Cheech & Chong are a comedy duo consisting of Richard "Cheech" Marin and Tommy Chong.

The comedy duo Cheech & Chong first burst into prominence back in 1970. Performing at L.A.'s influential Troubadour Club, they were spotted by a record executive and signed. By the time their first record album, "Cheech &g," went gold, they were well into their second, "Big Bambu" -- voted the Number One Comedy Album of 1972.

Cheech, born Richard Marin in the barrios of East Los Angeles, earned his nickname from "cheecharone," a Chicano delicacy made of deep-fried pork skins, also known as cracklings. And "crackling" he was, by his own admission. Tommy Chong's father was Chinese, and his mother was Scotish-Irish. The ethnic mixture accounts not only for his one-of-a kind appearance -- as Cheech puts it, "Tommy was the first kind of whatever it is he is that I'd ever seen" -- but also presumably shaped his personality into its wary inscrutability. He is not at all the dazed hippie he often pretends to portray.

In their movie, "Up in Smoke," Cheech and Chong were out of work, deep in debt, and hustling for a buck by doing anything the law disallowed. The film -- frantic, funny and free -- was the runaway comedy hit of 1978, and established the pair as their generation's answer to Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello and Martin & Lewis.

Their explanation for such undeniable success? "One reason, perhaps, kids like us," says Cheech, "is that if a couple of screw-ups like Cheech and Chong can make it through the world, without selling out, then there's hope for every youngster in the ghetto. We're living proof that heaven watches out for fools and small children." Chong puts it another way. "What makes us so dangerous is that we're harmless."

Cheech and Chong maintain a busy tour schedule that includes stops in Atlantic City.

*** Watch for Cheech & Chong. You can use the "ticketnetwork" banner on the right to search for Cheech & Chong's tour schedule, and to see when they will be coming to Atlantic City, or a city near you.

Discography

Below are links to Cheech & Chongs's albums on Amazon.com, where you can purchase them at a discount. You can also download individual songs from an album.