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“Hey, mang, am I drivin’ okay?”
“I think we’re parked, man.” — Cheech and Chong, Up In Smoke
Today we celebrate 4/20!
Such a celebration — even if only a joke — would have been a revolutionary act in our recent memory. (That’s if we hadn’t totally fried our memory, man.) It is officially time to blaze one or, at least, not call the fuzz if our neighbor blazes one. Everybody be cool, man.
But this normalization of cannabis in our culture didn’t happen overnight. Younger people must understand that marijuana, now considered so harmless that grannies passing a joint is the stuff of prestige pictures, was once considered the gateway to hardcore substance addiction, a life of crime, and ending up dead under a bridge somewhere. In the 1980 film Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie, the line “dope’s gonna be legal in a few years” was meant for laughs.
Yet here we are, the first 4/20 with legalized weed in New York State. Your state is coming soon. And while legalization and decriminalization is preferable for a hundred different reasons, it kinda blows, man, in just one: it’s ruined the stoner picture. The kids these days will never recognize the danger of Cheech and Chong.
Everyone knows the name “Cheech and Chong,” much like everyone knows “Laurel and Hardy,” but as time moves on, their work recedes into the past.
Cheech Marin is a Mexican-American from Los Angeles who, in the late 1960s, headed up to Western Canada to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. There he met Tommy Chong, a half-Chinese Canadian guitar player who had some success as a songwriter. They formed a comedy duo and hit the clubs. Cheech was a natural with funny voices (no, the way the famous low-ridin’ vato character talks is not what he really sounds like) and Chong was a master of listening and reacting. (His famous spaced-out baritone? Um, okay, he does kinda sound like that in real life a little bit.)
Before they ever went before the cameras they had a string of extremely successful and well-produced comedy records beginning in 1971. They even had a bonafide radio hit with “Earache My Eye,” a bit of a diss track against glam rock credited to “Alice Bowie.” The rebellious tune actually got banned by some stations (it was about a kid who disobeyed his father!), thus ensuring their underground cred.
Their albums had all kinds of characters and shtick (“Sister Mary Elephant” being another famous one) but if there was any kind of throughline it was their pro-grass attitude, and the understanding that bits like “Dave’s Not Here” are funnier to listen to if you are stoned.
Pulling characters (and even some direct dialogue) off their albums, their record producer Lou Adler coughed up production money to bring the successful underground act to the big screen for their first film, Up in Smoke. It was nearly a decade after Woodstock, when hippies were basically considered a joke. Part of Cheech and Chong’s magic, though, was that you were never laughing at them … well, I guess that’s not true. You were laughing at them, because they were morons, but you still liked them as they were bumbling around getting into trouble.
Like the Marx Brothers from an earlier generation, their anarchic, destructive humor was born from a place of outsider-dom, a distrust in powerful institutions, and championing the underclass. But unlike the Marx Brothers, who always found time for classical music interludes in their pictures, Cheech and Chong were all about getting hiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
Let’s think about pot culture for a minute. What is the national anthem of the joint, man? It’s not Sidney Bechet’s “Viper Mad,” it’s not Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf,” and it’s not Cyprus Hill’s “Hits From the Bong,” though these are all contenders. The obvious track, for which there is no real competition, is “Low Rider” by War.
Though this tune (which rules, absolutely rules!) was released in 1975 it was its inclusion in the 1978 hippie masterpiece Up in Smoke that cemented it as the ultimate laid-back, hangin’ out weed jam. It plays under the opening credits, as Cheech Marin readies his customized 1964 Chevrolet Impala SS coupe, the “Love Machine.” Pretty soon he picks up a hitchhiker, Tommy Chong, and that was it. It begat a classic series wherein these two dudes drove around, busted each other’s chops, and got into hijinks.
Today Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are two grandfatherly figures wearing benign grins. But in the 1970s and much of the 1980s, they were dirtbag comedians, outlaw comedians, proto-punk rock comedians. Five movies make up the core of their work — I am not including their appearances in Yellowbeard, It Came From Hollywood, or After Hours — and I rewatched them all in one sitting. It’s definitely one way to celebrate 4/20.
'Up In Smoke' (1978)
This is Cheech and Chong’s Citizen Kane. The pair never quite reached perfection like this again, although there are still great moments to be found in later work.
It a way its perfection is similar to a band that’s built a touring repertoire then finally lays it all out in the studio. The very first shot is a TV showing Looney Tunes and that’s a good indicator of what this is all about. Cheech is exploding with spastic energy, like a Latino Jerry Lewis, ready to make mugging faces and break into song. Chong, on the other hand, is a weirdo like we’ve never quite seen before. One minute he’s Harpo Marx, the next he’s … I dunno’, man, he’s Tommy Chong. How else do you describe a half-Chinese spaced-out stoner with a deep voice and Canadian accent? You can’t. He’s an original. And everything he does, even if he is just staring out the window, is funny.
The plot to Up In Smoke is pretty simple: our two guys want to find weed. Then they find themselves in Tijuana and end up smuggling in a car that’s made of weed, only they don’t know it. There’s also a battle of the bands at the Roxy, and they win. Stacey Keach is the awful cop Sgt. Stedenko (who also originates from the albums) and Tom Skerritt is Cheech’s cousin with Vietnam flashbacks.
These movies dabble into some politically incorrect waters (we’ll get more into that in a bit) and some accuse the duo of sexism, or at least treating women like sex objects. For what it is worth, in addition to unmotivated moments of girls in bikinis, the films usually have a few outstanding roles for female comedians. To wit: Zane Buzby as the whacked-out music producer who slips Chong some quaaludes is one of the funniest things in the entire film. Buzby later went on to become a successful television director and then created a charity organization for elderly Holocaust survivors.
'Cheech and Chong's Next Movie' (1980)
Compared to the last movie, it looks a little slicker, and is a little slower and louder, but there are still some great moments.
The plot? Um…like last time, it starts with them looking to score pot. Again: marijuana scarcity is something young people just don’t understand. In the great state of California you can order your weed with an app and have it to you in half-an-hour. But when Cheech and Chong movies were showing at the drive-in, that was just a (forgive me) pipe dream.
Midway through this movie Chong hooks up with Cheech’s cousin Red, also played by Cheech, but doing a Texas accent. Then they go to a massage parlor, and a comedy club.
Two important things happen in this movie. First, there’s the introduction of Donna. Like Dorothy Lamour in the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road pictures, Donna is an important element to these movies. Ostensibly she is Cheech’s girlfriend, but the gag is that they can never complete the act. The gorgeous Evelyn Guerrero wears some outrageous outfits, and gets nuttier as the series progresses.
The other big deal is an early glimpse of Paul Reubens as a proto-Pee-wee Herman.
He appears as the manager of Red’s hotel, and though he is a little more belligerent than Pee-wee, he’s basically doing “the voice.” Later he shows up at the comedy club … as Pee-wee? Admittedly, these movies don’t always make a ton of sense. Also, Michael Winslow is in the mix, making crazy noises.
'Nice Dreams' (1981)
Again, this is a step down from the movie that preceded it, but still is worth watching. If you want to get heavy about all this, you can point to the inclusion of cocaine humor (and, probably, cocaine in the writing process) as bringing down the lighthearted cannabis-inspired work.
The plot? This time our guys aren’t looking to score weed: they are growing it themselves. But some weird science means that their new crop is turning people into lizards.
The duo run into Donna again, and also Paul Reubens, and this time he’s doing a dark, mental patient, coke fiend version of the Pee-wee voice. It’s kinda scary! (But hilarious.) There’s also a moment where Chong is mistaken for Jerry Garcia, and Michael Winslow impersonates Jimi Hendrix. Plus there’s a lot, and I mean a lot, of Cheech’s bare ass.
Both of our guys are undressed quite a bit in this one, and they are kinda buff! It is a reminder that they are successful Hollywood actors, and not the actual munchies-ridden characters they play. Far out.
'Things Are Tough All Over' (1982)
Oh, God. This movie is almost unwatchable.
Cheech and Chong are in Chicago, trying to get a band together, but working at a Car Wash for two Arab brothers, also played by Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. Chong is in full-on brownface with a prosthetic hooked nose here. Not great.
Anyway, there’s a cross-country trek (they team-up with Donna!) and hijinks include peyote trips, accidentally making a porno movie, and running into Rip Torn. But basically it’s a mess.
It’s important, still, for the youth to suffer through this movie, just so they know how good they have it now in an era where Seth Rogen movies are everywhere.
'Still Smokin' (1983)
For me, the core C&C filmography ends on an up note. The basic premise here is ludicrous: the pair go to Amsterdam to attend a film festival, but I suspect the real reason was so they could smoke hash legally while making a movie. Anyway, there are shenanigans in the hotel (Cheech hooks up with a blonde Dutch maid twice his height as he pretends to be E.T., Eddie Torres the Extra Testicle) but every few minutes Chong looks wistfully out the window to remember one of their old bits.
This then cuts to sketches, and affords us an opportunity to see that Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are actors who can do other characters. Unfortunately, many of the other characters might be considered highly offensive. There are the two gay space rangers of “Queer Wars” and there’s Blind Melon Chitlin, an old bluesman from their albums, but on screen it is Chong in full-on blackface. Cheech is in double-blackface in another bit, in which he is playing an African American serviceman in Amsterdam pretending to be a Jamaican dope dealer.
But if you choose to put your “it was 40 years ago” hat on, there still are a lot of other funny bits, particularly a whole routine where Cheech and Chong pretend to be dogs.
In 1984 the team decided to lay off the dope humor and make a PG-13 adventure called Cheech and Chong’s The Corsican Brothers. My memory of it is that it isn’t much, and that Start The Revolution Without Me, another Alexandre Dumas-based comedy with Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland, was much funnier. This was a flop.
Their follow-up project in 1985 was called Get Out of My Room, an hourlong home video that aired on Showtime. It was a string of rock videos with a mock documentary aspect. One of the tunes in there was a Bruce Springsteen parody called “Born in East L.A.”
The music video and song were a huge hit, and it gave Cheech an opportunity to go solo. The resultant film, Born in East L.A., is a “real movie,” and one worth tracking down (sadly, it’s not available to stream anywhere … legally). But it basically killed Cheech and Chong.
Cheech’s career then really took off. Nash Bridges, man. I dunno. I never watched it, but clearly people did. Chong got into the early cannabis business then got busted for selling bongs online. He did nine months in Federal jail (nine months!) and while he was there he was cellmates with someone who was nabbed for stock market manipulation. That guy had some crazy stories, so Chong convinced him to write it all down in a book … and that’s how The Wolf of Wall Street was born.
Recently, the team reunited for an animated film, and have made appearances on shows like Dancing With The Stars. (Not that anything could compete with this appearance on The Helen Reddy Show during their heyday.)
Now, any danger element to the counter-culture that fueled them has been effectively cashed-out. But they’ll never lose that spark.
Jordan Hoffman is a writer and critic in New York City. His work also appears in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and the Times of Israel. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and tweets about Phish and Star Trek at @JHoffman.
