Cheech and Chong Get the Cartoon Treatment

Cheech & Chong Get Animated

December 16, 2008 12:21 PM ET
Jay A. Fernandez, The Hollywood Reporter
As the reunited Cheech & Chong's stand-up tour Light Up America fires out nationwide, Big Vision Entertainment said it will produce an animated film featuring the duo with Chambers Bros. Entertainment.

The two companies have acquired animated film rights to the classic Cheech and Chong library held by music producer and Ode Records owner Lou Adler and will use those famous comedy bits to inspire "Cheech and Chong's Smokin' Animated Movie."

Big Vision founder and CEO Houston Curtis will produce along with Keith, Branden and Eric Chambers, who devised the concept. Adler, who discovered the duo in the early 1970s, will executive produce. Eric and Branden Chambers will direct the animation.

The ICM-repped Big Vision, which focuses on direct-to-DVD special-interest material, will finance the project.

In the '70s and '80s, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong released several top-selling comedy albums and starred in six films, including "Up in Smoke" and "Still Smokin'."

"It's great to be doing a movie where Cheech and I never have to get out of bed or be on camera," Chong said.

"It's about time that we got animated because we've been doing animation without the animation for years," Marin said. "Whether you watch it smokin' a fattie or stone-cold sober, it's just plain funny."