by Cheech & Chong celebrated an extra-special 4/20 week in 2013 with a big smokin’ promotional tour, capped off Thursday afternoon with a surprise visit from an unsurprising big fan in hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg during the comedy duo’s “Town Hall” recording for SiriusXM.
And if we’re supposed to call Calvin Broadus, Jr., Snoop Lion now, we might as well call him marijuana’s Snoop Spirit Animal. Or would Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong be Snoop’s spirit animals?
“I’m nothing without you guys,” Snoop told Cheech & Chong.
The rapper who is something of a pot icon himself for the 21st century joked he’d get his uncle in trouble by confessing that he was nine years old when he first smoked marijuana.
Returning the favor, Cheech Marin said he loved what Snoop had added to the hip-hop game two decades ago, as he rapped a bit of Snoop’s 1994 hit, “Gin and Juice.” “Snoop was the first one who I heard to include a melodic line,” Marin said.
And here’s the video evidence!
Cheech & Chong spent much of Thursday bouncing around the SiriusXM satellite radio studios from program to program, part of a weeklong Internet push for the long-awaited “new” project, Cheech & Chong’s Animated Movie. Chong said the film, which animates the duo’s classic bits, was four years in the making.
So for this 4/20, Cheech and Chong took over the home page of Funny or Die with several videos, including “their first TED Talk,” readings from The Bible, counting to 100, and more. This is their own take on the history of 4/20. Roll it!
They also spent April 20, 2013, answering fan questions via Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), Twitter @cheechandchong via #CC420, Facebook page, Google Hangout and Livestream.
Cheech & Chong began as a stage act in Vancouver more than four decades ago, and produced several hit comedy albums — winning the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for 1973’s “Los Cochinos” — before moving to movies with Up In Smoke, one of the biggest box-office hits of 1978. They split up about a decade later, and it wasn’t until 2008 before they finally reunited onstage and on tour together.
In their SiriusXM “Town Hall” with fans (including Snoop!), moderated by Artie Lange, Cheech & Chong spoke about all of that and more. “It’s bring your kid to work day. So it’s perfect for Cheech & Chong,” Lange quipped.
Added Cheech: “This is great because it knocks off 150 hours of court-mandated community service.”
Speaking of which, Chong’s imprisonment on drug paraphernalia in 2003 delayed their comedy reunion. But as Chong relayed to Lange and the SiriusXM audience, his time behind bars was humorous, too. Cheech & Chong spoke about how their comedy tapped into two cultures at once with Latinos and marijuana, how a writer following them on tour co-opted their Pedro and Man bit by turning it into the TV sitcom Chico and the Man, their love of Lenny Bruce, jazz musicians and opening for The Rolling Stones, and more.
Describing their split in the late 1980s, Marin said: “In any partnership, you get to that point where you get sick of each other.” Chong added: “When the timing was right, we quit at the top.”
They had a similar rosy-colored view of their reunion. “What brought us back together? Money!” Cheech said. “And the timing was right!” Chong said. Marin said performing with Chong again was easy. “We were a stage act since 1969, so that was our natural milieu,” he said. “We did not rehearse. We just went back onstage. It felt like we had been gone seven minutes.”
They continue to tour now.
If you missed “SiriusXM’s Town Hall with Cheech & Chong,” (it rebroadcasts several times today through the weekend on Raw Dog Comedy and other SiriusXM channels), it’s available on SiriusXM On Demand for subscribers listening via the SiriusXM Internet Radio App for smartphones and other mobile devices or check listings via siriusxm.com/townhall.
And here’s a clip from Cheech & Chong’s Animated Movie, which colors up classic routines such as “Dave’s not here,” “Let’s make a dope deal” and “Sister Mary Elephant,” all with a talking crab named Buster guiding the duo along. Roll it!
You can buy Cheech & Chong’s Animated Movie via the duo’s site, iTunes or the DVD wherever DVDs are sold.
