Fast Times at Ridgemont High [Criterion Collection]

Back in the late 1970s, author Cameron Crowe banked upon his youthful appearance to pose as a teen-aged high school student. The results of his hands-on research was the revelatory book Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which went on to spectacular success as a theatrical feature. The sociological inner lining of Crowe's book was sacrificed in favor of standard teen-movie dialogue and Animal House-style comedy, but the film is impossible to dislike, and it spawned a legion of future imitators. Ostensibly, the main characters are brother and sister Jennifer Jason Leigh and Judge Reinhold. However, the real breakthrough star is Sean Penn as the perpetually zoned-out Jeff Spicoli. It is Penn who has the film's most famous scene, wherein the decorum of teacher Hand (Ray Walston)'s classroom is interrupted by a pizza delivery. Fast Times at Ridgemont High was spun off into a TV series, the short-lived 1986 weekly Fast Times.