Changing Templates between pages

I am trying to change templates between pages. I am using Four Season Theme & have the Theme editor Module. I am trying change between tpl pages. My first issue. I am trying to insert some DHTML from Dynamic Drive for a drop down panel that I want to display on different pages. (http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex17/dddropdownpanel.htm#)
Ultimatley I want to display featured products in the dropdown panel. I have tried to insert the code from the above link in the tpl that I named it featuredproducts.tpl.php. I am not even sure if this is the best way to get the dropdown pannel on my pages.
I guess another option would be to create a block for the drop down panel but that is a whole other issue. (I can't seem to get the header region as a block) see: http://drupal.org/node/313199.
Is there a way to see the tpl I created in action on my site? I don't want to change it to page.tpl bc if I did something wrong with the code my site changes to code & it messes everything up! I have learned this the hard way.

I have tried creating a content type Featured Products & then created content with the path of featuredcontent to see what the tpl looks like but still no luck! See http://drupal.org/node/439526.

The dropdown panel will have differnet content page by page depending on the subject of the page.
Any ideas on how to get this going?
I know this is a compound question :) Thanks in advance!!!