Who am I?

Growing up I never tried to smoke weed. I had no issues with it, actually, I have a couple of good friends who smoked a lot so was around it often. I guess I was just focused on academics and sports while always hearing stories of it getting you lazy, so I stayed away.

I’m now older, a bit more mature and much more in tune with myself and my body. So, after more than 12 years of being closely associated with weed but never having smoked, I finally reached a certain amount of bliss in October of 2019 when I got stoned for the first time in my life. Since then I’ve been smoking more and more. Living in DC with DC Weed and all the DC Weed Events, it’s become much easier to consume. And now, with this new and exciting change in my life, I decided to take advantage of my newfound ability and write reviews about stoner movies, with a twist.

I’m going to get stoned, watch the film and document my time doing the review. Let’s see how it works out.

Half Baked

I picked Half Baked to kick off this journey since it was one of the few stoner movies I have seen and enjoyed without being in or around weed culture. I also grew up watching Chappelle Show, so that shit was already funny without the added benefit of being high. I should note that the last time I saw this movie was over a decade ago.

To get prepared, I smoked a bowl, ordered some Thai food and got another bowl ready to go. While I have been smoking a few different strains recently, on this occasion I went for a 28mg TCH Indica that I got from Street Lawyer Services here in DC, it smells so good. And when I tell you it is strong; I am not lying. My roommates, who are both hardcore stoners, get super stoned off just one bowl. That’s how strong it is.

I hit play and then immediately had to pause to go grab the Thai from a delivery girl. I have strong feelings toward anyone who brings me food, so I might be in love with her. I came back and restarted it while casually chowing on some chicken and peanut sauce.

The movie starts with way too accurate child versions of the main characters. For a solid few minutes I tried to catch the CGI in this 1998 movie because I thought it was impossible for these kids to look so much like their adult counterpart. The kids smoke their first joint just before high school. Thurgood (Dave Chappelle) makes a joke about people not getting high their first time, I still don’t know if that’s an urban legend or not?

I can only assume that Abba-Zaba paid a good amount of money for the screen time it received but thank god I had food because every time Thurgood bit into one, I salivated just a little. Do they even make those anymore?

Seeing how difficult it used to be to get weed, in New York City of all places, really threw me back. I live in DC now where I can now get weed delivered legally through Initiative 71, but a few years ago, when I was drifting around in the flyover states, I remember having to go with my less confident friends to make sure nothing happened in their quest for weed.

“I don’t do drugs though, just weed” is a perfect and poignant line.

The ritual is something I hear a lot from my stoner friends, and I am starting to get it. No one in my house has a set schedule, but if and when we’re all together, we’ll share a bowl or a dab and just chill for a bit before going back to our lives.

The horse is the wildest plot point in a movie I’ve seen. In all honesty I’d probably feed a horse pizza, even after this movie. I googled to find out if horses can get Diabetes, and they can, which sucks. That wasn’t fun news.

Back to the movie, Thurgood meets Mary Jane (Rachel True) in a pretty normal way, during visiting hours at a prison. He spends the whole movie lying to her, and I’m honestly shocked that she even talks to him. I understand that he has that Chappelle charm, but man, he must stink of weed and it’s never brought up.

Tommy Chong makes an appearance as Squirrel Master, which gave me some pause because I spent the next 10 minutes of the movie trying to remember his name.

I got into a laughing fit about the club scene where they all get stoned because there is a shot of all the people “floating” and all I could imagine was everyone hooked to wires and hanging there for hours while they filmed.

I know that Thurgood is the narrator and he is telling the story, but I felt a bond coming between us whenever he stopped the movie to speak to me. It happened enough to make me feel like we had a conversation, even though I fully know it is a movie. This weed might be too damn good.

So, I smoked the second bowl probably 35 minutes into the movie to keep my high up through the end. It worked. The 2 montages of the different types of smokers was cool since it was all cameos by John Stewart, Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson, Janeane Garofalo, Bob Saget, Stephen Baldwin (have you seen his 180 since the 90s?!) and an old lady who yelled at me about arthritis.

One of the most quoted lines of the movie is the “fuck you” scene, which, as someone who worked in McDonalds for 2 years, I very much get. And Laura Silverman, who plays Jan in the movie, also got me confused because I could have sworn she was her sister Sarah Silverman, but they are in fact two different people.

The Sir-Smokes-A-Lot scene was great to watch (on weeeeed. Thanks, John Stewart), especially once I figured out that it was Dave Chappelle in both roles. The two are such different characters and energies that it is easy to forget that they’re the same person playing both . Or I was just too stoned and everyone else knew? Either way it was a stark contrast from this scene to the very next one: the prison shower scene, which was full of man ass and a drop the soap joke.

The dog flying scene probably got my biggest laugh because Killer is clearly just laying down on a green screen. I had to pause the movie because I was laughing a bit too hard. I’m not normally an emotional man, but I forgot they killed the dog and got legitimately sad for a minute, at least until Thurgood stepped on him, then I laughed a bit too hard.

I remembered why I loved this movie when I was younger and a big part of it was the ninja women under Samson’s (Clarence Williams III) employ.

They are all fine and can kick my ass, which is pretty much what I look for in any woman.

The penultimate scene of the movie where Thurgood, Scarface (Guillermo Diaz) and Brian (Jim Breur) are being held up by Samson and his henchwomen is comedy gold. The three stoners get into a brawl with the henchwomen and the only thing that keeps them alive is a titty and the ashes of Jerry Garcia, LOL. I could watch just that scene a few dozen times before it got old, and I did watch it three times in this sitting.

The weed added to the humor a lot more than I expected it to. This wasn’t a trippy movie, which was nice because this was the first full movie I’ve seen while high. It just made the enjoyment pop a lot more, even for a movie that features two plot relevant animal deaths.

There were moments where I did get bored and my mind wandered far off, but overall, I was able to highly enjoy what Dave Chappelle and the rest of the cast brought out of me, which was mostly laughter.

And I know I already used this joke, but I can now answer the following questions with a yes. Have you seen Half Baked? Have you seen Half Baked… on weeeeed.

I am covering all of the classic stoner movies in this review series. If you want to see your favorite, let me know what I should watch next! You can contact me at: admin@urbanaroma.com