Name: The Cat Ate the Parakeet
Genre: Drama
Duration: 1 h 25 min
Rating: 6.8
Cast: Phillip Pine, Madelyn Keen, Robert Mantell

This obscure feature has the simple cautionary tenor and the rock-bottom acting/technical quality of a low-end classroom social instructional film. Redhaired Johnny, a suburban Los Angeles teen of about 14, doesn't seem to have any friends, has a horribly bratty younger sister, and two rather old-seeming parents (they look in their mid-50s) who alternate between ignoring and overreacting toward his mild perceived misbehaviors. Dad in particular tends to fly into rages...when he's around, which isn't often (he travels a lot on business).

Johnny really feels betrayed by them when his beloved dog suddenly dies (it's very old and has already had heart trouble), obscurely blaming his parents for that event because they insist on following local laws and having the city dispose of the carcass. (Johnny wants to bury the dog in the backyard.) At this tense point he rides off on his bike and is befriended by a hippie couple who nonchalantly get him stoned and drunk, then dump him on a park bench when he passes out and won't be roused. (They're irresponsible, but not mean-spirited—later they go to the trouble of tracking him down to return the bicycle he'd accidentally left in the flatbed of their truck.) 

Unfortunately for the younger generation, Johnny is found in this state by an off-duty police officer who usually works with juveniles; he alerts the parents, who now think Johnny is on the road to ruin with drugs. So does the movie, for that matter, since naturally Johnny crosses paths again with his older friends, leading to a climax in which the kid tries to prevent the hopelessly stoned hippies from being nailed for possession, child endangerment, et al. by the cops that his parents have called to their crash pad. Naturally, there's a "Diane Linklater" moment in which getting too high leads to tragedy for one longhair. Of course, Johnny learns his lesson and dad (played by writer-director Philip Pine, who had a long journeyman acting career in movies and on TV) learns to "relate" better to his son. 

This is the only feature of three listed on IMDb by Pine that anyone seems to have seen. From the evidence, one can imagine why: "Pot Parents Police" aka "The Cat Ate the Parakeet" is really amateurish (brief split-screen effects are so crude they seem to be somehow hand-drawn), with performers that seem to have been drafted amongst friends and family. The plot is so basic it could easily (not to mention preferably) have been handled in a 20-minute classroom short. For completist fans of such retro cautionary/counterculture relics, it's worth a look. But it's too slow and earnest to offer much camp amusement, so others will simply be bored.

The drama genre is a broad category that features stories portraying human experiences, emotions, conflicts, and relationships in a realistic and emotionally impactful way. Dramas delve into the complexities of human life, often exploring themes of love, loss, morality, societal issues, personal growth, with the aim to evoke an emotional response from the audience by presenting relatable and thought-provoking stories.

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A lonely kid meets a hippie couple who introduce him to booze and pot. He gets into trouble at home and with the law.

Madelyn Keen and Phillip Pine in The Cat Ate the Parakeet (1972)

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The Cat Ate the Parakeet

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