The Final Episode of the Fast Times TV Reboot Aired 35 Years Ago Today

On April 23, 1986, the final episode of Patrick Dempsey's ill-fated series Fast Times aired on CBS, only the seventh episode to make it to broadcast before its cancellation. 

In this TV adaptation of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the teenage Dempsey (Grey's Anatomy) took on the role of Mike Damone, while Courtney Thorne-Smith (Melrose Place, According to Jim) took over for Jennifer Jason Leigh as Stacy Hamilton, and Dean Cameron, who would later play "Chainsaw" in the 1987 Mark Harmon film Summer School that also featured Thorne-Smith, replaced Sean Penn as stoner surfer Jeff Spicoli. Vincent Schiavelli and Ray Walston both reprised their roles from the film as Ridgemot High faculty. The film's director, Amy Heckerling produced the series, and the writer, Cameron Crowe, served as a creative consultant.

In this last episode (above), Fred Willard guest-starred as Gus Pantellis, a former Ridgemont science teacher, who has become "the biggest distributor of dog tranquilizers west of Chicago," making big bank and making Hector Vargas (Schiavelli) feel awful about his job, driving him to consider resigning. Jason Hervey (The Wonder Years) also appears as Spicoli's skating buddy, and Stacy meets up with an older guy named Brent dressed Miami Vice-style and doesn't tell anybody where she's going. For his part, Mike is working on a pheromone-related project for the science fair.

Despite an original theme song from Oingo Boingo, the show was critically panned, with some citing how much they had to sanitize the raunchy appeal of the film for network television, hence the quick axe.

Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.