YMMV / Reefer Madness: The Musical

• Anvilicious: Yes, very subtle about the anti-censorship/anti-propaganda message, what with cheerleaders at a book burning and a shot of a black family running away...
• Awesome Music:
  • If you're into theater, you know that the note hit by Mae during "The Stuff" (on the lyric when Jack gets stoned and RAPES ME!) is incredibly hard to hit well. It's known colloquially backstage as the Rape Note and is the main barrier for casting Mae.
  • "Jimmy Takes a Hit", due to the frantic pace and the round comprised of the dealers and the Moral Guardians watching the events unfold.
    Sally: Come on Jimmy, come on Jimmy, suck it down for Sally!
    Jack: Take a toke o' tea-stick, Take a toke o' tea-stick!
    Mae: Smoke it, you may choke at first, but then the worst is over!
    Ralph: Don't be a chicken! Don't be a chicken!
    Audience: Don't Jimmy, don't do it, don't be a fool!
  • "Mary Jane/Mary Lane" is probably one of the best songs in the film for several reasons, and it didn't win an Emmy for nothing.
  • Despite being cut fairly early in the show's run, "The Trial" is an absolutely kickass song.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Two of 'em! One right after the other:
  • "Mary Jane/Mary Lane", which parodies The Power of Love by having every single character—including satan, Jesus, the Chinese restauraunteur and the 1930s parents—break character to sing a dewy-eyed love song. Even a dead hobo comes back to life just for this number.
  • "The Brownie Song", told via animation, in which Jimmy is lured back to the reefer den by offer of "the greatest brownie known to man". Highlights include the inhabitants of the reefer den singing as Little Mermaid-style fish.
• Cargo Ship: Jimmy with a pot brownie in the film's Brownie Song sequence.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Every scene seems to find a new line to cross. You'd think the zenith of its audacity would be when Jesus shows up to tell the main character to stop smoking pot. It isn't.
  • The earliest scene to hit this is the belted-out-the-window "rapes me!" delivered by Mae, causing passersby to stop dead in their tracks and drop what they're doing, especially the woman who lets her baby carriage keep going while she stops, and the police officer who hears this but never investigates the house.
• Funny Moments: When Mary turns out to be much more than Ralph can handle:
  Mary: Don't you run, I'm not done! Can't you tell we've just begun? What's your rush, you're not having any fun?
  Ralph: No, I'm really not!
• Fridge Horror:
  • After it's revealed Sally sold her baby to a Chinese restaurant owner, she brushes it off, mentioning that she "has another one on the way". Now, assuming that comment wasn't just a joke, the horror kicks in when you realize that Ralph not only killed and ate Sally, but possibly her unborn child as well!
  • Mae mentions being a "student" before she became addicted to cannabis. How young was she when she started dating Jack, who is a known rapist?
• Harsher in Hindsight: The musical's general anti-propaganda/anti-censorship and especially the final number (in which the moral guardians take to the streets to ensure that "the things that scare [them] are burned or banned", complete with book burnings and visibly frightened African Americans) was fairly Anvilicious and clearly intended as satire of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the original 1930s film. Post-2016, it's not uncommon to find people on YouTube taking the song and imagery literally.
• Nightmare Fuel: Surprisingly quite a few instances, including the reefer zombies, implied cannibalism, explicit cannibalism, Jimmy threatening his family with a golf club during a drug-induced freakout, a Fridge Horror-filled framing story detailing exactly how propaganda works with almost disturbing accuracy... Even the opening is creepy, with Ralph lighting a joint and shrieking with insane laughter. A lot of it merges with Crosses the Line Twice and/or Black Humour but suffice to say, if you don't find something funny, you will almost certainly find it disturbing.

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