Soundtrack Cheech And Chong Up In Smoke

[Yrko Philogene]

CheechChong had been a counterculture comedy team for about ten years before they started reworking some of their material for their first film. Most of the film was shot in Los Angeles, California, including scenes set in Tijuana, while scenes set on the Mexican border were actually filmed at the border in Yuma, Arizona.

Anthony "Man" Stoner, an unemployed, marijuana-smoking drummer, is told to either get a job by sundown or be sent off to military school by his parents. Man leaves the house and later becomes stranded on the highway. Man is picked up while hitchhiking by the equally enthusiastic stoner Pedro de Pacas, and the two share a large joint, which is revealed to contain Labrador feces after the dog ate Man's supply. When Pedro freaks out and seems to have trouble breathing, Man accidentally gives him an extremely powerful dose of LSD. The police find their car parked on a traffic median with them in it, discover that they are high and arrest them. At trial, the pair are released on a technicality after Man discovers that the judge is drinking vodka.

In an attempt to procure more marijuana, they visit Pedro's cousin Strawberry, a Vietnam War veteran. During the party, a lady snorts a couple of lines of Ajax set up by Man, under the presumption it was cocaine, despite Man trying to warn her. They narrowly escape a police raid on Strawberry's house while Strawberry has a flashback and thinks the police are the Viet Cong, but are soon deported to Tijuana, by the INS, along with Pedro's relatives, who actually called the INS on themselves, so they could get a free ride to a wedding in Tijuana.

The film concludes with Pedro and Man driving in the former's car and dreaming how their future career will pay off. Man then lights a small portion of hash and gives some to Pedro. However, it falls into his lap, causing him to panic and swerve the car while trying to put it out; Man attempts to put the hash out with his beer. During the scuffle, the car swerves down the road and smoke billows out the windows.

The screenplay was written under the title The Adventures of Pedro & Man.[5] Paramount Pictures provided the budget of $1 million but refused to provide the additional $800,000 needed to complete the film after studio president Michael Eisner saw a rough cut, so Lou Adler used his own money to complete it.[6]

As this was the comedy team's first film, Paramount wanted the initial screenings to be filled with their most ardent fans.[7] Cheech and Chong also came up with the novel (and ultimately successful) idea of advertising the film through comic strips, which they left on bus benches.

The film had test screenings in August 1978 and opened in nine theatres in Texas in early September, grossing $344,785 in its first 10 days.[6][7] The film went on to become a huge success. Prior to its official release date, the film had grossed $1.7 million, and by the end of the first month of release it had grossed $20 million[6] and went on to gross $76 million at the domestic box office and over $104 million worldwide.[3][8]

The film was banned in South Africa during apartheid. Censors in the country said that the film "might encourage the impressionable youth of South Africa to take up marijuana smoking".[10] It was also banned in Colombia.[3]

On April 10, 2018, a 40th Anniversary Edition set was released, which featured the movie on Blu-ray and DVD, and the album on vinyl record and compact disc, as well as a 7-inch picture disc vinyl record single featuring the songs "Earache My Eye" and "Lost Due To Incompetence (Theme From A Big Green Van)", with an image of Cheech from the film on the A-side and the "YESCA" license plate image on the B-side.[11]

The 40th Anniversary Edition CD featured two bonus tracks, a previously unreleased version of the song "Up In Smoke" with an additional Spanish verse by Cheech, and a newly recorded "2018 version" of the same song.[11]

The soundtrack album was released in 1978.[12] Allmusic gave the album a score of 3 out of 5 stars.[13] In 2017, Billboard named Up in Smoke as one of the 10 best stoner film soundtracks.[14]

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 47% based on reviews from 19 critics. The site's consensus reads, "Oft-quoted but undeniably flawed, Up In Smoke is a seminal piece of stoner cinema thanks to the likability of its two counterculture icons."[16] On Metacritic it has a score of 57% based on reviews from 11 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[17]

Pauline Kael of The New Yorker compared the film favorably to The Groove Tube, writing that Up in Smoke was "also crudely done but is more consistently funny." She added that "Cheech and Chong are so gracefully dumb-assed that if you're in a relaxed mood you can't help laughing at them."[23][better source needed] Art Harris of The Washington Post wrote that the film "may give you a buzz, but don't count on it to keep you high. Like, you know, the film suffers from a bad case of burn-out, leading one to nod off between jokes and wonder why producer Lou Adler bothered to attempt a Doper's Delight in this post-Woodstock age of Clean Living."[24] David McGillivray of The Monthly Film Bulletin observed that the film "looks, unfortunately, as if it were more fun to make than it is to watch."[25]

In December 1978, Rolling Stone published an article stating that Cheech and Chong had "seven scripts waiting in the drawer" which included one for an animated film, and one for a sequel to Up in Smoke.[12] No sequel was ever produced, and Cheech and Chong's Next Movie, released in 1980, did not feature the characters of Pedro and Man, although the characters they played had personalities and character traits that were virtually identical to those of Pedro and Man.

The Grammy Award Museum in Los Angeles features an Up in Smoke exhibit which displays the master tape for the soundtrack album, the annotated original script, limited-edition 40th anniversary "smoking devices," and part of Marin's collection of "Blazing Chicano Guitars."[5]

In 2021, an officially licensed graphic novel entitled Cheech & Chong's Chronicles: A Brief History of Weed was released by Z2 Comics. Written by Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, and Eliot Rahal, the graphic novel acts as a sequel to the Up in Smoke film, as it features Pedro de Pacas and Anthony "Man" Stoner as the main characters of the story.[26]

'Tis the season to make money, fa la la la laaa and all that. And your friends the record companies, in the spirit of generosity, good will towards their fellow men, and increasing the profit margin, have once again raised the price of albums. CBS and Warner Brothers, the two huge record company conglomerates, have upped the prices on a few new LPs to $8.98. The higher prices are only on the latest sure-fire releases, the ones you'll but for even $12 (maybe) and the record companies are seeing if they can slip by the price increase without consumer protest. If they can, look for the increase to spread to lesser artists and to the LPs of the other companies. Maybe it's time for the Justice Department to look into price fixing and restraint of trade in the record industry, and for consumers to stop taking this corporate abuse quietly.

One other nice way record companies make a few more bucks at Christmas is with rehashes of their artists' music in the form of greatest hits and live concert albums. Go into a record store and you'll note that everyone from the Commodores to the Steve Miller Bank to Barry Manilow and Barbara Streisand have greatest hits albums out. That way record companies can make a lot of money off the same old music without having to offer up anything new form their performers. And at Christmas greatest hits albums are an especially good sales item. I mean, why choose between all those Steely Dan albums when you can get much of their good music on one record.

With prices out of control, greatest hits albums are not a bad way to save money, but there are several drawbacks. First, a good album is not merely a collection of songs but has a thematic unity and a coherent wholeness that is lost when you pick a couple of tunes from several LPs and throw them together into a mishmosh. Second, a record company executive's idea of a band's best songs may not bear much resemblance to the ones you yourself would consider a group's top efforts. Third, it's just not considered cool to have a record collection top heavy with greatest hits albums: your friends will know you are a newcomer to record buying trying to catch up fast, and it shows you don't have much class or much money.

Besides, why help record companies rip us off by buying their reruns. They age not out to help you get the music you want without having to buy a lot of old records, they are out for money. Period. Greatest hits albums only further narrow the limited opportunities for rock musicians who are not mass - marketable commodities, and further lessen the choice of music available.

In any case, groups with greatest hits albums out include the Commodores, Earth, Wind and Fire, Steely Dan, The Steve Miller Band, Wings, the Crosby-Nash band, Abba, Dave Mason, Joe Walsh, Steeler's Wheel (now that Gerry Rafferty is big time), Stephen Stills, and Marshall Tucker. Kansashas a two record live album, as doAerosmith, Lou Reed and David Bowie. Live albums are fine when they work--what you lose in technical excellence and musical quality you make up in the excitement and energy of a live performance-but when the record isn't done well (Lou Reed, Aerosmith), it grows boring very and cannot compete for interest with the process of watching metal rust.

To avoid aiding and abetting the elves of Hollywood and New York in their nefarious plot to squeeze more of our hardearned money out of us, let me just say that if you like one of these groups or performers you'll probably like his greatest hits, and if you don't, you won't. After all, you already know what the whole record is gonna sound like-you've heard it all before. Save your money for better things.

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