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Comedian and actor Cheech Marin, of Cheech and Chong fame, stars on "Nash Bridges" with Don Johnson. Marin, who did the voice of Banzai, a hyena in "The Lion King," plays a detective on the CBS-TV show. He and his wife, Patti Heid, live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the hourlong drama is filmed. They have three children--Carmen, 20, Joe, 13, and Jasmine, 6.
Question: Your dad was a policeman, and here you are playing a detective.
Answer: My dad--30 years LAPD--thinks it's the funniest thing he ever heard. "You're playing a policeman? Oh, God." Well, you know, it's funny because I'm basically doing him.
Q: How did you get the name Cheech?
A: Cheech is short for chicharron. Chicharrones are like deep-fried pig skins, you know, like bacon rind. Mexican potato chips. When I was a little baby, my uncle looked in the crib and said, "Oh, it looks like a little chicharron." To everybody else I was Richard, but to my family I was Cheech. So then when Tommy and I were putting together Cheech and Chong, we were trying to come up with a name: Marin and Chong. That sounded too corporate. Richard and Tommy. No.
Q: When you guys first met, Tommy owned a nightclub and had an improvisational theater?
A: Yeah. The City Works. He was a musician, and they always needed some place to play, so he started a club so they'd have a place. It evolved into a very successful after-hours club in Vancouver.
Q: The improv theater included topless dancers, a mime, a couple guitarists and...