Dynamic pull down menus with PHP/Mysql

To the group: This may be a more javascript related topic, but it's also php/mysql. Apologies in advance if this is too far off topic. I'm trying to pull data from MySQL using PHP to sort the results into a form with a pull down menu. That works fine; I can do that. But I have a second pull down menu whose items need to display based on the item chosen from the first pull down menu. I can do two lists seperately, but I need the second pull down menu to be a result of the first, and I can't figure a way to do it in PHP without reloading the page, which I don't really want to do. Is this a javascript-dependent function, in that a js will have to make the call to the database via some sort of scripted php/mysql request? I really like to avoid javascript if possible, but I'm unsure there's an alternative. Goolge et al. have some answers, but have done more to befuddle than clarify. As always, any help is greatly appreciated. --V