i have it working now but i have a new set of problems. 
for some reason when i put the tpl file with the java menu on the website it removes all of the CSS for the whole site.
it does this even if i remove the <link rel="stylesheet" href="/jsmenu/menu.css"> 
the smarty code should still be loading the correct CSS
<head>
{literal}
	<script language="JavaScript" src="jsmenu/menu.js"></script>
	<script language="JavaScript" src="menu_items.js"></script>
	<script language="JavaScript" src="jsmenu/menu_tpl.js"></script>
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="jsmenu/menu.css">
	{/literal}
<body>
{literal}
<script language="JavaScript">
	new menu (MENU_ITEMS, MENU_TPL);
</script>
{/literal}
</body>
any ideas would be great. 
thanks