'It Was the Forbidden Record': Cheech & Chong's Big Bambu

‘100 Funniest Comedy Albums’ Book Excerpt

Frank Mastropolo

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Big Bambu is Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong’s 1972 album that features a cover designed to look like a giant rolling paper package. Vinyl copies contained a large rolling paper with the record. Big Bambu was nominated for Best Comedy Recording by the Grammy Awards.

“It was the forbidden record,” Tommy Chong told Seacoast. “You had to hide it, or your friend had it, the guy with the hip mom.

“We took a whole culture and we capsulized it into movies, records, and live performance. I can’t stress enough, though, that we started with music. I was from the Motown school, and Cheech was a music reviewer and a talented vocalist. When he did soul music like ‘Basketball Jones,’ it was for real.”

One of Big Bambu’s routines was “The Continuing Adventures of Pedro de Pacas and Man.”

“We never got mainstream recognition either, which is also part of our longevity. Television can kill you. We dodged that bullet.

“We had an offer from NBC, but we turned it down. It was what ended up being Chico and the Man, based on ‘Pedro and Man.’ They wanted us to do a TV show, and they offered us a shitload of money and everything. We turned it down.”

Chong: Hey man, maybe we’re out of gas or somethin’.

Cheech: Hey man, I put 59 cents in two days ago, we couldn’t be out of gas, man.

Chong: Well then, maybe we’re low on water.

Cheech: Oh man, listen, anybody could see the battery’s dead.

Chong: Have you checked the air in the tires lately?

Cheech: Look, man, we’re gonna have to push it, OK?

Chong: OK.

Cheech: You steer, man, I’ll get behind and push.

Chong: All right.

Cheech: (Grunts) Hey man, you got the brake on?

Chong: What?

Cheech: You got the brake on?

Chong: Just a minute. Yeah, the brake’s on.

Cheech: Well, turn it off, man!

Chong: Oh, all right.

The car begins to roll down a hill.

Cheech: Hey, put on the brakes!

Chong: What?

Cheech: Put on the brakes!

Chong: Put on the what? (Crash) Did you say put on the brakes?

“We have a unique brand of humor that’s simultaneously really dumb and really smart in the same thing,” Marin told Leaf magazine. “It appeals to everybody on the intellectual spectrum at the same time.”

“Yeah, we’re kinda like Charlie Chaplin,” Chong added. “He was a clown who became the lowest common denominator in American culture, and as a result, everybody could look down on him. But he could hobnob with the richest or the poorest — it didn’t matter.

“And I think that’s what’s happened with Cheech and Chong. When we first did it, it was shocking — but eventually, we showed the world how a Chicano and Hippie could be very lovable, and that connected everybody to us.”

Frank Mastropolo is the author of 100 Funniest Comedy Albums: Comedy’s Greatest Stand-Up Performances, part of the Greatest Performances series. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.