"We're not spirit bunnies anymore"

I was swept up in the film-award season wave of Forest Whitaker mania, so last night I put Amy Heckerling's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" into the DVD player, sat back, and enjoyed a film that simply gets better with age.
Whitaker is good as Charles Jefferson, a school jock so far removed from mainstream students that one kid asks: "Does he really live here? I thought he just flew in for games!"
This film is full of those moments, moments that seem true but are also funny as hell, including the cheerleaders who publicly complain about their "spirit bunnies" moniker.
Credit two things for the realism and humor:
1) Screenwriter Cameron Crowe, who based the film on his book of the same name.
2) Casting director Don Phillips, who uncovered so many soon-to-be-famous unknown actors (Anthony Edwards, Nicholas Cage and of course Sean Penn, to name just three). (Phillips would perform another casting miracle a decade later, with Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused.")
Last night I found it ironic, given this astoundingly good cast, that established actor Ray Walston shines so brightly as Mr. Hand.
"I like that. 'I don't know.' That's nice. 'Mr. Hand, will I pass this class?' Gee, Mr. Spicoli, I don't know! You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to leave your words right up here for all my classes to enjoy, giving you full credit of course, Mr. Spicoli."