Cheech and Chong were a comedy team of the early 1970s that opened for rock bands, recorded a series of popular comedy albums, performed on the college circuit, and appeared in their own movies. Their comedy routines consisted largely of "doper jokes," reflecting the drug culture and scatological humor of the 1960s. Richard "Cheech" Marin (1946—) and Tommy Chong (1938—) met in 1968 in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Cheech had fled to avoid the U.S. draft during the Vietnam War. Together they co-founded an improv group called City Works, and performed in a nightclub owned by Chong's brother. By 1970 they were known as Cheech and Chong, and were performing in nightclubs in Toronto and Los Angeles.

Canadian-born Tommy Chong, half Chinese and half Scottish-Irish, was playing the guitar in a band called Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers when he met Cheech, who started out singing with...