NEW YORK (AP) — The irony tickles Cheech and Chong: The Palisades fire smoked them out of their homes.
“I had to de-smoke my house,” Tommy Chong says, giggling. “Can you imagine that?”
Chong and Cheech Marin ‘s houses, both in the Pacific Palisades, didn’t burn down. But as two of the few homes left standing (“We’re under suspicion,” jokes Chong), they’ve been uprooted.
But being on the road has always been a more natural state for Marin and Chong. No comic act has ever gotten so much mileage out of driving nowhere in particular. In their new movie, “Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie” (in theaters Friday), they reflect on their odd journey while cruising through the desert, looking for a place called The Joint.
Marin, who grew up in Watts the son of an LAPD police officer, met Chong, whose father was Chinese and whose mother was Scotch Irish, after fleeing to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War draft. They met through an improv troupe and immediately felt a rare kinship.
“He’s the eggroll, I’m the taquito,” laughs Marin.
Their stand-up tours made them counterculture icons. They opened for the Rolling Stones. Bruce Springsteen opened for them. Their comedy albums made them rock stars, and their films — including 1978’s “Up in Smoke” — made them ubiquitous stoner archetypes.
“Our whole getting together was very auspicious,” Chong says. “It was designed by god for us to be here.”
“Personally,” adds Marin, smiling. “God told us.”
But despite their buddy-buddy routine, Marin and Chong weren’t always the best of friends. After squabbles over credit, they split in the 1980s and saw little of each other for 20 years. In 2003, Chong was incarcerated for nine months for trafficking in illegal drug paraphernalia. He calls his spell in federal prison the best time of his life.
Yet Cheech and Chong, a double act to rival Laurel and Hardy, has proven remarkably durable — and profitable. With the legalization of marijuana in many states, they preside over a flourishing weed business. (Sample tagline: “Get high with the legends.”) For a pair of stoners that few would have forecast longevity, they’re not just made it to old age — Marin is 78, Chong is 86 — they look great. And they laugh just as much as they used to.
They’ve maybe even grown wiser, too. As Chong explained over breakfast, they’re reluctant to talk politics. “We’re very deportable,” he said with a grin.
AP: How was it to see your lives laid out in the movie?
CHEECH: I wish they had done even more on our early days because we were trying to figure out who each other were. “What are you? How come you’re named Chong?”
CHONG: The thing is, he was a fugitive. So in order to come into the States, he had to take a chance. He had already snuck up to Canada. The next thing you know, he meets me and we’re going back to the States!
CHEECH: I was wanted in the U.S. I came back in the U.S with a phony ID: my friends’ driver’s license. It was his picture on it. “OK, that’s me.” “Brown, check. Go ahead.”
CHONG: They weren’t suspecting a Mexican sneaking in from Canada.
AP: People forget how big you were as a stand-up act. You were rock ‘n roll comedians before that was a thing.
CHONG: We made up a whole genre of language.
CHEECH: Put this in your article: We should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That should be the first sentence.
CHONG: We f— up the comedy scene. We had people scrambling.
AP: Who were some of the people you enjoyed hanging out with back then?
CHEECH: Timothy Leary would come over and stay with me by the beach. He was a great astronomer and knew everything about the constellations.
CHONG: We used to meet on the road sometimes. One time we got in a big discussion. His thing was: We gotta get on a spaceship. This Earth is getting messed up. I said Tim, “We’re on a spaceship. The best spaceship you can imagine!” And you know what he said to me? “Oh, you sound just like John Lennon.”
AP: Weed is legal is many places, but do you find it harder to find the anti-authoritarian spirit that accompanied it back in the ‘60s?
CHONG: What I’ve known all my life is the racist policies that are now illegal were once the norm around the world. We grew up in a world where America wouldn’t let a boatload of Jews dock in America. And this is after Hitler was defeated. These are human beings!
AP: How has old age changed you?
CHONG: Like anything, you have to age gracefully. That’s what I learned. The older I get, the less I speak because you put your foot in your mouth every time you open it. Me, especially. I say things before I think them.
CHEECH: Really? Really? No!
CHONG: F— off.
AP: You sound to me just like you always did.
CHONG: It’s ordained. It comes from the Power. I think what it was when I was younger and the guy that operated the jazz club came up to me and handed me a Lenny Bruce record and a joint. Oh, OK. Now I know what I gotta do with the rest of my life. And I’ve been doing it. But he didn’t say anything about meeting a Mexican.
AP: Why do you think you two went together so well?
CHEECH: We had the same background frame of reference. We knew about the same things. We were both kind of outsiders and we had the same kind of sense of humor.
CHONG: I’ve always been an instigator. I always hung with the craziest guy in the class, and quietly tell the guy what to do. He’d get in trouble. So when I met Cheech, it was a natural.
AP: After you split up, what brought you back together?
CHEECH: Money.
CHONG: My son, Paris. He arranged for us to meet, and the meeting didn’t really go that well. I hadn’t seen him for years. I sent an email saying it was nice seeing you. My son intercepted the email and wrote his own letter. He wrote: “Yeah, I’m looking forward to working with you again. Let’s get together and rehearse.” The next thing I know, I get a call from my son: “Cheech is coming over.” The rehearsal was like: “How you doin’? So we got a gig? When? I’ll see you there.” And that was it. When we got on stage — we hadn’t been on stage for like 20 years — boom, like we had never been apart.
AP: You must be making a lot of money from selling weed now. Has that been good?
CHEECH: Very.
CHONG: Oh, incredible. Not quite as good as they touted, what they sold us on. We haven’t reached that point yet
CHEECH: But we’re approaching it.
CHONG: Especially with this movie, wow.
CHEECH: It’s going to win three Academy Awards. It’s already won three Academy Awards.
AP: To you, are there any downsides to the legalization of weed? It used to be a more rebellious subculture.
CHONG: The cell phone freed us all. You can get your jolt on your cell phone. I’m more flexible when it comes to personal appearances. There was a time when Cheech and I, because we had that reputation, I didn’t ever want to spoil anybody’s hopes or fears. There were quite a few shows we weren’t allowed on. And I understand, I respect those shows. They didn’t want to be changed by us. Because we have a habit of changing s—.
AP: Like what? Like Johnny Carson?
CHEECH: We were never on Carson. Freddy de Cordova was the producer there.
CHONG: And he was a big pot head and didn’t want to get outed. All those guys. Johnny Carson.
AP: You existed in an odd place. You weren’t quite allowed in the mainstream, but the mainstream found you.
Cheech: We were the new mainstream. We were showing what the mainstream actually looked like.
AP: Are you glad you got back together?
CHONG: He never wanted to break up but he always wanted to be able to do his thing. I’ve always been the dominant guy. It’s not so much because I’m better, it’s because I’m only good at certain things. I’ve always felt our job was to stay with the plot. That’s why we never went any further than pot, as far as drugs. And, if we did in the movies, it never turned out that well. We always had Cheech’s obsession with the opposite sex and my obsession with getting high. It just made everybody comfortable.
CHEECH: It was fun and it was going to be lucrative. And it was. We did stage (work) for another eight or 10 years.
CHONG: Fifty-some odd years! We’ve been together longer than he’s been with his wife and I’ve been with my wife. It’s something. Chances are, we’ll still be together when he gets another wife.
AP: This is being billed as your last movie, but it doesn’t seem like that’s necessarily the case.
CHEECH: It’s not necessarily. I don’t know why they named it that. Anything can happen with Cheech and Chong. I think it’s unlikely, but who knows. This last movie was unlikely.
CHONG: I kind of compare it to Cher’s goodbye tour because she’s had, what, 18 of ’em? People ask me how do you want to be remembered. I like how we’re remembered now. When people think of Cheech and Chong, they smile. So I want to be remembered with a smile.
