Chong’s attitude towards his ex-partner is exquisitely passive-aggressive. He praises Cheech as one of the smartest, funniest, best-read people he knows yet subjects him to a thousand barbs and thinly veiled insults. In the following passage indirect jabs at Cheech share space with transparent attempts to pass off poor business decisions as noble, principled stands: Years later, after Cheech and I had parted company (Jeffrey) Katzenberg offered us parts in The Lion King for Disney. I have a ton of respect for Jeffrey; however I did not want to work for Disney and I turned down the job. Of course, that was a very stupid thing to do, as The Lion King made a shitload of money for everyone involved. Cheech not only did the voice of Banzai the Hyena for The Lion King, but also other voiceover work and movies for anyone who would hire him. But I stand by my decision because I am a rebel and I take pride in being the guy who stayed true to the hippie code of peace, love and good smoke.
Here Chong broods on all that will be lost if Cheech is allowed to pursue a solo project:
I wanted to make funny movies for the rest of my life with Cheech because we had something that no one else had. We had honesty. Our humor came from the gut. It was real. Every joke we did had truth to it. Our movies rang with so much truth that you had to watch them over and over to get every little nuance, every little movement, because they captured real-life experiences. We influenced the entire planet, first with our records then with the movies. We have had entire generations after generations watch and study our movies to learn the culture of the sixties. We carried the sixties into the seventies, the eighties, the nineties, right up to present time. And we did it with six albums, six movies, and ten years of personal appearances. Richard Marin and Tommy Chong. Cheech and Chong.
Cheech went on to write and direct Born in East L.A and he called me to do a cameo in his movie but I refused. It was another insult. A fucking cameo. I stayed away from Born in East L.A because I knew it would only piss me off. And I was right. When I finally saw his movie I did get pissed off because it was a lie. He did exactly what I would never let him get away with: He acted the part. He became a Hollywood actor playing different characters. Like we really need more fucking actors in Hollywood.
The more Chong tries to depict Cheech as a selfish monster, the better he comes off. Call me crazy, but I saw Cheech’s cameo offer as a thoughtful and considerate attempt to include a partner and friend in a solo endeavor, not a grievous insult. To me, it seemed like a nice way of reaffirming their partnership, not a callous attempt to dissolve it. Besides, if a lucrative and seminal partnership can’t withstand a Born In East L.A how strong can it really be?
It’s understandable that Chong would be bitter about the death of his golden goose but you can’t blame Cheech for not wanting to be the seventy-three year old guy traveling from town to town doing tired pot jokes. Chong might have wanted Cheech and Chong to last forever but can you even imagine the hellish torment of doing the “Dave’s Not Here” routine for the thirteen thousandth fucking time?
But that, alas, is not all folks. For Cheech and Chong came close to reuniting following an appearance together at the Aspen Comedy festival. A reunion tour would undoubtedly have meant untold millions for both comedians but Chong predictably sabotaged it with the following bit of hilarity:
Our performance was the next night, and true to his plan, Cheech sang his Chuck Berry song and then went into “Mexican Americans,” leaving me room to come in with “Beaners.” Cheech had not heard my updated version of the tune so he had a few laughs at rehearsal, but the night of the show he was not laughing because I went on to sing a version of “Me and My Old Lady” that I would do in my live show. It went something like “Me and my old lady, we like we like, we like to come to Aspen, Colorado, and rent a Cheech and Chong tape. Go home and make some popcorn, then smoke a real big fat one, get so stoned you forgot you got the tape! So you end up watching two frogs fucking. You start thinking “Gee, Cheech looks funny without his mustache, and who’s that frog fucking him? It looks like Don Johnson!’ Then you find the tape a month later, bring it back and pay a hundred dollars!”
The song used to kill at comedy clubs all across America and it killed at Aspen. They told me Cheech was pacing back and forth like a caged animal when I did that song. He was pissed and did not talk to me the rest of the time in Aspen. We tried to have a “meeting” with some agents who wanted to pitch us a tour idea, but Cheech was not into getting back together, not after what he went through. I felt great because I got off! And in comedy “getting off” is the goal. When you get off you feel so good for the rest of the night. And I felt great that night
So there you have it folks, the reunion of the greatest, most truth-telling comic geniuses known to man died because of a hilarious Cheech-getting-sodomized-by-Don-Johnson gag. Stupid fucking hippie.
― Pancakes Hackman, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 16:18 (seventeen years ago)