2 z FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 z DAILY RECORD
TGIF!
REUNION
Cheech & Chong appear at Mayo PAC If you go
Bill Nutt
Special to Morristown Daily Record USA TODAY NETWORK - NEW JERSEY
At the risk of making an obvious pun, Cheech & Chong are still flying high. The duo of Richard “Cheech” Marin and Tommy Chong first gained a devoted following among the counterculture for their irreverent stoner humor. A string of successful albums and movies kept them in the spotlight in the 1970s and 1980s. Following a break-up in the 1980s, the two pursued different paths that would periodically intersect. Chong made a guest appearance on the TV series “Nash Bridges” on which Marin was a regular. Both voiced characters on an episode of “The Simpsons.” Since 2008, Cheech & Chong have done a series of reunion concerts. Their current tour will take them to the Mayo Performing Arts Center on Thursday, April 19. Chong described each show as “like a play, with a well-honed script, but with the looseness of Cheech & Chong.” He noted that his wife, Shelby Chong, serves as the host for a Q& A session. “We do a little bit of everything,” Chong continued. “We do comedy. Cheech does some of his songs. I do some music.” (Among the musical numbers: A reggae version of their song “Basketball Jones.”) “We’ve become a retro act, like the Rolling Stones,” Chong said. The idea of Cheech & Chong as an establishment is a sign of how times have changed since the days they were pushing boundaries. When they emerged in the early 1970s, their scruffy appearance and drug-referenced humor contrasted sharply to the tuxedoed stand-ups on “The Ed Sullivan Show” or “The Tonight Show.”
tgif! 6 CENTURY DRIVE PARSIPPANY NJ 07054
CHEECH & CHONG WHAT: The comedy duo of Richard “Cheech” Marin and Tommy Chong, who brought counterculture humor into the mainstream in the 1970s, engage in one of their periodic reunion concerts. The performance will include comedy, music, and a Q&A session hosted by Chong’s wife, Shelby. WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday WHERE: Mayo Performing Arts Center, 100 South St., Morristown TICKETS: $49 to $89 INFORMATION: 973-539-8008 or www.mayoarts.org
They started from a suitably shady beginning. In the late 1960s, Chong was running a strip club in Vancouver that temporarily became an improvisational theater patterned after The Committee in L.A. Marin had relocated to Canada to avoid the draft. “The place made more money was a strip club,” Chong said. “Since the improv wasn’t making money, the girls went back to stripping. Cheech and I put together a band, but we ended up not playing and doing comedy, instead.” The times were right for their brand of comedy. “It was the Woodstock era, when people went to concerts, not to dances,” Chong said. “We were two guys, no equipment. When we saw we
could do comedy for rock ‘n’ rollers, we knew we had something.” The two men complemented each other ideally from the start, according to Chong. “All of this was ordained,” he said. “This was written in the stars before we even met.” The chemistry between the two sustained them through the mid-1980s. The y recorded eight albums, including three Top 10 releases: “Big Bambu,” “Los Cochinas,” and “Cheech & Chong’s Wedding Album.” Cheech & Chong also made seven films, beginning with “Up in Smoke” in 1978, during the same period. They split in the late 1980s. Chong admitted that the ensuing years had
more than a share of ups (a witty recurring role on “That ‘70s Show”) and downs (health issues, a sentence in federal prison due to drug-related paraphernalia). However, beginning in the early 2000s, Marin and Chong started expressing interest in working together again. Once they settled on date for a reunion show, the old chemistry returned quickly, Chong said. “He came to my house, and that night we went on stage,” Chong said. “It was like putting on a pair of comfortable sneakers.” Chong says that he and Marin will continue to perform, though he considers himself “semi-retired.” He pointed out that several events are planned to celebrate the fact that 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of “Up in Smoke.” The legacy of the act heartens Chong. “I’m proud of the fact that we’re still together,” he said. “We were authentic from the beginning. We weren’t like any other comedy team. No one was doing the humor we were doing.”
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Cheech & Chong will hold one of their occasional reunion concerts at the Mayo Performing Arts Center on Thursday. PAUL MOBLEY
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