Neither time nor John Hughes nor steady advances in American gross-out cinema (cf. "American Pie") have managed to diminish the achievement of a low-budget teen comedy now nearly 20 years old. In "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," screenwriter Cameron Crowe and director Amy Heckerling, both working on their first film, accomplished several interesting things. For one, they made what is indubitably a classic of the genre, with both characters (notably Sean Penn as the stoner Jeff Spicoli) and comic set pieces (notably Judge Reinhold's masturbation interruptus scene) becoming the requisite touchstones for a generation. For another, the pair avoided easy social-comment clichés -- this is not a movie about class, race, rebellion or the negative effects of divorce on teens -- in favor of actual human difficulties, all in an insular, teen-only world presented with a gritty matter-of-factness. Jennifer Jason Leigh's experiments with sex, and her decision to have an abortion, are indeed made in an environment in which adults do not exist.

Besides some oddly stentorian foofaraw about the film's various Los Angeles sets and such, the DVD has two main attractions. The first is a genial documentary, with most of the cast (including, most affectionately, an aging Ray Walston) and crew discussing the movie, based loosely around what must be conceded was a fairly spectacular casting job. (Not since "American Graffitti" had a movie springboarded so many young stars to success, Penn, Reinhold, Leigh, Nicolas Cage, Eric Stoltz, Forest Whitaker and Phoebe Cates among them.) Crowe and Heckerling's amiable commentary will engross anyone who's been touched by the movie. "They were like little adults," says Heckerling of her characters. "It was a grown-up world but with little children in grown-up parts, and they weren't ready." Studio pressures are mentioned frequently; "It was supposed to be a teen comedy and they were getting crying, and abortions," Crowe says.