Kings of Stoner Comedy, Cheech & Chong Reclaim Their Thrones

The reunion between comedy legends Richard "Cheech" Marin and Tommy
Chong was going to get under way in 2002 or so. But a not-so-funny
thing happened, and Chong ended up in federal prison for trafficking
in water pipes (which is kind of like imprisoning Don Rickles for
telling a Polack joke).

So logistics and life pushed Cheech & Chong back to '08, and it's
finally here, with two sold-out shows at the Paramount Theatre on
Saturday and tickets still available for Sunday. The duo's
groundbreaking '70s stoner humor has lived on though movies like Half
Baked and the Harold and Kumar series. Besides fans from back in the
day, the shows are attracting a new crowd of young fans. The pair
spoke from Boston about reuniting after a rancorous decades-long falling out.

How did this finally come about?

Chong: We've been trying to get back together for a couple of years.
We had a little gig in La Jolla, tried out the act . . . and found
out how much fun it was. We'd forgotten how much fun it was. We were
having a ball. Right now it's like half the work for five times the money.

You originally started out to be a rock 'n' roll band. How was that?

Chong: Cheech and I were in this improv group. The improv group broke
up. It was always in the back of my mind; I was in a band in Motown.
Out of force of habit, I figured, I was going to be in a band
somewhere. Cheech had been the singer in a band. It was just natural
that we said let's just form a band. . . . But back in the day, our
comedy was so strong we never got around to playing music.

How much did touring contribute to your breakup? You've talked about
never being home.

Chong: That was our problem. We both bought beautiful homes in
Malibu. It was harvest time that got me. I had peach trees, and every
time I came home there would be no peaches (laughs). We'd missed the
harvest time. The help were eating all my peaches.

Cheech: We'd been living with each other 24/7 for 20 years, working
creatively. It didn't really matter what we were arguing about. We'd
been together for so long, . . . just like an old married couple. We
took off, we did our own thing, we're back together, it's great. It's
"Oh, I never realized what beautiful eyes you have."

Chong: There's only one Cheech & Chong. There's no substitute. Even
when I was doing comedy by myself, I worked with a few people. We
messed around with the recording, recorded a few things. But it just
never worked. Never worked. . . . Nothing could even come close to
the magic that we have. We both have recognized that fact now.

You're playing small places at good prices. Was that the plan, to
underplay the markets?

Cheech: We wanted to go into smaller venues that would sell out and
keep the ticket price manageable. It actually turned out to be
prescient because of the economics now. We're doing well when
everybody else is not. It turned out to be a wise decision.

Are you doing new stuff or sticking to the classics?

Cheech: Our bits evolve every night. People who saw us at the
beginning of the tour come now and say, "Wow, you've changed a lot of
it." We're not really aware of it, because it changes every night.

Does the long layoff make the bits fresh for you?

Chong: Absolutely. We're like a conversation piece. The subject of
Cheech & Chong just laid dormant for many, many years. Now it's
relevant again for some reason. Everything comes around. It came
around. Our time is now. It's not gonna last forever. It's going to
last for this period of time and then the world will move on to something else.

New fans gravitate to those old recordings.

Chong: The weird thing is, we sign our records every day. The people
we're signing for haven't even heard them. They're clutching them
like art objects. We're animating the collection now (for a feature
film). The people who are animating - we're in constant contact with
them, explaining what the bit is, explaining some of the phrases we
used. When I tell them, it's like "Oh, oh, we get it." They didn't
know what reds were. (Laughs) It's very funny. But they're so
relevant. Lou Adler, our old producer who owns the material, is
producing the whole thing.

It's about time on the animation. You can see Basketball Jones on
YouTube, but you can't buy it anywhere.

Cheech: There is no recording industry now. It's all YouTube and
iTunes. That's kinda how it's lived all these years. When we got back
together, we said, "What do we do?" We had to go to YouTube to look
at the bootleg tapes of us in clubs. "Oh yeah, that's how that bit went."

So what else is in the future?

Cheech: It's open-ended right now.

Chong: The movie industry - they've been after us ever since we broke
up. I would meet with presidents of Warner Bros. and that. They
didn't care what project I had. They just wanted to see if there was
any chance if Cheech & Chong would get back together again. That's
the only reason they would see me. . . . They wanted just a pure
Cheech & Chong movie. People can smell the money.

They always could.

Cheech: Yeah. That hasn't changed.

How did you get George Harrison, Carole King, Billy Preston and all
those people to play on Basketball Jones?

Cheech: They were in the next studio as we were recording it. Lou
Adler went in there and said: "Hey! Come here. I want you to play on
this tune." And they'd go, "Oh, OK!" and do it. George Harrison said:
"Oh, those are very good chords. I'll have to nick those."

Chong: We ended up on Joni Mitchell's album (Court and Spark). We
were all on A&M Records at the time. It was a bit of a family affair
there. Whoever was in the studio at the time would just walk over to
the other studio and play on the side.

You did a campaign ad for Barack Obama. Why was that important to you?

Cheech: We believed in Obama. It was a transformative moment for the
United States. For the world, actually. We wanted to put our all behind that.

Chong: More than anything, I wanted to make sure that Republican
beast was dead. They'd taken me. I'd ignored their ass and I ended up
doing nine months in jail because of their policies. I really wanted
to stomp on the throat of that beast.

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CHEECH & CHONG

* When and where: 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday,
Paramount Theatre, 1621 Glenarm Place

* Cost: $42 and $62

* Information: 866-461-6556 or TicketHorse.com

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WHERE TO START

Born too late to inhale the Cheech & Chong oeuvre? Some suggestions
to help you get caught up:

* Music: Basketball Jones (1973). This spoof of Love Jones by
Brighter Side of Darkness was about amorous infatuation with a
basketball. It reached No. 15 on the charts. When's the latest time a
pair of comedians did that? Some notable musicians actually played on
the single, including George Harrison, Billy Preston and Michelle
Phillips. Runner-up: the satirical rock anthem Earache My Eye with
its proto-punk guitar line.

* Movie: Up in Smoke (1978): Two stoners knowingly smuggle a van made
of marijuana from Tijuana to Los Angeles. The van's owners - and the
cops - are in hot pursuit. Our stoners end up winning a Battle of the
Bands contest.

* Comedy routine: Take your pick: substitute teacher Sister Mary
Elephant, about a Catholic school nun who screeches "Shut up!" to her
unruly class, or Dave's Not Here, about a drug dealer named Dave
trying to make a delivery. He's being chased by the cops, and as he
pounds on the door and identifies himself, he's repeatedly told by
the stoner inside, "Dave's not here."

* Inspirations: The '90s rock group Blind Melon took its name from
the 1971 Cheech & Chong sketch Blind Melon Chitlin'.

Where there's smoke . . .

What, you thought pot humor took a holiday when Cheech and Chong went
on hiatus? If anything, their absence created a ganja vacuum, and
filmmakers have spent the last quarter century showing that Up in
Smoke just scratched the surface:

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

(1982) - Spicoli (played by a very young Sean Penn) tortures Mr. Hand
with his pot-fueled tardiness and pizza intake.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

(1989) - Time travel - with George Carlin! Most excellent.

Dazed and Confused

(1993) - High school circa the '70s. Enough said.

Clerks

(1994) - A foul-mouthed dealer and his silent pal spout funny
one-liners outside a convenience store.

Friday

(1995) - Chris Tucker's character spells out pot-sharing etiquette :
"Puff puff, give. Puff puff, give."

The Big Lebowski

(1998) - The Dude abides.

Half Baked

(1998) - Before Dave Chappelle got famous, he played one of four
friends peddling pot to get a buddy out of jail.

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle

(2004) - Roomies criss-cross New Jersey after they get the munchies.

Knocked Up

(2007) - Stoner buddies try to get a Web site called Mr. Skin up and running.

Pineapple Express

(2008) - The movie's tagline: "Put this in your pipe and smoke it."