That's from a new NYT article, "'Reefer Madness,' the P.S.A. That Backfired Spectacularly/The comically self-serious and outrageous 1936 morality tale, which warned the public about marijuana, became an unintentional parody and midnight-movie classic decades later."
First, I was sorry to see the article omitted the name of the author of the story:
Image taken from Wikipedia.
But, second, I don't believe "Reefer Madness" was the first thing that "a generation" embraced because "it’s so bad — or so bad, it’s good." Personally, I remember going to see "The Green Slime" in 1969 for this reason. I remember hearing that it was what "all the heads" in New York were seeing.
But I see the distinction: "The Green Slime" was trying to be so bad it's good. "Reefer Madness" was trying to warm young people away from marijuana.
Or was it?
AND: Even as we speak: "Trump administration moves to ease federal restrictions on marijuana/Marijuana had the same classification as heroin, LSD and others before being reclassified for lower potential for abuse" (Guardian).
ALSO: I took my "Or was it?" question to Grok, which assured me it was sincerely intended as propaganda. That made me think. I wrote this sentence to sum up my thoughts: "Propaganda is inherently funny but circumstances might cloud one's ability to appreciate the fun."
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33 comments:
I've seen both, but don't recall much about them. Can't imagine why.
The problem with Reefer Madness is that, as a movie, it stinks. There are some ironic laughs at the sappy dialogue and corny characters, and the scenes where the kids are going insane from smoking that Devil Weed is pretty hilarious. But all in all, it's a tedious slog through a low-budget snoozer.
Saw both in the appropriate time frame of the early 70's. I remember zilch about either one. Those were eventful years of important happenings. Stupid movies went straight into the memory chopper.
The weed that was available back in those days was pretty weak tea compared to what you can buy now.
The birth of camp…or something like that…
"The birth of camp…or something like that…"
Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp" was published in 1964. She was observing what had already been happening for years.
Story by "Lawrence Meade?" What are the odds of this kind of near synchronicity?
A lot of the "Badness" of Reefer madness is due to it being made in 1936. And I wonder how much the producer of the film really cared about the subject. This was just after Hayes Code was implemented and the film was later edited to be more salacious.
You really have to admire Hollywood producers who spent 20 years attacking MJ laws and then got into the ground floor of "Big Marijuana" - I wonder much $$ they and their families are making now.
Its sort funny the way the MSM will wank on and on about tobacco and its horrors, and then soft-pedal any news about the bad effects of MJ. No mind altering drug is good for you. And the more you take the worse it is.
I also find it weird that Joe Rogan makes a big point of smoking MJ on his show, and pushing micro-drugs, and then talks about physical fitness.
One of the first "Camp" movies was "Beat the devil". Whether it was intentional or not. Bogart said only phonies liked it.
I don't see the humor in any of it. If you smoked enough weed, you would know The Green Slime is real, and infiltrating our world at this very moment.
I seem to recall going to see movies movies in that spirit at the drive in way before 1972. "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" released in 1958 was hardly to be taken seriously.
When anslinger had passed the cats would play. Its impossible to think that mass cannabis consumption was part of the dismantling project
When does Fentanyl Fever come out?
I first saw RM on the Madison campus in the early 70s. It can be quite entertaining if you approach it with the right mindset, i.e. stoned.
I remember they made a big deel revisit with kristen bell back in 2003, then there was pineapple express in 2008
Yah it was one of those midnight shows along with The Wall, Rocky Horror, Pee-Wee…and the rest
It sounds like the NYT writer never heard of the long running "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and its offshoot "RiffTrax"
I swear that is Digger Phelps getting slimed at 0:40 of the trailer.
Meade says NO! to weed.
I suspect that there have always been films that were so badly made that they created an audience of people who were entertained by how terribly bad they were. Some of them were films made for corporations, military training, public service announcements, science fiction, very low budget films and, of course, erotic films.
A lot of these bad films were buried until theaters started doing midnight showings and home video showed up. (After all, who wants to pay top dollar to see a bad film? And movie theaters, initially, didn't want to show bad films because it would have been bad for business.) Eventually, some filmmakers started intentionally making bad movies to try and cash in on the "midnight movie" craze. The 1980 movie, The Forbidden Zone, comes to mind.
Here are some of my favorites:
The Final Countdown (1980)
Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976)
Death Race 2000 (1975)
Voyage into Space (1970)
The Omega Man (1971)
Zardoz (1974)
Road House (1989)
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
Earthquake (1974)
Rocky 4 (1985)
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
Damnation Alley (1977)
Xanadu (1980)
Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)
The Last Chase (1981)
And the GOAT...Battlefield Earth (2000)
Pink Flamingos
Reefer Madness. They are really scraping the very bottom of the barrel in their nostalgia for antiquated hipness.
jim said...
"Pink Flamingos"
Pink Flamingos is an interesting movie in the study of John Waters work. It's an early film, maybe his first. The camera work is unpolished but progresses and improves from first frame to last, and the whole thing gives off the vibe of a group of artistic kooks having a ball acting raunchy and weird. There is genius in the humor of it, as if Celine or Henry Miller had used a camera instead of a typewriter. His next best film is Female Trouble which is similarly hilarious and outrageous, but shows a more polished, professional product, but still uniquely low-budget and lowbrow. The last films of his I saw were Pecker and Cecil B Demented which were okay, completely polished and professional and all the rough edges were taken off and the genius was missing.
Iman said...
Meade says NO! to weed.
I just say “no thanks.”
Oh, you meant the other Meade — “Lawrence Meade.”
If they continue to intensify weed, this may turn out to be a movie ahead of its time.
👊
The truth behind MAHA... Make America High Again
As of April 23, 2026, the U.S. government has officially reclassified state-licensed medical marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug. This change, directed by the Trump administration, reduces regulations but does not federally legalize, tax, or regulate cannabis for recreational use, nor does it remove criminal penalties for non-licensed possession.
KCRA
KCRA
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Reefer Madness has the distinction of being made as propaganda against marijuana use and later being deployed as propaganda for marijuana use.
“ Story by "Lawrence Meade?" What are the odds of this kind of near synchronicity”
Back when I first learned Meade’s name, the Reefer Madness writer’s name was spelled with a “u” at Wikipedia. I assume Meade was using that name as a joke and wrote that before we met he should probably tell me what his real name is.
Were people seeing it because it was "so bad it was good," or because watching it gave a lot of laughs at drug enforcement and anti-drug propaganda? Aesthetic considerations about the quality of the film were a side feature, not the main point. And yes, "camp" was already well established in NYC well before 1972.
Was "Reefer Madness" entirely serious? It came out 20 years after "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" with Douglas Fairbanks as a Sherlock Holmes-type drug-addicted detective named Coke Ennyday. I haven't seen "Reefer Madness," but it wouldn't be surprising if some people working on the picture thought it was a spoof.
The Green Slime was my favorite movie when I was 11. I was spending the night at a friend's house, and it was on late-night TV. We couldn't believe how cool bad it was.
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