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It’s amazing to be old enough to remember the 1980s and see how Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are perceived today. These goofy harmless old timers (age 78 and 86) were, at least in my household, the most dangerous influences imaginable. Their comedy albums and movies were absolutely forbidden—representations of pure sin, celebrating sex and drugs and destructive behavior.
So naturally I sought them out, and memorized as much as I could. (I do a great Sister Mary Elephant.)
And, sure, those movies deserved their R ratings, but years later I recognized that Cheech & Chong were not demonic madmen, but old school vaudevillian schtickers doing bits that just happened to include material about smoking grass or hooking up with loose women. It’s actually rather wholesome when you look at it from a certain point of view.
Their careers (and lives) are reflected in full in Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie, a new documentary getting released on (cough) 4/20. In it you’ll see all the classic bits from their standup years, their albums, and their core filmography—and get to watch them putz around today as old men. There are some war stories from the Hollywood dealmaking days as well as some insight into why they eventually split up. There’s also a fascinating look at their early years, when Tommy Chong was a guitarist and songwriter in a series of pretty damn successful R&B groups, and when Cheech Marin was studying to be a potter.
I had the great fortune to speak to them over Zoom, where I was reminded yet again that Cheech “doesn’t really sound like that,” but Chong…well, Chong kinda does. Indeed, Cheech joined the Zoom on a good connection at a desk in an office, while Tommy was on a phone that pooped out in the middle of our talk. (Aw, man.) In a way, it made it ten times funnier—and certainly grabbed me by the boo boo.
DECIDER: I feel like this documentary answered all the questions I ever had about you guys. It’s really good. I don’t know what’s left to do.
CHEECH MARIN: Just paying homage.
TOMMY CHONG: But not paying tariffs.
We learn a lot about your years growing up, and how you fell into the improv theatre world, but not so much about early influences for comedy.
CHEECH: I was obsessed with comedy, a real student of it, either on screen or a record or reading Reader’s Digest stories. I watched every comedian on the Ed Sullivan Show, or whoever was on local TV. There was a lot of that in LA on early TV, the comedians were the best thing to watch on this “new medium”: TV.
CHONG: I grew up with radio. Luckily, the only one who wanted the radio in his room was me. My father was a truck driver and he was gone, my mother wasn’t interested and neither was my brother or sister. I was the one, and I grew up with Jack Benny and Bob Hope and shows like The Shadow and Amos and Andy, it was burned into my brain.
I remember the first comedy record I ever heard, it was Andy Griffith. Remember that one?
CHEECH [doing a Southern accent]: “Basebawl, is what it was cawlled.”
CHONG: No, no, it was football!
CHEECH: Oh yeah. “Footbawl.”
CHONG: This was the first comedy bit I ever heard. He’s like a Robin Williams type, trying to describe football to a farmer. “Ya gotta carry this bawl across a field without steppin’ in anythin’.” This is way back.
The movie does a good job explaining how you were the first “rock ‘n’ roll comedians,” and there’s a great quote from you, Cheech, where you say that some critics thought doing youth culture humor and dope humor was too easy—but if it was too easy, why was no one else doing it? Which other comics in those early days were supportive of your act? If any—maybe you had no friends!
CHONG: Yeah!
CHEECH: One guy, Pat Morita. You remember him as Mr. Miyagi. He was an early fan. He was in the Lenny Bruce crowd, and in with Lenny Bruce’s mother [talent recruiter Sally Marr]. Morita recognized what we were doing. At the time he called himself “The Hip Nip,” so he saw where we were going and gave us tips where he could.
What about George Carlin? There’s some commonality with your work, especially his earlier days, Was he friendly to you?
CHEECH: I think I only met him once. Or maybe I never even met him.
CHONG: I was on some of his shows, TV pilots, where they tried different things. But, you know, when you are on those shows you don’t really meet the star. But when I did meet him, he was actually shy. Much like Robin Williams. He would get very silent.
The effect Cheech and I had on the whole comedy world was… [trails off.] See, we weren’t just comedians, we were comedians who did their own movies. We were in a special place—we were an alo…anolo…anomaly? Is that what it’s called?
CHEECH: Yes.
Cheech & Chong has changed my life in many ways. For one, if I am out and I smell marijuana, nine times out of ten I start humming “Low Rider” by WAR. This, to me, is pot’s national anthem, and it’s because of you.
CHEECH & CHONG: Yeah!
Did WAR ever thank you for putting them in Up in Smoke?
CHEECH: Did they? Hmm. They used to open for us for a long time on the road.
CHONG: Yeah, they were our opening act. We had a bunch of big names opening for us. [Including Bruce Springsteen – ed.] But it was our roadie, Jimmy Root, after we did the bit on record, he found that perfect record to introduce us.
CHEECH: And they still didn’t thank us! Still!
There’s so much music in your work and you are both musicians—what was the best concert you ever attended?
CHONG: How about where you sat in the front row with the Stones, remember? You never had tickets and you ended up on the stage.
CHEECH [cracking up]: Oh yeah! In Chicago at Soldier Field. It was a long story, but I ended up being forklifted onto the stage at a Stones concert. I thought I was gonna’ play. I thought I was gonna’ be a Rolling Stone—they’d throw me a guitar.
It was pretty interesting to see that size of a show, it was big time rock ‘n’ roll.
Wait, so did Mick Jagger introduce you? Did say “aw right, ‘ere’s Cheech!”?
CHEECH: He didn’t know we were there, man. Two people siting next to their old ladies on stage.
Tommy, best show you ever saw?
CHONG: I’ve had many incredible moments. I once spent an hour on stage with [jazz guitarist] Wes Montgomery. He was playing a club in Vancouver, and everyone in the club was expecting one show, but he did two shows. When he came back for the second show, everyone was passed out. It was junkie heaven. I was the only guy that was upright. So Wes did his whole show which was just he and I talkin’ about guitar.
Can you imagine? He had nowhere to go but to sit there with me and answer my questions!
I’ve had some great experiences like that, like with Hendrix back when I was with Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers. We were in England backing up Berry Gordy’s gorgeous girlfriend, Chris Clark, and we did a gig at a place called the—[SILENCE! Chong’s Zoom winks out].
CHEECH: That part has been excised from the record, otherwise he’ll get sued.
CHONG [winking back in]: …so Jimi says I’ll play bass! So he takes poor Wes Henderson’s fretless bass and me and Eddie Patterson have our guitars, man, you wanna talk about—[SILENCE! Chong’s Zoom winks out again].
CHEECH: He can’t talk about it, though.
Cheech, what do you do when this happens Chong just evaporates into the ether like this?
CHEECH: Oh, you order a sandwich, pull up a chair, order a drink, smoke a joint.
I guess we’ll talk about your solo work, Cheech, because Chong’s not here, man.
CHEECH: You really gone, Chingo? Chingo-Chongo, come back.
Oh, man, I broke up Cheech & Chong!
CHEECH: It’s okay, you can talk to me.
More seriously, I’m sure everyone’s been asking you this week, this crazy situation about the guy who was sent down to El Salvador—you can’t help but think about your movie Born in East L.A., about a man accidentally swept up and deported.
CHEECH: I’ve talked about it a bunch of times since the movie came out [in 1987] because it keeps happening. This kind of incident keeps happening, and the memory gets reignited with people. It’s as true today as when I made the movie.
Hopefully, uh … hopefully it gets better?
CHEECH: So far it has not.
The documentary talks about your love of making pottery as a young man—and how your interest there is what got you to Canada to meet Chong in the first place. I know you are still very active with curating art, and organizing the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture, but do you continue to work in pottery?
CHEECH: Partially. I got the “pot” part but not the “tery.”
No, I gave it up, because it is a very intensive, multistage process. You have to be there for all the stages, and I was always travelling. I couldn’t continue it, so I am out of it. But I do long for it every once in a while.
Is the museum the thing you are most proud of, outside your work with Tommy?
CHEECH: Absolutely. People come from all over the world now to see this museum. And it’s just starting. The pride it gives to the community is beyond belief.
Do you ever just go there and figure “I’m gonna’ go to my museum and see if anyone recognizes me at the snack bar” type of thing?
CHEECH: I have to wear a disguise. I go as Chong.
Clearly you support the decriminalization of marijuana that’s happened in most, but not all, of the United States. You guys have turned it into a business, which is amazing because on so many of the old albums the idea of legalizing pot was a punchline. My question is this: with decriminalization, the danger of listening to a Cheech & Chong album or watching a Cheech & Chong movie is gone. Do you miss that in any way?
CHEECH: Well, not necessarily. We always treated it as if it was legal. There was no paranoia about it. Maybe a few instances, like with “Dave’s Not Here,” paranoia is part of it, but for us we operated like it was part of life, part of our daily sustenance, and the audience got that feeling, too. Especially in the movies. Even the scenes when the cops were at the window, there’s never an “errrrrrrrrrrr!” kind of real threat.
[Chong now kinda comes back to the Zoom. We see a black square with his name on it.]
CHEECH: Tommy, can you hear me?
[To the melody of The Who’s “Tommy Can You Hear Me?”] Tommy, can you hear meeeeee?
CHEECH: Hehe, yeah. [Chong disappears again.]
Last question. I think of you as a man of a thousand voices. Even this far in your career are you still playing around and making funny voices in the shower?
CHEECH: Have you been spying on me? Ohhhh, that’s a camera in the shower!
Listen, I do it all the time. My wife comes in there “who are you talking to?” “Ah, no, no, I’m, uh, singing.” “You aren’t singing, you are doing a weird voice!”
Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie is now in theaters. Showtimes and tickets can be found on the movie’s official website.
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 at @JHoffman about Phish and Star Trek.
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