History Film / FastTimesAtRidgemontHigh

* UglyGuyHotWife: Played for laughs near the end of the movie when it's revealed that Mr. Vargas (the nerdy science teacher) is married to a gorgeous blonde.

** Subverted with Ray Walston. For a long time after the film was released, people frequently addressed him as Mr. Hand. Walston was very grateful for this because up until that time, he felt that he was too closely associated with his prior role of Uncle Martin in ''MyFavoriteMartian''.

* TheCheerleader: Averted. The cheerleaders at Ridgemont are mocked openly at pep rallies due to the school's poor performance at athletic events, and perhaps the fact they are cloying shrill, verging on the hysterical.

* TheCheerleader: Averted. The cheerleaders at Ridgemont are mocked openly at pep rallies due to the school's poor performance at athletic events.

''Fast Times At Ridgemont High'' is a 1982 ComingOfAge / SliceOfLife film written by Cameron Crowe and directed by Amy Heckerling. It follows the lives of a handful of high school students over the course of a school year, focusing mostly on Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her eventual boyfriend, Mark "Rat" Ratner (Brian Backer). The other main characters are Stacy's brother, Brad (Judge Reinhold); her best friend, Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates); Rat's best friend, Mike Damone (Robert Romanus); Jeff Spicoli, a perpetual stoner in Stacy's history class (Sean Penn); and Mr. Arnold Hand, the history teacher who is frequently put upon by Spicoli's antics (Ray Walston).

-->''Stoners: "No shirt, no shoes, no dice! Ohhhh."''
-->''Brad Hamilton: "Right. Learn it. Know it. Live it."''

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: After seeing him play deeply intense roles in ''{{Dead Man Walking}}'' and ''21 Grams'', it is something of a shock to see Sean Penn in such a lighthearted role.
** Funny enough, he was immersed in EnforcedMethodActing even with this role back in the day; he refused to respond off-set when not referred to as Spicoli.

* DawsonCasting: Phoebe Cates was 18 when she appeared in this film, and she was the youngest actor in the main cast.

* FilmOfTheBook: While [[AdaptationDisplacement many people think the film was original]], it was actually based on a novel written by Crowe two years earlier, which was in turn based on a year he spent undercover as a student at Clairemont High in San Diego, his way of making it up to himself for missing so much of his real high school years to do rock interviews
* HeyItsThatGuy: Good God, so many.
** Apart from the obvious (PhoebeCates, JudgeReinhold, JenniferJasonLeigh), ForrestWhitaker plays the gigantic football player whose car Spicoli wrecks and who goes on to decimate the opposing football team.
** This movie has three that eventually won Best Actor Oscars (Whitaker, SeanPenn, and NicolasCage).
** Likely began Cameron Crowe's association with EricStoltz as his good luck charm with Stoltz playing one of Spicoli's stoner buds.

* SleeperHit: Universal originally planned to only release the film in the Western part of the United States for a few weeks before sending it off to cable (regional releases were still common at this time) due to the belief that there was no audience for it. After an excellent response, the film went wide three weeks later with a big opening in the Eastern United States and had a long run in theaters.

* ThrowItIn: The scene where Spicoli is interviewed by Stu Nahan and utters the immortal line, "Hey bud, let's party!" was a last-minute addition to the movie after plans to film Spicoli singing "Highway to Hell" fell through (see WhatCouldHaveBeen below).

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The studio originally considered Nicolas Cage for the role of Brad, but after his audition, Amy Heckerling thought his performance was too dark and instead offered the role to Judge Reinhold. Additionally, Cage was 17 at the time, and thus he could not work as many hours as those for actors 18 and over. In addition, Fred Gwynne was originally offered the role of Mr. Hand, but he turned it down because he felt that the sex scenes involving Jennifer Jason Leigh were too objectionable.
** In the novel, Spicoli dreams he's singing "Highway to Hell" on TheTonightShow (with Johnny Carson hosting), but Carson refused to do it for the movie, and other talk show hosts (including DavidLetterman) also turned it down (Letterman apparently was willing to do it, but his agent wouldn't let him appear in a movie where the characters did drugs). In its place was the scene where Spicoli is interviewed by sports announcer Stu Nahan.

** Apart from the obvious (PhoebeCates, JudgeReinhold, JenniferJasonLeigh), ForrestWhitaker plays the gigantic black football player whose car Spicoli wrecks and who goes on to decimate the opposing football team.

* ThePreciousPreciousCar: Jefferson gets a slick sports car as a gift for returning to play football for Ridgemont. Spicoli takes it for a spin with Jefferson's little brother and trashes it, activating Jefferson's BerserkButton. Luckily he was able to frame their rival high school. Later, we see Jefferson leading the football team to a major lopsided victory and reversing the school's poor athletic performance in the process.

* BookEnds: The film opens up with scenes of the goings-on at Ridgemont Mall; and after the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue, the closing credits start with the mall businesses closing down at the end of the day.

* FemaleGaze: Phobe Cates' first line: "Did you see his cute little butt?".

* IAmSpock: For a long time after the film was released, people frequently addressed Ray Walston as Mr. Hand. Walston was very grateful for this because up until that time, he felt that he was too closely associated with his prior role of Uncle Martin in ''MyFavoriteMartian''.

* VindicatedByHistory: Upon release, the movie was largely panned by critics (no doubt due to the already-existing glut of high-school/college sex comedies during that era). Today, it's considered by many to be among the best high school movies ever made.

* FemaleGaze: Phobe Cates': "Did you see his cute little butt?".

* FemaleGaze: Phobe Cates' first line was "Did you see his cute little butt?".

* FilmOfTheBook: While [[AdaptationDisplacement many people think the film was original]], it was actually based on a novel written by Crowe two years earlier, which was in turn based on a year he spent undercover as a student at Redondo Union High School in California, his way of making it up to himself for missing so much of his real high school years to do rock interviews

* FridgeBrilliance: Mike tells Rat to play side one of ''Led Zeppelin IV.'' Cut to the date with Stacy, wherein the song playing is "Kashmir"... from ''Physical Graffiti.'' Rat got so nervous about the date that he put in the wrong album.
** RealLifeWritesThePlot: According to Amy Heckerling and Cameron Crowe's DVD commentary, the real reason for this was that due to a music licensing snag, the producers were unable to gain clearances to use any songs from ''Led Zeppelin IV.''

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Brad masturbates while daydreaming about Linda getting out of the pool and taking her top off. Unfortunately, the real Linda [[CaughtWithYourPantsDown opens the door on him]]. He complains: "Doesn't anyone fucking knock anymore?"

* AdaptationDistillation: The film narrows its focus from the novel, dropping some peripheral characters completely, combining some (Damone and the ticket scalper character, for example) and simplifying some plot threads (Brad's journey down the fast-food prestige chain starts when he gets buffaloed into quitting his much-desired position at Carl's Jr., for instance, which was dropped from the film).

* IAmNotSpock: For a long time after the film was released, people frequently addressed Ray Walston as Mr. Hand. In an aversion, however, Walston was very grateful for this because up until that time, he felt that he was too closely associated with his prior role of Uncle Martin in ''MyFavoriteMartian''.