(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TOMMY CHONG: (As character) Who is it?
CHEECH MARIN: (As Dave, whispering) It's me, Dave. Open up, man. I got the stuff.
A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
In the 1970s, Cheech & Chong were the OGs of pot humor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHONG: (As character) Dave?
MARIN: (As Dave) Yeah. Dave, come on, man. Open up. I think the cops saw me.
CHONG: (As character) Dave's not here.
MARIN: (As Dave) No, man. I'm Dave, man.
MART脥NEZ: Their albums hit the top 10. Their live shows sold out. Their movie screenings were jam-packed with fans, though I have no idea how they saw the screen through the haze. There's a new documentary about their partnership. It's called "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie." Now, here's one thing I learned. Before he met Cheech, Tommy Chong was in a band signed to Motown Records.
CHONG: I had a family-owned nightclub in Vancouver, Canada. And the house band - we never had a name, but we had a house band, and we had a great singer named Bobby Taylor. And Diana Ross and the Supremes came and heard us - heard Bobby sing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOES YOUR MAMA KNOW 海角换妻 ME")
BOBBY TAYLOR AND THE VANCOUVERS: (Singing) We've got to be strong for love that's so right, can't be wrong.
CHONG: So she phoned Berry Gordy, and Berry Gordy literally flew the next day. He signed us. He loved us, signed us.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOES YOUR MAMA KNOW 海角换妻 ME")
BOBBY TAYLOR AND THE VANCOUVERS: (Singing) Does your mama know about me?
CHONG: I got fired from Motown.
MARIN: They found out he was Chinese.
MART脥NEZ: (Laughter).
It was in that nightclub that Tommy Chong first met Cheech Marin in 1969. Cheech grew up in LA but went to Vancouver to learn pottery and to avoid getting drafted for the Vietnam War. The two started performing comedy together, then made their way to LA to hone their act. As they got bigger, they got to shoot their first film on a shoestring budget. "Up In Smoke" became a cult smash in 1978.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "UP IN SMOKE")
MARIN: (As Pedro De Pacas) You know, like, I smoked the Michoacan and Acapulco Gold. I even smoked that tied stick, you know?
CHONG: (As Anthony Stoner) Tied stick?
MARIN: (As Pedro De Pacas) Yeah. You know, that stuff is tied to a stick, you know?
CHONG: (As Anthony Stoner) Oh, Thai (ph) stick.
MARIN: (As Pedro De Pacas) Yeah. Yeah, that ain't even...
MART脥NEZ: So my mom would not let me watch your stuff.
MARIN: That's a wise mom (laughter).
MART脥NEZ: She was afraid - no, she was afraid that I would start smoking pot. But did you - I mean, did you ever come up with - like, later on with people, it's like, I always wanted to see what you did, but I was always not allowed to see what you did?
MARIN: Yeah, all the time.
MART脥NEZ: All the time?
MARIN: We heard that story all the time. And it's always with the fathers that come in, blah, blah, blah.
MART脥NEZ: Yeah.
MARIN: You can't do this. And they became the biggest fans. It was never the moms. It was always the dads.
MART脥NEZ: Did you guys ever think, like, this association with marijuana - because at the time, it's illegal.
MARIN: Yeah, yeah.
MART脥NEZ: And it's taboo. Did you ever think that that eventually might be something that would harm you at some point?
MARIN: No. We never really...
MART脥NEZ: Never thought about...
MARIN: ...Thought about it because we were reflecting the culture around us at the time. And we did a survey of all the material. We did it both on stage and on records, and it was only 5% of anything we did. But it was the biggest image that came up in everybody's mind as soon as they first heard about us or saw us.
MART脥NEZ: But even, Cheech, you came to a point where you wanted to do something not related to marijuana, right?
MARIN: Yeah. Yeah. Then we were getting pegged as, oh, they're just about marijuana and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
CHONG: Well, that was our secret sauce with the studios. And so we got a movie called "The Corsican Brothers." Cheech and I decided that - no pot in this one, you know? This is our chance to do a movie...
MARIN: 'Cause they hadn't invented pot then (ph).
MART脥NEZ: They hadn't invented (laughter)...
CHONG: And so I directed it and wrote it. And the studio - they weren't too happy. The suit that was assigned to the movie - she kept trying to get us to put pot in the movie.
MART脥NEZ: Well, your films - like, in the video store, like, when they actually had the videotapes - right? - it was almost like your films - you know in the bookstore, where you have, like, the X-rated magazines?
MARIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MART脥NEZ: It's like, oh. You always felt like you were kind of looking around...
MARIN: Yeah, looking around to see...
MART脥NEZ: ...To see who's watching you grab "Up In Smoke" or grab "Next Movie." It always felt like I had to, like, grab it and stick it in my coat and walk...
MARIN: (Laughter).
CHONG: That was like an advertising dream, you know? If you've got something that's taboo, it's called, like, negative publicity. "Up In Smoke" kind of was, like, starting that. In fact, the advertising line was, don't go straight to this movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Cheech & Chong's "Up In Smoke." Don't go straight to see this movie.
MART脥NEZ: As I was watching the documentary, there was a point in it where - and this is where you guys need to help me, like, what's real and what isn't? - where it was a little uncomfortable when you guys were talking about the films that you were in and who directed.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "CHEECH & CHONG'S LAST MOVIE")
CHONG: On the other movies, I would write. Cheech would go on vacation. Howard (ph) would make the deal, and then we'd come in and shoot. But this time, Cheech wanted to be involved in everything, and he didn't want me to direct. Tom Avildsen was the editor. I says, OK, Tom, you direct. You'll go down as a director. I don't care. But I'll actually be the director.
MART脥NEZ: So, Tommy, you directed the films.
CHONG: ...And wrote them.
MART脥NEZ: You wrote them, wrote and directed them.
CHONG: And directed.
MARIN: And with me...
MART脥NEZ: With...
MARIN: ...He wrote the films.
MART脥NEZ: But you didn't get, Cheech, the director credit.
MARIN: I didn't want director credit.
CHONG: We both directed. See, back in the day, there were - there was rules, unwritten rules. You know, you don't have two directors...
MART脥NEZ: Yeah.
CHONG: ...Until the Coen brothers came in, you know? And it's all about the old way of doing the money, you see, because if you're a director, you're getting paid.
MART脥NEZ: So if we were to go back in time to kind of, you know, recredit the films, would it be directed by Cheech & Chong?
CHONG: Yeah.
MARIN: Yeah, probably would be.
MART脥NEZ: Yeah.
CHONG: Yeah.
MART脥NEZ: But, I mean, Cheech, did you get - ever get annoyed that...
MARIN: No, not at that point.
MART脥NEZ: No, not at that point?
MARIN: No. It just - you know, when I wanted to kind of go in a slightly different direction or do something, this - and then that's where the division came.
MART脥NEZ: 'Cause in the documentary, it seemed like that was a tense moment between you two.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "CHEECH & CHONG'S LAST MOVIE")
MARIN: Well, you always were the director. It wasn't like you weren't.
CHONG: And you got to earn it. You can't just say, oh, because I was there with the other guy that directed, I should be a director.
MARIN: See, that's a lie (laughter).
CHONG: That's a lie?
MARIN: Yeah, well, of course it's a lie. I directed just as much as you did in the movies.
Oh, it is a tense moment 'cause...
MART脥NEZ: It's still a tense moment. OK.
MARIN: Well, we - yeah, we broke up after that. OK, you go your way. I'll go mine. And that was it. And we were broken up for 20 years.
MART脥NEZ: Yeah.
MARIN: And then we came back together for another 20 years, it seemed like. We didn't make movies or make records, but we were on the road.
MART脥NEZ: Yeah. Now, you're publicizing the film "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie."
MARIN: Yeah.
MART脥NEZ: I mean, should we take that literally? Is this the last time we're going to see Cheech & Chong together?
MARIN: You never know. I mean, you really - you never know. Something comes up and we like it, you might see a "Cheech & Chong's Last-Last Movie."
MART脥NEZ: A last-last movie?
MARIN: Yeah, yeah.
MART脥NEZ: That's Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. They're the subjects of the new documentary "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie." It's receiving a limited release on - of course, you guessed it - 4/20. Gentlemen, thank you for coming in.
MARIN: Our pleasure.
CHONG: Is that - are we on?
MART脥NEZ: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UP IN SMOKE (REPRISE)")
CHEECH AND CHONG: Come on. Let's go get high.
(Singing) Up in smoke. That's where I want to be. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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