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At their peak in the 1970s, Cheech and Chong represented the mainstream,

embodiment of the attitudes and lifestyles of the underground drug 
culture. Much as W.C. Fields shot to fame by making 
alcohol the focus of his act, the duo of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong emerged from a cloud of pot smoke, simultaneously 
championing and lampooning the stoner community which became the team’s 
most ardent supporters; although derided by critics and dismissed by the 
general populace, the team’s stature as counterculture heroes was 
unquestioned, and for both aging hippies and dazed-and-confused teens, 
their comedy defined an era.

The team began to take shape in the late 1960s when, after entering =
show business as a guitarist in Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, Chong
established City Works, a wild improvisational troupe later joined by Richard “Cheech” Marin. When City Works dissolved, Cheech and 
Chong continued as a duo, formulating a musical comedy act. The 
music proved short-lived, however, when audiences began reacting favorably 
to the team’s spacy pothead raps; after establishing their comic persona, 
the duo rarely deviated from the course — for record after record and 
film after film, they remained blissed-out stoners, their humor locked in 
the druggy stasis of the doper mentality. Tommy Chong looks back on 
his career with Shadoe Steele while on tour in Stamford Connecticut.
JADonnelly Host
Shadoe Steele Musicologist