Television edit

The television edit of the film, in addition to being edited for content such as the removal of all sequences in which characters are seen smoking cannabis, contained many extended and additional scenes, and alternate dialogue, as well as a different music score.

The opening credits animated sequence was different from the theatrical cut, showing Cheech and Chong stealing their neighbor's car, which runs out of gas. It also features a theme song which didn't appear in the theatrical cut which removes Nick McLean’s co-credit as director of photography and replaces the theatrical’s “written by” credit for Cheech & Chong with a “screenplay by” credit (for Cheech & Chong) and adds a “story by” credit for Cheech & Chong and Francesca Turner.^[2] After the opening credits, there is a scene which did not appear in the theatrical cut establishing that extraterrestrials have come to Earth looking for diamonds, "the principal source of energy" on the planet Asp (the shot of the flying saucer, whick looks different from all other exterior shots of it, flying toward the camera and the following shot of it nearing Earth’s atmosphere is footage lifted from The Thing, also a Universal movie).^[3] The usual “edited for television” caption is shown, adding that it has also been reconstructed as well. After Cheech and Chong siphon gas for their neighbor's car, insert shots underneath the hood are seen, showing the gas leaking and then igniting into flames, rather than the explosion being caused by Chong lighting a match inside the car.^[4] Cheech and Chong are said to be running a teen center and playground, which is referenced throughout the television edit, and a sign for it is shown repeatedly as part of the filler material shot for this version.^[5] Cheech and Chong's neighbor is shown to have a job as a piano teacher, and a lesson he is giving to a neighborhood teenager is interrupted by Chong's guitar playing.^[6] After the prop slot machine Cheech stole from a movie set falls on the neighbor, and they lift it off him, he threatens to sue them, claiming that the prop injured his hands, which would prevent him from playing the piano as part of his job, but offers to call off the lawsuit if Cheech and Chong let him have the rare costumes Cheech stole from the movie studio.^[7] Instead of teaching Chong the phrase "hey, pendejo", the line is redubbed as "hey, paisano".^[8] After Cheech sends Chong to pick up Red at the hotel so Cheech can spend the evening with Donna, there is an additional scene of Cheech cleaning the house,^[9] and Chong attempts to steal the neighbor's car again while he is working on it, but decides to hitchhike instead when he realizes that the neighbor was underneath the car.^[10] While cleaning, Cheech is interrupted by Jehovah's witnesses, and slams the door in their face.^[11]

When he's calling the police, the hotel receptionist's line "Look, I think they're Iranians!" was redubbed as "Look, I think they're communists!"^[12] The extraterrestrials are then shown to be following Red in the hopes that he will lead them to "the diamond field"; after Red's duffel bag is retrieved, a different cutaway shot is shown depicting the inside of the bag as containing diamonds, not cannabis buds.^[13] Before the music store scene, there is an additional shot of a spaceship and an additional scene featuring a street musician.^[14] The music store scene is also extended, showing more of Red playing guitar and throwing guitars to the other customers. The scene where they get into Gloria’s car still shows the store owner follow them out, complaining about the damage they caused, omitting the part where Red and Chong give the store owner armfuls of marijuana to compensate for the damage. The omission is covered by another close up of Gloria, yet the owner is still shown standing at the curb holding the marijuana as they drive off, and omits the police’s arrival and subsequent arrest of the owner.^[15] After it is revealed that "Chicken Charlie" is the father of Gloria, the woman Red, Chong and the prostitute hitched a ride with, when the prostitute recognizes him, there is an additional scene where the group has a dinner and uncomfortable conversation before they move into the living room, where Gloria sings the Jimmy Reed song "Baby What You Want Me to Do".^[16] In the living room, instead of performing the dirty magic trick, Red instead suggests that they drive to The Comedy House. This edit removed Charlie's wife smoking cannabis in the car.^[17] When Red performs the Mexico joke at The Comedy House, the line "donkey's balls" is redubbed as "donkey's tail".^[18] When Chong gets on the stage, the sequence in which he repeats Red's magic trick of turning a glass "into a dick" is removed, and there is an alternate scene in which Chong hits the large female wrestler on the head to no effect; she does not break the glass.^[19]

When Red and Chong are abducted by the extraterrestrials, additional dialogue is dubbed in, and there is an additional scene with Red and Chong on the space ship, where the extraterrestrials tell Red and Chong that they will teach them to "fly like Peter Pan" in order to retrieve diamonds for them.^[20] When Chong is back on Earth talking to Cheech at the end, the dialogue is completely redubbed, removing the references to "space coke", and instead having Chong telling Cheech that the extraterrestrials taught him how to fly; we are still inexplicably shown the footage of Cheech rampaging through the wall of their house and the neighbor’s, Chong still following him carrying the beaker of space coke and the shot of Cheech blasting them through the roof (despite not being taught to fly yet). In the theatrical cut, this was a result of Cheech trying the space coke and the effect it had on him, but with the removal of the space coke references, this makes no sense. The edit ends with an extended animated sequence in which Cheech and Chong fly into space to join Red on the spaceship and an extraterrestrial superhero plays guitar before turning into a dragon, and the Cheech and Chong Teen Center and Playground sign is shown one final time before the credits roll, as we hear Red laughing and asking, "ya get it?"^[21]

Home media

A novelization was released in 1980.

The film was released on Blu-ray in 2017, containing the theatrical cut, trailer, radio spots and an interview with Cheech Marin. It did not include the television cut of the film or any deleted scenes.^[22]

Critical reception

Roger Ebert's review was negative, writing: "This movie is embarrassing. There's no invention in it, no imagination, no new comic vision, no ideas about what might be really funny -- instead of just dope-funny, something to laugh at if you're in the bag anyway."^[23] Gene Siskel gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote that it was "much better" than Up in Smoke, "which isn't saying that much. It's just that its jokes come a little quicker and a few of them are funny even to the chemically unaltered viewer."^[24] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film was "casual, slapdash and rude, and it's frequently hilarious in the way of some intense but harmless confrontation between eccentrics on a street corner."^[25] Variety called the film "a laborious disappointment in which the freshness has vanished and the laughs come few and far between."^[26]