Everyone’s favourite Stoner duo (well before Jay & Silent) of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong met back in the late ’60s and bonded over their shared love of marijuana and comedy and became staples of the L.A Comedy scene and cut 5 LPs before they got the record producer Lou Adler to direct their first and best film Up In Smoke and it was ahuge smokin’ success. In an interesting side not Adler also directed the fantastic punk rock film Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains and also was the executive producer of the stage and film version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Naturally Cheech and Chong would be a sequel at some point and the apply titled Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie was the result.

If the saying more of the same had a cinematic equivalent it would be certainly Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie. Given the nature of the comedy it’s very much “skit” based or to be pretentious you could call it episodic. The film has really no plot, it’s just Cheech and Chong smoking weed, trying to get laid and having amusing slightly surreal journeys around L.A.

This time it’s full of people who would become famous for characters they created such as Paul Reubens and the soon to be Elvira Cassandra Peterson. Reubens does play an early version of signature character Pee-Wee Herman here but it’s not quite the lovable man-child he would create for the films and his wonderful TV kids show. Edie McClurg also appears in a very funny role as a rich mother of a girl they get picked up who gets exposed to marijuana from Cheech & Chong. They ended up at a comedy club and Chong and Cheech’s southern cousin Red (also played by Marin) and the housewife takes turn telling jokes onstage.

So in short roll a joint, have a smoke and sit back and enjoy this goofy stoner comedy which wouldn’t be able to get made in this overtly political correct world. There are plenty stereotypes of gays, women and Latinos which you couldn’t get away with now even if are never mean spirited but you would struggled to get them passed through now. The Blu-Ray looks ok but all it has it a menu with chapters not even a trailer. Fabulous Films have also released the Cheech and Chong Video album Get Out of My Room which is one of the worst things the duo ever did. The only highlight of that is the brilliant video for the Bruce Springstreen parody Born in East L.A which spawned the solo Cheech film of the same name.

★★★

Ian Schultz

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