What Happened to the Stoner Comedy Movie?

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Dear Stoner: Has the quality of stoner movies gone downhill? If there are any Half Baked or Cheech & Chong-like movies that I'm missing, please let me know, but I haven't seen shit since Pineapple Express.
Zatchel Sage

Dear Zatchel: Comedy movies as a whole are going through a weird time, and the stoner flick hit the chopping block at least ten years ago. There are a few factors at play here, from the slow demise of movie theaters to streaming media's impact on low- and middle-budget films, which is where most comedies fall. Still, most of the cannabis-forward content has indeed gone downhill since the 2000s, when we had classics like Grandma's Boy, How High, Pineapple Express and the Harold and Kumar or Jay and Silent Bob series.

click to enlarge

The first Cheech & Chong movie came out over 45 years ago, and it still has more fans than most movies nowadays.

Jacqueline Collins

Now that the plant is more mainstream, cannabis is incorporated into more movies with fewer pothead tropes, but with that comes fewer films in which weed is at the center. You'll still find a decent flick or TV series that incorporates cannabis, even if it's not a traditional stoner comedy —  like The Gentlemen on Netflix or HBO's High Maintenance — but I doubt we'll have another generational hit like Cheech & Chong any time soon.

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