Highs & Lows: Cheech & Chong

by Patrick Bromley

A comedy pair with some very "high" highs.

Ever since JB wrote about Cheech & Chong's Last Movie a few weeks back, I've been wanting to watch (or re-watch) all of their big-screen efforts from the late 1970s and early '80s. While I don't dig on stoner humor, smoke weed, or partake in drug use of any kind -- I've literally never tried anything -- I am drawn to their brand of late-night comedy movies, the ones I used to read about in the back of the TV Guide as a kid, dreaming about being old enough to watch whatever Rated R movies I wanted. They made a series of movies together before breaking up for which I have varying degrees of affection. Here are their highs and lows.

High: Up in Smoke (1978, dir. Lou Adler)

The first Cheech & Chong feature is among their best and certainly their most successful, grossing an astonishing $100+ million on a budget of about $2 million. Though they're playing characters with other names, both comedians are basically playing themselves in what amounts to their origin story, beginning with them meeting and becoming friends and then taking them on an adventure that involves smoking weed, traveling to Tijuana, trying to find more weed, being pursued by cops (including one played by Stacy Keach), competing in a battle of the bands, and sometimes smoking weed. There's a real "anything goes" approach to Cheech & Chong's debut outing -- a refusal to adhere to traditional storytelling or even traditional logic that's totally in keeping with their countercultural approach to comedy. While this one relies more heavily on pot humor (which I am incapable of finding funny) than the movies that would follow, Up in Smoke captures what makes the pair special: laid-back absurdism, some music, weird digressions, and a lot of drug use.

Low: The Corsican Brothers (1984, dir. Thomas Chong)

The thing about Cheech & Chong's filmography is that for a while it was basically a case of diminishing returns, though I'd place The Corsican Brothers ahead of the film that precedes it. I like the ambition of the movie, which takes a page from Abbott & Costello and casts the stoner pair as "characters" in an actual story -- in this case an adaptation of the 1844 Alexandre Dumas story -- instead of just playing themselves with a case of the fuckarounds. They play brothers who are so connected that they feel each other's pain, a device that's rarely used to much comic effect beyond the most obvious examples. I like seeing the duo interact with the period sets and costumes and Chong is particularly good as the intense straight man, but the jokes (including the dependable gay panic jokes, because 1984) rarely land and their comedy tends to be too shaggy to really gel what they're trying to pull off. I don't think this is a bad movie, just one that misses the mark.

High: Nice Dreams (1981, dir. Thomas Chong)

A fairly middle of the road outing that has just enough decent bits in it to tip over into the "high" column. It's their druggiest movie this side of Up in Smoke, casting them as a pair of ice cream truck drivers selling weed out of the back. In the movie's best running joke, Stacy Keach plays a cop who starts smoking a powerful strain of pot to get into their headspace and winds up slowly turning into a lizard. Nice Dreams, like so many of their theatrical efforts, is comprised mostly of bit and sketches loosely connected; this one is shaggier than most. Paul Reubens appears again, this time not as Pee-Wee Herman but instead as Howie Hamburger Dude, a coke-snorting crazy person. I suspect I like this one as much as I do just because I like these movies, not because it's particularly good.

Low: Still Smokin' (1983, dir. Thomas Chong)

Without question the worst of the C&C films, Still Smokin' finds the pair traveling to Amsterdam for a Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton film festival (a joke that goes nowhere), which is canceled and replaced by them giving a concert for the final act of the movie. The rest of the running time is made up of sketches in which the pair pitch ideas for bits they should perform, almost none of which work and which feel cheap and thin even by Cheech and Chong standards (like, they didn't even spend money on sets or extras). Also, don't get me started on the movie's offensiveness -- not a fun, "we're crossing the line" kind of offensiveness, but a truly gross, "they should have known better even in 1983" kind. The live concert material is the strongest stuff in the movie, reminding us that both Cheech and Chong are good actors capable of doing funny character work. This is the kind of movie that's barely a movie.

High: Cheech & Chong's Next Movie (1980, dir. Thomas Chong)

My favorite Cheech and Chong movie happens to be their silliest, which is when I find the pair at their best. Tommy Chong takes over directing duties from Lou Adler (he would direct the rest of their movies, a sticking point in their contentious breakup during the 1980s) but maintains the loose, slapdash style of Up in Smoke and goes to even weirder places. Cheech plays a dual role as himself and his lunatic cousin Red, who has a One Crazy Night adventure with Chong that includes getting massages, visiting a music store, getting Pee-Wee Herman arrested (making one of his first film appearances; the movie is full of early Groundlings like Cassandra Peterson and John Paragon and Edie McClurg, who gets the "introducing" credit and steals the movie), and even getting picked up by a UFO. Of all the C&C movies, this is the one I'll be revisiting the most.