This Day in Cannabis History:
It was on this day in 1983 that legendary cannabis comedy team Cheech and Chong released their fifth major motion picture, Still Smokin'.
The overarching plot involves them being invited to attend the fictitious Amsterdam International Film Festival under false pretenses, in which the hosts are expecting Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton, and the booker takes off with all of the money.
The film was shot entirely on location in Amsterdam, where the duo proceeds to smoke at a coffeeshop, run up their hotel bill, and trip out on psychedelic mushrooms. The movie also features various cutaway sketches with them playing different characters (including a pro wrestling match and parodies of E.T. and Star Wars) and ends with a live concert performance (their final live show together for decades) at Amsterdam's famous Tuschinski Theatre, during which at one point Tommy portrays an African-American blues harmonica player in blackface (calm down, all you wokesters out there...he's not racist—it was just a comedy bit, and it was a very different time).
Directed by Tommy himself, the film was absolutely slammed by critics—calling it "amateurish," "lazily offensive," and disrespectful to their own audience (which may explain why it was the last live-action film to feature them as their stoner characters).
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