Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue has to be one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen. It's an anti-drug video from the early 90s, where a bunch of media companies (Disney, Warner Bros, etc) teamed up to produce a cartoon special to tell kids that drugs are bad.However, it soon becomes obvious that the kid's sister is pretty whacked out on drugs as well, despite her trying to persuade him to drop the drugs habit...The kid, Michael, is smoking marijuana, and steals money from his sister, Corey, in order to get money for drugs. At that point, something truly weird happens and the cartoon characters dotted around Corey's bedroom come to life, and end up trying to "wake her up". Pooh Bear then talks to her (which couldn't happen... unless you're tripping...), and tells her to go and see her parents about his drug problem (but not about her problems, which are obvious because she's hallucinating a bear talking to her).Michael goes to his "friends" who are smoking weed, and they take his wallet to buy crack. Then... then he appears to embark on a psychedelic journey where various cartoon characters talk to him, complete with glowing colours, and Michaelangelo the Ninja Turtle who appears to endorse drugs by calling him "cool". All along the way there's this character called "Smoke" which I guess is meant to represent his addiction to drugs. The other characters try to fight him off, and finally Michael manages to get rid of him when his sister tries to take drugs (although given she's seeing Smoke and Pooh Bear talking to her, she's riding the acid train already...). They then go and talk to his mom and dad about his problem. I guess they'd better get the sister to 'fess up too judging by what she was seeing. In fact, these people are pretty bad if they're letting both their kids get this messed up.It basically is a piece of corporate propaganda - stern moralising via out-of-touch "cool" methods, in the way that dominated the 90s (see Don't Copy That Floppy...). In that respect it failed - drug use has indeed become a fact of life, seen in video games, films and TV shows, and being portrayed in a much more realistic way than the horror stories shown in this. Indeed, I would say that it would push kids in the opposite way - the message here is that if you take these drugs, your favourite cartoon characters will pop up out of boxes and magazines to see you and tell you about drugs! It's worth watching for the sheer hilarity of seeing squeaky clean cartoon characters express familiarity with drugs. It's hilarious for the fact that drugs apparently make you look like the Plastic Prince of Pop. And it's also hilarious just that anyone in a boardroom might think that anyone, child or adult, would take this seriously.

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.

I am almost 17 years of age, which means, yes, I not only watched this way back when, but I still have it taped. Of course, back then, I didn't care about the anti-drug message, I just cared about seeing all my TV heroes: The Ninja Turtles, Garfield, Kermit, The Chipmunks, etc. Of course, now I actually sort of UNDERSTAND what's going on there. In retrospect, it seems kinda silly that they'd give a big anti-drug message aimed at 4-7 year olds, but they did, and I don't do drugs, so I guess they did something right.TMNT FOREVER!!!

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.