The math goes like this: One stoned guy equals funny, two stoned guys equals funnier. So with the release this week of Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, Jim Slotek gives a roundup of some of his fave stoner duos. In some cases, you never saw them actually inhaling, but c'mon:
Cheech & Chong: Okay, these are my misspent teenage years we're talking about. The Viacom of stoners, C & C (a.k.a. Pedro & Man) made as much money off weed via albums, movies and live shows as the entire underground economy of British Columbia. Our favourite bits: Anything involving Sister Mary Elephant's classroom and the songs Basketball Jones and Earache My Eye.
Jay & Silent Bob: These storefront pot dealers (usually the front of the Quickstop), played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, have appeared in nearly all of Smith's movies. Our fave J & SB moment, however, was when they came to Canada to appear as characters in Kevin Smith's three-episode arc on Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Bill & Ted: What does it say that nearly every stoner duo on our list at least one is Canadian? Keanu Reeves has spent most of his career trying to convince people that he's not Ted, time-travelling wannabe lead singer/guitarist for a metal band called Wyld Stallyns with his friend Bill (Alex Winter). But if it meant that much to him, he wouldn't have uttered the word "whoa" in so many films.
Wayne & Garth: Wayne's World (starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) hit theatres some four years after Bill & Ted, and there's no question the two guys putting out that basement cable show from Aurora, Ill., were spiritual brothers of the Wyld Stallyns. But Myers had been performing as Wayne on Canadian TV and onstage since 1987, two years before Bill & Ted went looking for SO-crates. Our fave Wayne's World list: Top 10 Rock Guys Who Look Like Chicks (list included Nelson and "the dude from Skid Row").
Method Man & Redman: The hip-hop duo got their stoner cred with the 2001 comedy How High, in which they played a couple of guys who aced their college entrants exams by smoking "magic weed" that actually made them smart. A rare instance of minorities getting into the act in an otherwise all-white movie genre.
Bob & Doug McKenzie: Koo-roo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koo. The drug -- beer -- may be legal, but the vibe is definitely stoner. Years later, I still haven't figured out how to get that mouse into the empty for my free two-four. Take off, eh?
