Cheech Marin

Cheech Marin in 2012

Richard "Cheech" Marín (born July 13, 1946) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, voice actor, writer and activist.

Quotes

• Right when I was born. I was born and my uncle looked in the crib and I was this curled-up little baby and he says, "Oh, he looks like a little chicharron." The chicharron is a deep-fried pig skin, you know? And I looked like this little curlycue, like a curly fry. And he said, "Oh, he looks like a little chicharron." So that became my family name, Chicharron. And that got shortened to Cheech…
  • On how he earned the name “Cheech” in “CHEECH MARIN” in The Comedy Couch (2006 Jul 10)

• It is very much like Chicano art..It is sophisticated and primitive simultaneously. The scenes would play out and ... the comedy would be absorbed rather than having it jammed down [your throat].
  • On how he views his work in the duo Cheech & Chong in “Cheech Marin On How His Famed Comic Collaboration Was Like Chicano Art” in NPR (2017 Mar 13)

• It is a very physically and mentally torturous process. It goes 18-20 hours a day, and if you’re stoned during that whole period, you’re not going to make a good movie, because you just won’t have the stamina to physically and mentally do that. And it’s every day. So we didn’t get stoned making the record, never stoned on stage. But we were very disciplined artists about what we were doing. It didn’t magically happen. Well, it did magically happen, but not without effort.
  • On how there’s a misconception that he’s like his stoner character in “Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong Are Not Their Characters: ‘It’s All for the Love of the Art’” in The Wrap (2018 Sep 14)