Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong met in Vancouver, BC, in 1969, where Chong lived and worked as part of an improv group he formed. Marin joined Chong on stage at the Chong's family-owned strip club, Shanghai Junk, performing sketch comedy and developing what would eventually become a life-long partnership and friendship.
In the decades since, Cheech & Chong — as they would become known — became cultural icons, not only to the flower children of yesteryear, but to every generation since. Over the course of their career as a comedy duo, they've released seven albums (winning a Grammy for 1973's Los Cochinos) and released a multitude of films, many considered required viewing for college students.
Their latest film, Cheech & Chong's Last Movie (due out in Canada this Friday, April 25, via Renaissance), takes a look back at their legacy. Directed by David L. Bushell, the documentary takes the form of a road trip, as Marin and Chong drive in the desert (without weed!) to "The Joint" as they reminisce about their lives and partnership.
Before we join the two on a trip down memory lane, we're looking back at their legacy and how after nearly 60 years since they met, they continue to influence comedians and comedy today.
Establishing the Comedy Blueprint
It's easy to forget that there was a time when comedians weren't powerhouse businesses extending themselves beyond stand-up specials, dipping toes and feet into television, film, touring and merchandise. Cheech & Chong may not have been the first to do this, but their reach across nearly every facet of the industry made an impact like no other and shifted the disrespect aimed at comedians at the time — we were "treated like dirt" as Chong says in Last Movie — to recognizing their talents and their colleagues.
The duo began as a stand-up act, which eventually translated into recording comedy albums with a similar aptitude to any recording artist at that time, with the help of producer Lou Adler. Songs like "Basketball Jones" and "Sister Mary Elephant" made waves, but undoubtedly "Earache My Eye" has been their enduring legacy in the world of comedy and music, having been covered countless times — notably by Korn, Rollins Band and Soundgarden, along with many others.
"I don't think people understand this or respect this enough: not only what you guys were doing wasn't established yet, but it was free-form, really alternative," comedian Bert Kreischer told Cheech & Chong on an episode of his YouTube series Something's Burning. "I'm sure you probably look at my career and go, 'You're welcome'. We figured out managers for you, we figured out agents."
Drawing a line between Cheech & Chong and musical comedy acts like "Weird Al" Yankovic and the Lonely Island is easy, but Cheech & Chong's organic growth within the business also paved the way for superstars like Kevin Hart to grow their stand-up into an entertainment empire.
Stereotypes Can Be Funny (When Done Right)
For all the discussion today about what race-based jokes can and cannot be said, and who can and cannot say them, Cheech & Chong were equal opportunists in their performances, taking aim at everyone and anyone. In an era where racialized jokes seemed contained within ethnic communities, Cheech & Chong wanted to bring everyone in on the joke.
"We made minorities real people," Chong explained in an Academy retrospective of their film Up in Smoke. Their depictions weren't without controversy, however.
Their songs "Mexican Americans," sung by Marin (a Mexican-American) and the less refined "Beaners," performed by Chong (a Chinese-Scots-Irish Canadian), both from 1980's Cheech and Chong's Next Movie, have both been criticized for perpetuating stereotypes and reinforcing the use of slurs. Considering the songs in retrospect during a time period where Mexicans were considered "novel" to the point that Marin adopted his exaggerated accent for Canadian audiences to feed into their ignorance, Cheech & Chong's use of stereotypes can only be considered satirical — laughing with their audience instead of at them.
Shows like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Extras picked up Cheech & Chong's baton with striking humour that, at first glance, borders on racist and bigoted, but when seen through a nuanced perspective, shows the thoughtful consideration behind such jokes.
To many, Cheech & Chong's humour, especially when it comes to playing up stereotypes, may not appear to be anything other than profane, to which I'd kindly suggest reading Marin's 2012 essay "What Is a Chicano?" (originally published for The Huffington Post), in which he sheds some light on the "Mexican American" lyrics:
I say Mexican-American is the politically correct middle ground between Hispanic and Chicano. Like in the song I wrote to be sung by a Chicano trying to be P.C. "Mexican-Americans; don't like to just get into gang fights; they like flowers and music; and white girls named Debbie too." All those names made it confusing for me growing up. I lived in an all-black neighbourhood, followed by an all-white one, and other kids in the always called me Mexican in both neighbourhoods. It never bothered me until one day I thought to myself, "Hey, wait a minute, I'm not Mexican."
The Stoner Subgenre
Perhaps Cheech & Chong's greatest contribution to film is the creation of the stoner subgenre. The duo came of age in the counterculture era of the '60s and '70s, and their comedy reflected their environment and extra-curricular activities. While smoking pot was illegal in the US at the time, it wasn't a particularly novel concept among the youth; however, Cheech & Chong's seminal Up in Smoke, featuring stoners as the good guys and cops as the baddies, offered a revolutionary perspective in 1978.
In Last Movie, Marin recalls wondering, "Why isn't everyone doing dope jokes? They're smoking dope. I guess for some of those comedians, it was too obvious: "Oh, everyone's doing it." Well, in fact, no one was doing that. So we were the first ones. We, in effect, stole home plate."
Arguably, Marin and Chong didn't steal home plate; rather they built the stadium that generations to come would play in. Films like Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, The Big Lebowski, Dazed and Confused, Pineapple Express, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Friday found their success atop the ground work laid by Cheech & Chong. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ice Cube recalls growing up watching the comedians and wanting to make Friday a "hood classic" in the same way their works were classics to their community.
"They'll forever be linked to the genre," Nicholaus Goossen, director of Grandma's Boy, told the Academy in the Up in Smoke retrospective. "When you think of stoner comedy, you think of Cheech & Chong."