Reefer Madness Hey, dude, this show at TUTS Underground will make you high. Oh, the colors! (Sorry, wrong drug.) Could this be the best musical so far this season? Created circa 1998 by college friends and writing partners Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney, and constantly reworked throughout its many incarnations, Reefer Madness is a loosey-goosey, low-brow mix of that laughably bad cult movie and every musical on and off the Great White Way that makes fun of the genre and deconstructs the very idea with heaps of irony and pastiche production numbers. Reefer Madness would not, could not, exist without a slew of forebears, from the obvious, Rocky Horror Picture Show, through Hairspray, any episode of Monty Python or the zombie dance from Michael Jackson's "Thriller." There's even a shout-out to Oklahoma. While inventing some new territory, Madness covers a lot of the old. What this musical has in spades is a tongue planted firmly in its cheek. As a goofy knockoff, there's not much point to it except the dire premonition that smoking weed leads to the utter degradation of our young 'uns. It's the fast lane to Hell, no doubt about it. Writers Murphy and Studney roll Louis Gasnier's exploitation movie with the most fragrant, thinnest paper imaginable and light up the stage with silly panache. The whole thing is a cartoon, from scenic designer Ryan McGettigan's bright cutout pieces that fly in, costumer Amanda Wolff's Lindy Hop dresses and saddle shoes, choreographer Dana Lewis's splashy and energetic '40s-type moves, to the performances. Especially the performances. Any show that can segue from Jesus rhyming "the Shroud of Turin" with "do I need to test your urine?" to a hellish goat dry-humping everyone in sight is either doing something right, or doing something sublimely wrong. Whatever, the laughs come fast and furious. The game cast give their all. As the innocents gone bad, Sean McGee and Taylor Beyer are picture-perfect, then even more perfect when they go to seed, instantly hopped up and weirdly mad. The bad guys are comically depraved as only over-the-top molls and dealers can be in musicals. Nick Henderson, truly wicked as dealer from hell Jack, with a voice that comes direct from a stone's heart, morphs into a Vegas Christ straight out of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar, in gold lamé loincloth and greasy blond wig to sing his hard rock "Listen to Jesus, Jimmy." He grabs the stage and doesn't let go. Denizens of the disreputable house on Elm Street where small-town youth go to ruin, Mae, Ralph and Sally, richly enacted by actors Kristin Warren, Mark Ivy and Brooke Wilson, lounge, have sex and incessantly smoke weed, usually at the same time. In a delightful showstopping number, Ivy, as Sally's abandoned baby, pops up behind the sofa to croon "Lullaby." Special instances of clever stagecraft pop up repeatedly, thanks to the whirligig direction from Bruce Lumpkin. He keeps this show dancing in wondrously showbiz ways. Tying it all together in most prestigious fashion is pompous "narrator" Dylan Godwin, showcased in multiple roles as narcotics enforcer, that randy goat, FDR, malt-shop owner and other disguises. He's an ideal song-and-dance man, one strut ahead, the highest high-kicker and happy to be here. The hardworking ensemble of druggies, angels and malt-shop kids consists of Tyce Green, Brittany Halen, Heather Hall, Jessica Janes, Cole Ryden, Christina Stroup, Holland Vavra and Robin van Zandt. They dance, sing and act like the impressive troupers they are. When I left the Hobby Center, the sky over Houston and the downtown buildings looked painted and flat. What was that haze inside the theater that made me walk on air? Anybody got a light? Through October 5. Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, 800 Bagby, 713-558-8887. — DLG