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

The comedy duo Cheech & Chong first became prominent back in 1970. While performing at L.A.'s Troubadour Club, they were spotted by record executive, Lou Adler, who signed them. Their first record album, "Cheech &g," went gold. Their second, "Big Bambu," was voted the Number One Comedy Album of 1972.

Cheech was born Richard Marin in the barrios of East Los Angeles. He earned his nickname from "cheecharone," a Chicano delicacy made of deep-fried pork skins,
also known as cracklings.

Tommy Chong's father was Chinese, and his mother was Scotish-Irish. Cheech suggests that this ethnic mixture accounts not only for Chong's one of a kind appearance, but also shaped his personality into its wary inscrutability. Chong is not at all the dazed hippie he often pretends to portray.

They also made films. 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. Their film "frantic, funny and free," was a runaway comedy hit in 1978. It established the pair as their generation's answer to Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello and Martin & Lewis.

How do they explain their great 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."

The Cheech and Chong comedy duo maintains 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 their tour schedule, and to see when they will be coming to Atlantic City, or a city near you.

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