waste, as they hardly help out the main protagonist and drug abuser, Michael, they could'd been used so much better. They attempt an intervention, but the ways they do it are done badly. Of all the original characters, I like the sister of the special's protagonist, Corey, the most. I don't remember the musical number being all that bad, but I'll take others' word for it anyway and the rest of the music may be just alright. The art and animation seem fine enough, although somebody commented it not being on the same level as other animations from 1990, but I wouldn't know the exact difference. The cast, much of whom I'm familiar with, sound like they did a great job in there roles as usual (perhaps other than the singing).

It pains me to admit it, but this isn't as great as I once thought nor is it among the best cartoons ever made looking back on it. I have no idea how I could've missed it. It would've been much better as just another PSA ad that is much shorter like several others. In my review's title, I mention this cautionary PSA tale is ineffective for the reasons I mentioned above, so that means several may not had taken heed of the dangers and effects that drugs can cause, as the explanations were poorly done. Well, at least the one thing I can say that's the sole good that came out of this is, at least established toon characters from other '80s programs that weren't featured in this, fortunately for them, it's a great thing others didn't appear in this disaster. The aforementioned reasons are why it's no longer popular with me and some of the other reviewers on here, if it even ever was popular with them at all. Not the best anti-drug PSA ever made. Anyone who is interested in checking it out should see it at least once, even if it may not be one of the most perfect. If this were to be brought to DVD, I doubt it's worth owning, most nobody would be intrigued by this, other than the very young. Not recommended.

I first watched this long ago in elementary school. The only reason I bothered paying attention was because it starred Garfield, one of my favorite childhood cartoon characters. And while I've never done drugs myself, I can't credit this cartoon to that.

Anyway, at the height of the war on drugs in the 90s, someone at ABC decided to deliver a message to warn children to avoid them in the form of a big crossover involving A-list cartoon characters from the 80s, like Bugs Bunny, Alf, the Chipmunks, Winnie the Pooh, and others. This was ambitious, I must admit, because they'd be hard pressed to do something like this today given all the legal hassle involved with getting the rights for the characters. But the message it tried to deliver pretty much fell flat.

Here's the story: a 14-year-old boy named Michael (Jason Marsden) is struggling with drugs due to peer pressure from his "friends" and a purple smoke monster simply named Smoke (George C. Scott- RIP) his addiction personified. Taking notice, the cartoon stars all band together to help Michael kick his drug habit before his life is ruined with the assistance of Michaels younger sister, Corey (Lindsay Parker).

The animation was decent for the most part. The story, though, is sloppy and erratic; as Michael encounters one cartoon after another and goes through a zany series of lessons on how drugs are bad for him: he travels back in time, rides a roller coaster, walks around a funhouse, and has his fortune told to him by Daffy Duck. The whole thing looks like a big drug trip unto itself. And there were some really disturbing scenes, like Michaels dark future showing him as a ghoulish looking heroin addict writhing on a table.

Despite being an anti-drug PSA, it does little to advocate it. While Michael may pull off a fairly accurate drug addict trying to fit in, the cartoons tend to act like total dicks toward him, like when Michaelangelo sending Michael down a sewer drain, or when one of Donald Duck's nephews tries to run Michael over with a roller coaster car. They spend more time tormenting and acting holier than thou toward the kid than explaining how and why drugs are bad, to him or any kids watching this.

At least all the voice actors give a good performance. Following Mel Blancs death the previous year, this was Jeff Bergmans first time voicing Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, though this was a questionable start; same goes for a young Jason Marsden in his first voice acting role playing Michael. Jim Cummings does well during his early tenure voicing Tigger and Winnie the Pooh, and the late George C. Scott nails it as bad guy Smoke with his distinctively raspy and sinister voice. The music was okay; I liked the frequent guitar riffs, but the song "There's a million ways to say no" was very corny, despite being written by Oscar winning composers Howard Ashman and Alan Menken.

In the end, this was a watchable cartoon, and it had good intentions, but I doubt it delivered a very strong message to children. In fact, I can't shake the strange feeling that some kids took it the wrong way, thinking: "If I do drugs, my favorite cartoon characters will come to life? That sounds awesome!" Let's hope that never happened and that 90s parents could find better ways to teach their kids to stay away from drugs.

A lot of people have been making what I think are unfair comparisons between this cartoon and the 1939 movie REEFER MADNESS. First of all, when MADNESS was released, there wasn't sufficient information out about the effects of marijuana on the human brain. Thus, the filmmakers didn't really know what they were talking about when they had their "weed addicts" getting all hyper and everything. Weed isn't like cocaine or heroin. Second, this show was aimed at very young children and children don't pick up on subtlety very well. Most of them take things at face value, so simply stating "Don't do drugs" without an explanation wasn't going to cut it. I was already in my twenties when I saw this and think that they did a good job without too much preaching nor hitting over the head with its message.

If you ask me, either this could use a rerunning or a remake/update. Things are starting to "go south" in a very big way. Too bad there aren't that many really good Saturday morning cartoons out anymore. Could you see the Rugrats or Lilo & Stitch in a production of this type? Darn you, corporate takeovers!

This is a special featuring popular 1980s cartoon characters telling kids how bad drugs are. The characters helped a kid named Mikey kick his marijuana habit. In modern times, we look to comedians to teach us how to live our lives because they're funnier than cartoon characters anyway. Seeing as how Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Denis Leary, Eric Andre, Doug Stanhope, Joe Rogan, Bill Maher, Russell Brand, and Zach Galifianakis are all pro-drug, I would have loved to see a special featuring some of them. The War on Drugs is now recognized as a disaster for the economy and this special highlights that. I could have sworn it was Ronald Reagan who promoted this special, but it was actually George H. W. Bush.

One would think the GI Joe characters would be in this seeing as how they did PSAs at the end of every episode of their cartoons. People are actually saying stuff "The Simpsons" says wouldn't fly by today? How about something as ridiculously preachy as this? There's the occasional good joke, life Alf threatening to eat Garfield. It's just propaganda under the guise of seeing popular cartoon characters together. Makes me glad the "Peanuts" gang wasn't involved. *1/2.

I watched this a week or two ago in RAID(Reduce Abuse in Drugs) Our police officer left us this video to watch. We watch a video every week and this one was SO funny. I was sitting beside my friend, Wenster and we were both laughing together. We were told not to laugh but it was too funny. Of course it was not pointless because it was about drugs, but it was weird. It won't only change my life, but it will change yours as well! Nope. Jokes. But it was quite funny and anything but pointless. Watch this at school and you will be laughing nonstop but also getting the message at the same time. Its good, but stupid.

Check it out.

This is one of the few best half hour animated TV specials you'd find.

Approved by Bush Sr. himself and NBC,CBS, and ABC.

It's about a teen named Micheal who's addicted to drugs and he eventually steals money from his sister Corey to buy more.

Corey finds out what he did to her piggy bank, but she was told not to tell their parents that Micheal is on Drugs.

Things seem bad till some unlikely heroes show up to help Micheal's problem. And they are highly copyrighted cartoon characters! Every famous cartoon character you'd find from the old school Saturday Morning line ups are on a mission to talk some sense into Micheal that drugs are bad for him.

Those who were around during the late 80s-early 90s won't have trouble in knowing who's who in this TV special.

It has a great moral to it. And a fun way of telling kids to say no to drugs. And highly appropriate for all ages. Course for those who are parents just be sure to explain some parts to your kids when you watch this program.

What's cool is they actually got permission to use more than 10 copyrighted characters. And they're even voiced by the actual voice actors that put life into them.

It's really cool to see, don't know if it'll have a chance in a decent DVD release.

But I highly recommend it to those who grew up watching the cartoons from 16 years ago.