Believe it or not, Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

Released 35 years ago this week, on August 13, 1982, "Fast Times" not only made Penn a star, but also gave early career boosts to several future A-listers and made the behind-the-camera reputations of director Jerry Maguire"). Plus, it became the definitive high school sex comedy of the early 1980s.

Still, as many times as you've watched Penn's Spicoli get a pizza delivered to his class, or pressed the pause button on Almost Famous" underage rock journalist phase, the baby-faced, 22-year-old Crowe went undercover for an entire school year as a student at Clairemont High School in San Diego. His reporting on the sociology of Southern California teens became a non-fiction book in 1981, which in turn was the source for the future filmmaker's first screenplay.

2. Producers offered the screenplay to David Lynch to direct. He turned it down, as the project really wasn't his kind of movie, but can you imagine how weird and amazing a David Lynch "Fast Times" would have been?
3. Heckerling made her feature directing debut with "Fast Times," landing the job on the strength of her film-school thesis project, a short called "Getting It Over With," about a girl trying to lose her virginity.

4. Penn, who'd recently made his screen debut in "Beverly Hills Cop.") The girl in the car who laughs at Brad's fast-food pirate costume was Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson, Crowe's then-girlfriend and future wife.

6. Several other not-yet-famous "Fast Times" actors were also second-generation showbiz kids. Penn was the son of TV director Leo Penn and actress Apocalypse Now" as "I love the smell of Nicolas in the morning." Other reports from the set, however, said that Cage got razzed because he was boasting that his family connections would be his fast track to fame.

8. Several other A-listers and future A-listers were up for parts in the film but didn't get them, including Family Ties" pilot instead and landed a seven-year gig on a hit TV sitcom.
9. Other future stars with bit parts in the film included Anthony Edwards (who played Spicoli's pals).

10. Most of the movie was shot in the San Fernando Valley, either at the Sherman Oaks Mall (where Leigh went incognito for a month, preparing for her role by working in an actual pizzeria) or at the vast Van Nuys High School.
11. My Favorite Martian" fame, got the job of playing Spicoli's nemesis, grumpy teacher Mr. Hand, after Munsters" star was reportedly appalled by the script's pervasive sexuality and drug use.

12. As would become typical for a Crowe project, "Fast Times" had a stellar classic-rock soundtrack; credit for that goes mostly to Irving Azoff, one of the film's producers and also the manager of the Eagles and Stevie Nicks. He corralled Nicks, four of the five Eagles, Jackson Browne, and many other stars into recording songs for the two-disc soundtrack. (Heckerling grumbled that she wanted newer, hipper, punkier acts; she got a couple, including the Go-Gos and Oingo Boingo.)

13. Despite the wall-to-wall rock tracks, the movie had no instrumental score, save for stock music from the Universal Studios library.
14. Cates's notorious topless swimming pool scene was filmed at a private home in West Hills. She'd done extensive nudity in her first film, "Paradise," but Heckerling recalled that the actress was nervous about filming the pool scene because she feared neighbors would be spying from their rooftops.

15. The film's budget was reportedly between $4.5 and $5 million. It earned back $27 million, making it a sizable hit for the time.
16. The makers of Vans credited Penn's performance with popularizing worldwide the slip-on sneakers previously known only to California surfers and skateboarders.

17. "Fast Times" producer Vincent Schiavelli.

19. Producers hired Moon Unit Zappa, then a newly-minted high school graduate who was considered an authority on Southern California teen slang because of her hit song "Valley Girl," as a consultant. The "Fast Times" show, which lost a lot from having to be squeaky-clean enough for network TV, lasted just seven episodes.
20. But the show, like the film, provided a launch pad for several future stars, including "CSI's" Melrose Place" and "Ally McBeal" regular Patrick Dempsey (!) as slickster Mike Damone.