UP IN SMOKE wafted into 1978 on the strength of Cheech and Chong’s seven years worth of best-selling comedy albums, which convulsed a generation who’d become familiar with the heathen devil weed that made people happy, silly, harmless, hungry and occasionally next-to-useless. Or so we’re told.   Cheech Marin, 31, and partner-in-crime Thomas Chong, 39, made their feature debut in a slapdash, merrily vulgar, harmlessly dopey dumb road trip (if only from East L.A. to Tijuana and back) that was practically an invite for audience participation. Seen, buzzed, with equally floating friends, it was mostly pretty funny at the time (‘back in the day’, as a tortured-to-death phrase would have it) and still holds a few moments that ring a giggle bell of nostalgia. Those who posture that they were ‘above it’ are probably not much joy to be around, man: the word “man” is deployed 295 times. Can those dudes from Easy Rider match that?

“Mostly Maui Waui man, but it’s got some Labrador in it.”

Evicted by his parents ‘Anthony “Man” Stoner’ (Chong) is given a lift by low-ridin’ homeboy ‘Pedro de Pacas’ (Marin) and it doesn’t take long for them to bond, over a blunt that would fell Mighty Joe Young. Detailing their adventures wastes space (and wears my fingertips, man); suffice that they cruise around various spots in Greater La-La and a piece of our immediate southern neighbor, meeting assorted freaks, geeks, cops and musicians on the way. The duo wrote it, Lou Adler produced and directed.

MAN: “You just ate the most acid I’ve ever seen anybody eat in my life!”   PEDRO: “Hey, man, I never had no acid before, man.”   MAN: “Jeez, I hope you’re not busy for about a month…”

As Man’s flustered folks, Strother Martin (a renowned toker himself) and Edie Adams (totally wasted, so to speak) loudly ad-lib a dual cameo in the opening five minutes and then vanish. Doing a spaced-out Vietnam vet, Tom Skerritt unfortunately fails the amusement test. On the other hand, finely tuned Stacy Keach looks to be having a subversive blast as the fatally uptight ‘Sgt. Stedenko’, and Zane Buzby hilariously kills brain cells it as ‘Jade East’, a hitchhiker who isn’t shy when re-enacting a touching story about an amorous couple’s noise quotient. Rock the van, man.

Grown for a few seeds under $2,000,000, it was a quick and highly profitable success, though the box office stats are as cloudy as a VW bus full of doob fumes. Cogerson cites $21,300,000 (29th place) while other sources post either $44,364,000 (in US and Canada) or $76,000,000 national/$104,000,000 global. It’s a bong, bong, bong, bong world. **

86 minutes (way time for it to kick in), with Mills Watson, Louisa Moritz (chirpy-cute cop contact ‘Gloria Whitey’), June Fairchild (‘Ajax Lady’), Wallie Ann Wharton, Rainbeaux Smith, Val Avery, David Nelson (yes, Ricky’s brother) and Ellen Barkin (23, debut, uncredited).

* Pick Out the Stems, Man—though pot usage had figured in many other films for a good number of years (Easy Rider, Alice’s Restaurant and I Love You Alice B. Toklas haze to mind) Up In Smoke rolls its own as the first fully loaded ‘stoner movie’, not just ensuring that Cheech & Chong would refill the bowl (with several wretched vehicles) but opening the stash jar for the likes of Bill and Ted, Jay and Silent Bob and Harold and Kumar. Though seemingly late to the party (they got lost, man) the loopy zone-out of Pedro & Man fit perfectly with the weirdness level in 1978: The Fury, Dawn Of The Dead, Thank God It’s Friday, Grease, Jaws 2, Matilda, The Swarm, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Piranha, Debbie Does Dallas, Midnight Express, Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, Halloween, Superman, I Spit On Your Grave, Every Which Way But Loose.

Laugh tracking—it was banned in South Africa because “might encourage the impressionable youth of South Africa to take up marijuana smoking” and also in Colombia. Right, let’s keep pot out of…Colombia???

** Whoa, I can relate, dude/bro man—Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Dazed And Confused, The Big Lebowski, Pineapple Express, Leaves Of Grass, Smiley Face…