Comic-Con begins this week, not with a bang, but a blaze. Sony’s eagerly awaited next installment in the train that is Judd Apatow continues barreling down the track with multiple word of mouth screenings of Pineapple Express this week, including one in San Diego during the massive weekend of the Con. It’s worth trying to get into one just for the Huey Lewis and the News song that rolls over the end credits.

I was lucky enough to see the flick last night, and it was excellent on all counts. It’s over the top, violent, and very funny. And while Danny McBride’s Red character threatens to outfunny both Seth Rogen and James Franco, it’s Franco who brings us back the loveable movie stoner that we’ve missed so much.

People have been smoking pot in movies for decades now, but where Knocked Up just gave us useless layabouts who light up all the time, there’s actually a long line of lovable movie stoners who have handed off the torch to Franco, and he continues their tradition in glorious fashion. Here’s to those who helped pave the road.

• Cheech & Chong: This duo set the bar for dumb and lovable, and made their careers out of marijuana. I still remember not being allowed to watch Up In Smoke when it came with the very first VCR my family over bought. It was the size of a Buick and came with a wired remote.
• Spicoli: If Cheech and Chong are mom and dad, then Spicoli is their first born son. People still quote his lines from Fast Times At Ridgemont High whenever ordering pizza. That movie can be summed up as pretty much just Spicoli’s wacky weed humor and Phoebe Cates in a red bikini.
• Floyd: Brad Pitt didn’t get nearly enough screen time inTrue Romance, but what little he was given went a long way. He may not have been the best roommate for poor Michael Rapaport, but everyone wanted to make a bong out of a Honey Bear dispenser after seeing this movie.
• Wooderson: Dazed & Confused came out the same year as True Romance, but they’re set decades apart. Nothing embodies the difference in years more than Matthew McConaughey’s mustachioed stoner with a thing for high school girls. In fact, I’ve come to think he wasn’t actually playing a role in that movie, just himself.
• Brian: People tend to focus on Dave Chappelle’s performance in Half Baked, especially in his guise as Sir Smoke-a-Lot, but it’s Jim Breuer’s role as the loveable Brian who ends up being the stoner you want to hang out with when the movie’s over. Where’s that guy been, anyhow? Slumming it a bit, it seems
• Saul: James Franco’s Saul Silver from Pineapple Express is the bastard love child cousin of all of these characters rolled into one. He’s got Cheech and Chong’s zaniness, Spicoli’s laid back attitude, Floyd’s flippant what the fuckery, Brian’s loveable childlike side, and David’s charm. He might be a drug dealer, constantly high, and not very bright, but he’d march right into the gates of hell with you. Lay on, Macduff.