LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Stoners are riding high nowadays. Fans are buzzing about the reunion of Cheech and Chong after a long feud, and a couple of tokers are lighting up the box office with "Pineapple Express."
James Franco, left, and Seth Rogen star in the action comedy "Pineapple Express."
From the pot partakers and dealers of "Weeds" to Harold and Kumar to Sean Penn's dude in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," stoners have been a beloved subset among Hollywood fringe players.
Some win Academy Awards (Kevin Spacey for his suburban sad-sack in "American Beauty"). Some lose their wheels (Ashton Kutcher in "Dude, Where's My Car?"). Some merely abide (Jeff Bridges' "The Dude" in "The Big Lebowski").
The canon of stoner flicks is almost as old as Hollywood itself, with the 1936 propaganda film "Reefer Madness" high on fans' must-see list. Other favorites include the '70s high-school flashback "Dazed and Confused," the demented Hunter S. Thompson tale "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and the inner-city romp "Friday."
"Pineapple Express" upholds a truism known to just about anyone who has lit up: That it's more fun to party in pairs than it is on your own.
The movie casts Seth Rogen as a pot smoker hunted by druglords and crooked cops after he witnesses a murder. He leaves a smoking gun -- or rather, a smoking roach -- at the scene, a strain of pot called Pineapple Express that's so potent and rare, the bad guys can track it back to its source: Rogen's dealer, played by James Franco.
So the duo ends up as an odd couple on the run. Rogen's pot-hound is a fairly responsible guy with a day job as a process server, while Franco's peddler is so lovably fuzzy-headed from the weed that it's a wonder he can tell a nickel bag from a potted fern.
