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Who's highest on your pot star list?
Seattle PI Saturday 16 Aug 2008 Stoners are riding high nowadays. Fans are buzzing about the reunion of Cheech and Chong after a long feud, and a couple of tokers are lighting up the box office with "Pineapple Express." Cheech and Chong will miss this weekend's Seattle Hempfest, but they're bringing their joint comedic efforts to town with a November show at the Paramount, appropriately billing their tour "Light Up America." "We're definitely still smoking," the 70-year-old Chong said at a news conference in July. Can't wait that long for your entertainment fix? Well, country music's biggest cannabis enthusiast, Willie Nelson, will play at Redmond's Marymoor Park on Aug. 28. In Hollywood, stoners have long been a beloved subset among fringe players -- from the pot partakers and dealers of "Weeds" to Harold and Kumar to Sean Penn's dude in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Some win Academy Awards (Kevin Spacey for his suburban sad sack in "American Beauty"). Some lose their wheels (Ashton Kutcher in "Dude, Where's My Car?"). Some merely abide (Jeff Bridges' "The Dude" in "The Big Lebowski"). The canon of stoner flicks is almost as old as Hollywood itself, with the 1936 propaganda film "Reefer Madness" high on fans' must-see list. Other favorites include the '70s high-school flashback "Dazed and Confused," the demented Hunter S. Thompson tale "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and the inner-city romp "Friday." "Pineapple Express" upholds a truism known to just about anyone who has lit up: It's more fun to party in pairs than it is on your own. The movie casts Seth Rogen as a pot smoker hunted by druglords and crooked cops after he witnesses a murder. He leaves a smoking gun -- or rather, a smoking roach -- at the scene, a strain of pot called Pineapple Express that's so potent and rare, the bad guys can track it to its source: Rogen's dealer, played by James Franco. Jack Black, no slouch himself as a big-screen stoner, has been raving about Franco's performance since he caught an early screening of "Pineapple Express": "He should win the High Times Stoner of the Year Award, hands down. I've been the recipient of that by the way, not to brag," Black said at May's Cannes Film Festival. (His memory is a bit, ahem, foggy: Black's "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny" won 2007's Stoner Film of the Year Award presented by High Times magazine, while Rogen won Stoner of the Year for "Knocked Up" and "Superbad.") Speaking of high honors, we filtered through marijuana's most notorious appearances in American pop culture and came up with our top 10 greatest stoners of all time. 1. Bob Marley: This reggae legend and Rastafarian tops our list for his smooth, intimate beats and his belief in solidarity -- and his fondness for the occasional reefer. Legend has it he was even buried with a marijuana bud. 2. The Dude: The laid-back lead character from The Coen brothers' "The Big Lebowski" (Bridges) comes in second because we all know that movie wouldn't be nearly as funny without his pot-smoking ways. 3. Cheech and Chong: Arguably, these two clowns kicked off pop culture's closet obsession with weed in their comedy "Up in Smoke," so we're putting them in the No. 3 spot because even though that movie wasn't all that funny, it opened up doors for many that are. 4. Nancy Botwin: The suburban-mom-turned-pot-dealer played by Mary Louise Parker on Showtime's dramedy "Weeds" makes us all look at our neighbors a little differently. 5. Dave Chappelle: He had to make our list for his buzzed antics as Thurgood Jenkins, who steals medical marijuana for his friend's bail money in the cult classic "Half Baked," and for his many weed jokes on Comedy Central's sketch-comedy series "Chappelle's Show." 6. Harold and Kumar: Can a movie solely based on an attempt to quench marijuana-smoking-induced munchies with a trip to White Castle really be that entertaining? With these two blitzed buddies, yes, it can. 7. Snoop Dogg: He has been arrested four times for marijuana-related charges, and has referenced the drug in many of his songs. Hey, with the hundreds of hours of community service he has left, Snoop's preference for weed might actually benefit a few folks. 8. Willie Nelson: Since the legend's 2006 arrest for possession of more than 1.5 pounds of dope, ol' Willie hasn't exactly been discreet about his opinions on marijuana legalization, so for that we're calling him in at No. 8. For goodness sake, legend has it he smoked pot in the White House. 9. Jay and Silent Bob: Take a modern-day "Odd Couple" and add a little dope dealing outside stores, and that's pretty funny. Have them appear in all of Kevin Smith's movies (well, except "Jersey Girl," which doesn't count anyway), and that's even funnier. All we can do now is hope they'll be back for a "Clerks 3." 10. Bill Clinton: Just kidding. We know he never inhaled.
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