All The Smoke With Cheech & Chong
A 4-20 Approved Review of Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie
Yo…
Welcome to the 2025 NBA Playoffs!
Cue Cheech & Chong’s Basketball Jones. Because it is after all…4-20 today.
The 82 game season for each team has concluded.
And the stupid dumb Play-In Tournament junk has wrapped up.
(Why did we let the Bulls play 83 games this season?! All just to finish at 39-44. Once again a volume of vicious criticism should be levied at Adam Silver for his ineptitude and promotion of utter mediocrity.
The Play-In is distilled garbage. Like what…the Mavs were magically go on a run?! They shouldn’t be in the NBA Playoffs in the first place. That’s as dumb as giving the Bulls a participation trophy with the NBA Play-In. These teams sucked for 82 games...so what an 83rd game is gonna restore their good fortune? Hit the bricks and take your fat mom with you.)
And now good gravy: the real NBA post-season can (finally) start.
Look. All that matters is how good you are.
Winning is paramount.
Winning is beautiful.
Winning once is not enough; nobody should settle for a ring.
These 1 championship and done NBA teams are not good for the league and for their cities.
Architect a dynasty and you leave a lasting legacy.
It’s imperative to build.
It’s crucial to dominate.
Building a dynasty transforms communities and impacts cities.
Just ask the Celtics.
Their recent HBO documentary is literally called Celtics City.
I’m not a weed guy though I am a comedy guy.
Maybe that means I don’t get all of the Cheech & Chong jokes. (When my Dad watches The Simpsons with me I know he’s not getting the Star Wars references.
But he’s getting what…75%…even 85% of the episode? It still makes him laugh and he enjoys himself. That’s a solid win.)
Cheech & Chong are a comedy duo: Chicano Cheech Marin and Canadian-Chinese Tommy Chong. As a duo their mainstream success was in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Though to be honest their effect on the culture has lasted longer than those 2 crucial decades.
Cheech & Chong have a Last Dance coming out: Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie. It’s a fascinating documentary about the comedy duo and their impressive impact on the culture.
Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie will have a limited theatrical release on April 20, 2025. (That’s just good marketing.)
And for stoners who "ah…forgot" about the limited release…the comedy documentary will have a nationwide release on April 25.
I’ve seen the documentary.
I’m telling you if you’re comedy nerd it’s a must watch.
I’m telling you if you grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s it’s a must watch.
The war on drugs is a catastrophic failure. Which isn’t an impressive observation.
The war’s primary redeeming value was that it made a significant cultural contribution. It christened outlaws.
That war established a hard line…an expressed border around “proper society” so now…rebels could clearly define anti.
You can only Rage Against The Machine when the Machine is properly defined.
There’s a noble tradition of subversive comedy. Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin (Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television)…even early SNL.
That subversive comedy made delicious hamburgers out of sacred cows.
(Yo: nothing in pop culture is controversial. Controversy is a shorthand for uptight people. Especially when it comes to comedy. The flawed premise that fools wanna factory floor categorize particular jokes as offensive…or these jokes are punching down…or you can’t make jokes about these people etc. is as silly as Lucy and the chocolate factory. The volume of humour is so much to keep up with and why would any stupid person waste time categorizing jokes you can’t do anything about?
A joke is either funny or it’s not. My life is simple. Skip all the worthless factory floor shift work. Laugh or change the channel.)
Cheech’s dad was LAPD…in the ‘50s. That’s rough. Even rougher? The Marin family grew up in South Central. Again creating a clear anti: “From South Central I learned to get in the first punch.” (Cheech’s "proverb" should be a t-shirt.)
Later in Last Movie a contemporary…older Cheech reflecting on his relationship with his authoritative father…growing up attending a strict Catholic school…the heinous Vietnam war draft consuming so many youthful lives…he wisely says: “I did question authority. And I didn’t like the answers I was getting. If I ever got an answer.”
Rebel conjures up James Dean (Rebel Without A Cause) or Billy Idol (Rebel Yell) yet we overlook that comedy is revolutionary.
“Above all else, the devil can not stand to be mocked.” A C.S Lewis remix of James 4:7.
Laughter is the evidence of freedom.
When life sours you can protest and you can boycott…we’ve seen a lot of that recently.
But when you start making jokes and mocking the shared sacred values of society that’s when you become a true dissident.
That’s Side A: Cheech of Cheech & Chong.
Here’s Side B of the subversive comedy duo.
For Tommy Chong: “My whole being—my success—my life dates back to my earliest memories.” Which was in Calgary, Canada in the 1940s.
Didn’t realize until I watched this documentary that oh yeah…we proudly talk about this incredible Canadian comedy lineage from Lorne Michaels to Eugene Levy to Martin Short to Mike Myers but we often fail to recognize or include Tommy Chong. That’s rude, yo.
Speaking of quirky Canadiana…Tommy Chong who is half-Chinese eventually took over a failing Vancouver music venue…and turned it into a strip club.
It was called: Shanghai Junk. Now that’s funny.
Shanghai Junk was at 442 Main Street at Pender Street in Chinatown. I did a Google Street View…it’s been many moons since I’ve been to Van City. There’s nothing special there, sigh.
Tommy took over the club in 1966. And in between the topless ladies that’s where Cheech & Chong got their initial start. In a bar in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Now, Seth Rogen belongs to this tradition. (Seriously: in the doc Cheech talks about an electric pottery class he took in college. And these days Rogen is selling his pottery online. It’s 2025. Nothing ever changes. We’ve seen it all before.)
A sign on the Shanghai Junk front door warned patrons that “powerful words would be used. Shocking things might happen.”
That’s…subversive comedy.
The format of Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie is fantastic.
As you can see from the trailer Cheech & Chong now older…the facial hair is all white are driving through the desert. They’re high yet driving slowly enough to see…signs.
And along their journey there are cutbacks to their comedy career. When it goes back to the current duo driving they pick up hitchhikers. Like Lou Adler who directed their first movie but also signed them to his own record label Ode Records.
Lou hangs out in the backseat as the stoners go cruising, sharing his reflections on the critical role he played in Cheech & Chong’s journey.
Ex-wives and more occupy the backseat throughout the documentary. When their chapter is over…they get out and Cheech & Chong drive on. It’s all…like life. There was high times and bad times and all kinds of times.
In the documentary Tommy confirms: “Mom taught me early on: you’re different. And by being different people will notice you. So you better be your best.”
And these guys were.
I have a great deal of affection for Cheech & Chong. They made me laugh. They pushed back at the establishment. And maybe I didn’t get all the jokes.
But honestly? It’s still all…dope.
Sammy’s Not Here…Man,
Sammy Younan
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.