Cheech and Chong's Next Movie

Cheech and Chong's Next Movie is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Tommy Chong and the second feature-length project by Cheech & Chong, following Up in Smoke, released by Universal Pictures.[1]

Cheech and Chong's Next Movie
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTommy Chong
Produced byHoward Brown
Written byTommy Chong
Cheech Marin
StarringCheech Marin
Tommy Chong
Evelyn Guerrero
Edie McClurg
Paul Reubens
Music byMark Davis
CinematographyKing Baggot
Nick McLean
Edited byThomas K. Avildsen
Scott Conrad
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Universal Pictures
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • July 18, 1980 (1980-07-18)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$41.7 million

Plot

Cheech & Chong are on a mission to siphon gasoline for their next door neighbor's car, which they apparently "borrowed," and continue with their day; Cheech goes to work at a movie studio and Chong searches for something to smoke (a roach), followed by him revving up an indoor motorcycle and playing extremely loud rock music with an electric guitar that disturbs the entire neighborhood. Cheech gets fired from his job and they go to see Donna, a welfare officer and Cheech's girlfriend. Cheech successfully seduces Donna, under her objections, and gets her in trouble with her boss. The doped-up duo are expelled from the building and, in an attempt to find alternative means of income start writing songs like, "Mexican Americans" and "Beaners."

Cheech answers the phone call from Donna, sets up a date, and goes to tell Chong to get lost so he can clean the house and get ready for Donna. The phone rings again with Cheech thinking it's Donna and turns out to be Red, Cheech's "kinda" cousin, with money problems and a plea for help. Cheech asks Chong to pick up his cousin and hang out with him as Cheech informs him they have similar interests like "go to clubs," "get plenty of chicks," and "likes to get high." Chong heads off to the hotel where Red is staying and arrives to find him in a dispute with the receptionist over how much the room is costing ("$37.50 a week, not a goddamned day!"). The receptionist is holding his luggage, consisting of a boom-box, a suitcase, and a 20-pound canvas bag full of high-grade marijuana, hostage and Red can't afford the bill. They break into the room around the back and Red retrieves his luggage and the receptionist is falsely arrested after calling the cops to arrest Chong and Red but accidentally assaults them and is taken away to jail.

Later, on the corner, a roller-skater invites them to a "party," which is in fact a brothel. They are kicked out of the place for causing too much commotion, sharing weed with the girls, and peeing in the Jacuzzi. They then play a recording from Red's boombox that Red recorded earlier when the police arrived at the hotel he was staying at over the dispute with his luggage, which scares everyone off. One of the girls from the brothel accompanies them and they all go onto Sunset Boulevard in search of adventure and more highness. After visiting the house of a girl's parents, whom they found at a music store on Ventura Boulevard, they all get into the parents' Rolls Royce, light up a spliff, and drive to a stand-up comedy club where they tell jokes and encounter the angry hotel receptionist who was falsely arrested earlier that day and begin a commotion with him and a large female bouncer leading to a rally fight. Later that night, they are chased by the cops as they check out Red's weed fields out in the countryside. They set off fireworks and are suddenly abducted by a UFO along with several of the cannabis plants. Cheech meanwhile gets so pumped and excited about the date that he wears himself out and ends up sleeping through it, while dreaming about what might have happened. He wakes up in the morning to find Chong (who was abducted by Aliens alongside Red) bursting in, dressed in what appears to be a cross between Genghis Khan and a Viking, holding a jar of "space coke", which Chong says, "It'll blow your head off." The "space coke" causes Cheech to go berserk and starts trashing their next door neighbor's house with a surprised Chong following after. The film ends with the duo bursting through their neighbor's roof into outer space, achieving the ultimate high and Chong dropping the "space coke" back to Earth for others to try which leads to an animated sequence with Cheech and Chong ascending into a blunt which then takes off displaying the caption "That's It Man!"

Cast

Reception

Roger Ebert's review was negative, writing: "This movie is embarrassing. There's no invention in it, no imagination, no new comic vision, no ideas about what might be really funny -- instead of just dope-funny, something to laugh at if you're in the bag anyway."[2] Gene Siskel gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote that it was "much better" than Up in Smoke, "which isn't saying that much. It's just that its jokes come a little quicker and a few of them are funny even to the chemically unaltered viewer."[3] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film was "casual, slapdash and rude, and it's frequently hilarious in the way of some intense but harmless confrontation between eccentrics on a street corner."[4] Variety called the film "a laborious disappointment in which the freshness has vanished and the laughs come few and far between."[5]

Home video releases and alterations

Two versions of the film exist: the theatrical release and a heavily edited version only aired on television broadcasts. The edit adds in cut scenes such as an animated intro, their neighbor being revealed to be a transvestite, Cheech cleaning the house for his date, Chong and Red trashing the music store, footage on the spaceship and all drug-related scenes either cut or altered. Most notably is the contents of Red's duffel bag, which in the TV version contains not hundreds of Thai sticks, but diamonds. A novelization, also written by Cheech and Chong, features many photos of these omitted elements.

The original theatrical release and early home video editions have Cheech singing "Ya-Ya" in the scene where he is ironing his clothes for his date. Current releases changed this audio to him humming a different song. Also in the theatrical release, the desk clerk (Reubens), in an attempt to convince the 9-1-1 operator to send help immediately, finally implores: "Look, I think they're Iranians!" The newer video releases have the line re-dubbed as: "Look, I think they're hippies!"

The film was released on Blu-ray in 2017, containing the theatrical cut, trailer, radio spots and an interview with Cheech Marin. It did not include the television cut of the film or any deleted scenes.[6]

Unproduced sequel

Three days after the release of Cheech and Chong's Next Movie, storyboards were drawn up for a sequel called Riding High with Cheech & Chong, but the film was never produced.[7]

References
  1. Canby, Vincent (July 19, 1980). "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie (1980) CHEECH AND CHONG MAKE THEIR 'NEXT MOVIE'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013.
  2. Mills, David (June 15, 1991). "Tommy Chong: Reefer Sadness". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 4, 2018.
  3. Siskel, Gene (July 21, 1980). "Cheech and Chong cultivate mix of corn and weed". Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 6.
  4. Canby, Vincent (July 19, 1980). "Film: Cheech and Chong Make Their 'Next Movie'". The New York Times. 8.
  5. "Film Reviews: Cheech And Chong's Next Movie". Variety. July 23, 1980. 18.
  6. https://cinemaretro.com/index.php?/archives/9704-REVIEW-CHEECH-AND-CHONGS-NEXT-MOVIE-1980;-SHOUT!-FACTORY-BLU-RAY-SPECIAL-EDITION.html
  7. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/cheech-chong-unmade-movie-sequel-1980-1841240894
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