Comedy legends Cheech & Chong sit down to reflect on their favorite comedies, share behind-the-scenes stories, and celebrate over 50 years of friendship. They revisit iconic moments from ‘Up in Smoke’ and ‘Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie,’ laugh about on-set bloopers (like Chong needing to stop looking at the camera), and reminisce on the unforgettable “I’m blind!” scene. They talk about their deep respect for Peter Sellers, his admiration for them, and their love for classics like ‘Dr. Strangelove,’ ‘Some Like It Hot,’ and ‘The Gold Rush.’ Cheech even opens up about writing a song at a horse event that made it into one of their films, while Chong proudly shows off a tattoo that also ended up on screen. The conversation is full of heartfelt nostalgia, unexpected trivia, and genuine laughs. From Marilyn Monroe to Charlie Chaplin, biker gangs to magic tricks, Cheech & Chong cover it all in this video.
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00:00How long have you two been friends?
00:01Since the olden days?
00:02Oh, we've been together over 50 years,
00:04but we've been friends for, like, 20.
00:0610, maybe.
00:08This is Cheech from Cheech and Chong.
00:10And this is Chong from Cheech and Chong.
00:12And we're going to talk about our top seven comedies of all time
00:16in the history of the world to us.
00:18And I'm going to listen.
00:19He's going to pretend to listen.
00:21Whatever he says.
00:22Yeah.
00:23Mexican-Americans don't like to just get into gang fights.
00:28They like flowers and music and white girls named Debbie, too.
00:36Mexican-Americans are named Chata and Chela and Gemma
00:41and have a son-in-law named Jeff.
00:45I wrote this song when I was, my wife was a horse rider.
00:49And we were at this horse event and had nothing in common
00:51with these horse people whatsoever.
00:54And I sat there in my room while she was out riding horses.
00:57And the first thing that came to my mind, I don't have anything.
01:00And what's the contrast between me and them?
01:03And it just seemed so right for this situation.
01:06And everybody knows this song.
01:08That's what's amazing about everybody knows this song,
01:11wherever you go.
01:12And it also featured us as musicians,
01:15which we were all our lives, both of us.
01:18At least that was our excuse.
01:20Yeah.
01:21And it was the only hit song ever written in 4-4 and 3 quarters time.
01:26Mexican-Americans don't like to get up early in the morning,
01:32but they have to, so they do it real slow.
01:37Well, you had to get all the lyrics.
01:39Yeah, yeah.
01:40For a guy that can't ride a bike, it's amazing feat of acting.
01:49When we started out our stand-up, all the bike world loved us.
01:54They expected us to be the character in that, you know.
01:57In fact, I got a racist tattoo on my shoulder from a biker.
02:01That he didn't never ever know it was a racist tattoo.
02:04I never knew until I was on a radio station one time
02:07and the biker looked at my tattoo and said,
02:09Hey, that's a white supremacy tattoo.
02:12It was a jailhouse tattoo, yeah?
02:13Oh, totally.
02:14There it is.
02:15There it is.
02:16Right there.
02:17There it is.
02:18On his arm.
02:19There's the tattoo.
02:20See, that wasn't makeup, you know,
02:21coming with a pen and writing it on.
02:23That's a real ass jailhouse tattoo.
02:25I was 15 years old when I got it.
02:27Was the decision you to put it on the arm or like right here?
02:29Good decision.
02:30Yeah.
02:31Good decision.
02:32I would hate to have to decide who stays up and who goes down.
02:36Is that Peter?
02:37Yeah.
02:38It's all dark for all Peter.
02:39Because it would be absolutely vital that our top government
02:42and military men be included to foster and impart
02:46the required principles of leadership and tradition.
02:51You're looking at Peter Sellers.
02:53The genius.
02:54He was a friend of ours.
02:55He became a friend of ours.
02:56Such a big friend.
02:58When he heard our records, he had to meet us.
03:01And he was one who actually arranged a tour of us in England.
03:05And when we flew into England, he had a limousine waiting for us
03:11in the courtyard of the immigration area.
03:14But Cheech and I are walking up to this limousine,
03:17and this hand comes out of the limousine,
03:21and it's holding the biggest block of hash I'd ever saw.
03:25The hash was lit burning, and that was our introduction into England.
03:30Yeah.
03:31And also that Peter played multiple characters.
03:34I mean, we have scenes where he's talking to himself in two different characters.
03:38And I thought, well, that's kind of cool.
03:40In one movie, you can play a bunch.
03:42And so I've done that in different parts of our partnership and in other movies, too.
03:47But Peter was the greatest.
03:49Funniest comedian I'd ever known.
03:52And then, like I said, he became a big fan.
03:55He told us he hadn't seen anything like us since the Goon Show,
03:58which he was part of.
03:59It was an iconic British radio show.
04:01We met right after he did being there.
04:03We met on the plane and I was flying into Washington, D.C.
04:07Peter was going with the daughter of the ambassador of Sweden.
04:13And so he had a place in the consulate, the Swedish consulate.
04:18We all met and had a little smoke fest.
04:21And there was a row of buttons there.
04:24And we asked Peter, what are those buttons for?
04:27And Peter says, well, let's find out.
04:29And he'd push it.
04:30The servant waiter comes in, you know, with a towel and everything.
04:34Yes, sir.
04:35We spent all night pushing the button and the guy coming up.
04:38Peter was incredible.
04:39Yeah.
04:40Can I see your license, sir?
04:41What?
04:42Your license.
04:43Where is your license?
04:44My license.
04:45It's on the bumper, man, back there, man.
04:47No, I mean your driver's license.
04:48My favorite line.
04:49A lot of that scene was improv'd in that take.
04:53I'm blind!
04:54We've been doing this bet on stage for years and years and years.
04:56But there's a lot of sections of this tie in this movie that it was the first time they've
05:08ever said is in this movie.
05:09Were you actually high when you were shooting any of this?
05:11Never.
05:12Never.
05:13I'm speaking for myself.
05:14Yeah, no, no.
05:15Cheech of Cheech and Chong, ever.
05:16Cheech, Cheech.
05:17He was once wanted by the FBI, so he lies a lot.
05:21I was high.
05:22Even if I didn't look high or act high, I was high.
05:25Because that's my character, you know.
05:27High.
05:28I have to.
05:29Everything was like accidental.
05:30Dave's not here.
05:31One of our biggest bit was an accident.
05:33It's Dave, man.
05:34Will you open up?
05:35I got the stuff with me.
05:36Dave?
05:37Yeah, Dave.
05:38Come on, man.
05:39Open up.
05:40I think the cops saw me.
05:41Dave's not here.
05:42Lou Adler was friends with all the people that we wanted to do the movie with, you know,
05:45Robert Altman.
05:46His old crew.
05:47Robert Altman's style of movie making was that the actor's improv.
05:52And Robert Altman always shot the rehearsal.
05:55And so when we did Up in Smoke, we were so good at shooting the rehearsal that we whipped
06:00through that movie at record pace.
06:02We shot that movie for, I think, less than a month.
06:05It was so fast, you know.
06:06I wrote a song, Up in Smoke, and I sang it for Lou and Cheech.
06:10And Cheech says, that's the title.
06:12And then once we had the title, we had to write the movie.
06:16Up in Smoke, that's where my money goes.
06:22We'd been doing the movie with our act anyway.
06:25And so it wasn't hard to write.
06:27And all I wanted to do is make sure that we would have, marijuana would be, you know,
06:32I just wanted to show how silly it was that it was so illegal and yet, you know, so harmless.
06:39I just wanted to have that, show that part, you know.
06:42And then Cheech just wanted to be in the hot movie, you know.
06:45Which I made.
06:46Is that a joint man?
06:48In terms of the weed of this time and the weed that's now legal, what's the big difference
06:54for you guys?
06:55Price.
06:56A garden needs a lot of care and a lot of love.
07:06Sounds as if we need a lot of gardening here.
07:07We certainly do.
07:08Yes.
07:09It's for sure a white man's world in America.
07:11It is possible.
07:12I raised that boy since he was the size of a pissant.
07:16Of the gardener.
07:17And I'll say right now he never learned to read and write.
07:21It's one of the greatest movies ever made.
07:23The beautiful message that was so ambiguous, talking about growing, you know, and it works
07:29anywhere.
07:30And then when I met Peter, when he'd just finished that movie, and we're on the plane,
07:34and in fact he gave me a Polaroid of his wardrobe, when they took his wardrobe, and he gave me
07:39the Polaroid picture, which I lost somewhere.
07:42We went for dinner, and we're with Ricky Jay, and so Ricky Jay came up with this great magic trick.
07:49And so he had Peter pick a card.
07:51Peter picked the card, looked at it, wrote his name on it.
07:54Ricky Jay took it, folded it up.
07:56He had the waiter bring a dish, a covered dish.
07:59And when you took the dish off, there was a block of ice.
08:02And in the block of ice was a whole lemon.
08:05And when you broke the ice and cut the lemon open, they picked out Peter's card.
08:11With his signature.
08:12That he'd picked and signed.
08:14Folded up inside the lemon.
08:16Baloo his mind.
08:18Ricky Jay was one of the best magicians in the history of the world.
08:21He was.
08:22He was.
08:23Hey, Jimmy.
08:24What would you say if I were to tell you that I was nervous?
08:27The Fields of Ambrosia.
08:29You see, the Fields of Ambrosia was a place that only the Greeks knew about.
08:33Homer and Hamlet, men like that.
08:35I ain't seen it myself, naturally, but a deceased client of mine told me about it.
08:39You're watching one of the greatest American actors ever, Stacy Keach.
08:43Who was also in Up and Smoke.
08:45That's one of the reasons why.
08:46This is codenamed Hard Hat.
08:48Codenamed Hard Hat.
08:49Do you read me?
08:50Over.
08:51What's that, Lard Ass?
08:52Hard Hat!
08:53Radio Dispense!
08:54Do you know who this is?
08:55No, who is this is?
08:56His performance.
08:57Telling a guy that's about to get executed.
09:01Telling him how groovy it is to where he's going.
09:04That the guy can't wait for him to pull the trigger.
09:07He was in the Fields of Ambrosia.
09:08Really?
09:09You should have heard him tell about that play.
09:11And I love the writing because he's executing.
09:14Next thing you know, he's on the receiving end of it.
09:17Good movie.
09:18Excellent.
09:19There are two things that I will not put up with during working hours.
09:22One is liquor and the other one is men.
09:25Men?
09:26Oh, you don't have to worry about that.
09:28We wouldn't be caught dead with men.
09:30Rough, hairy beasts.
09:32Eight men.
09:33I remember seeing this movie in the theaters.
09:36Also, it had Marilyn Monroe, and I think this is Marilyn Monroe's best picture by far.
09:41I really showed the full range of her talent.
09:43I'm a huge Marilyn Monroe fan since ever.
09:46She was just it in this movie, man.
09:50She was like, yeah.
09:51You know, understandable that Cheech would pick a cross-dressing movie.
09:55It was like Alice Boy.
09:57In a lot of our movies, Cheech was dressed up as a girl all the time.
10:02Of acting.
10:04Billy Wilder was the director.
10:05He was just an incredible director.
10:07He had the best closing line of any comedy ever made.
10:12I couldn't believe how the theater exploded in laughter.
10:15I'm a man.
10:18Well, nobody's perfect.
10:23Well, nobody's perfect.
10:25Hilarious.
10:32You know, you really didn't need words to be funny.
10:38And Charlie Chaplin was a genius at that.
10:42So I grew up watching old Charlie Chaplin movies.
10:45And it's just his body movements.
10:47And the phrase always came up that if you were doing something funny, you didn't have to be funny.
10:52Because the situation was funny and all you have to do is play it.
10:55He's boiling his shoe.
10:57Just boiling his shoe, you know.
10:59The great thing I loved about Chaplin was that he picked the lowest common denominator of a character.
11:07The tramp.
11:08The bum.
11:09The hobo.
11:10The homeless.
11:11It made everybody feel superior to that character.
11:14And so when Cheech and Chong came along, I kind of had that in the back of my mind.
11:19That was our characters.
11:21We had picked the hippie, the low rider.
11:24The lowest in society.
11:26And it worked.
11:27It worked really well.
11:28Thanks, everybody, for watching this video.
11:30And you're lying.
11:32You're lying.
11:33We'll see you in the movies.
11:34Oh, see you in the movies.
11:35Yeah, we go.
11:36Is that it?
11:37Yeah.