The ‘Half Baked’ Sequel Couldn’t Even Land Jim Breuer
Directed by Tamra Davis, and written by stand-up comedian Neil Brennan and a pre-”What the hell happened to Dave Chappelle” Dave Chappelle, the 1998 stoner comedy Half Baked starred Chappelle and Jim Breuer as pot-addled burnouts who are forced to sell stolen medical marijuana in order to bail their buddy out of jail. Also, Snoop Dogg, Tommy Chong and Willie Nelson have brief roles, because of course they do.
While it was a modest box-office success at the time, Half Baked was torn to pieces by buzzkill critics. It easily could have gone the way of Bio-Dome, but in the decades since its release, Half Baked has accrued a significant cult following. And not just because it’s the movie that completely blew up an entire generation’s perception of Danny Tanner.
Even though the original Half Baked didn’t exactly leave a ton of unresolved plot lines or tantalizing mysteries on the table, it has somehow spawned a sequel: Half Baked: Totally High. Now we’ll be able to catch the continuing adventures of… Dave Chappelle’s love interest, played by Rachel True?
Apart from a cameo by Harland Williams, who played Kenny in the original, True is the only returning cast member. Even Breuer couldn’t be bothered to come back for this movie, and his career right now consists of telling Fauci jokes to white supremacists.
So either the producers of Half Baked: Totally High didn’t want Breuer back, or this project was somehow even less appealing than Jingle Smells, the Christmas movie starring Breuer, the guy from The Dukes of Hazzard and noted comedy superstar former Governor Mike Huckabee.
The plot of the second Half Baked movie, which also features Dexter Darden, David Koechner and a “special appearance” from Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz, involves Chappelle’s character’s son (Darden), and it sounds surprisingly bleak. According to the synopsis on Blu-Ray.com, the movie is about a guy who fatally overdoses on a “fabled doobie containing three strains of weed.” So his buddies have to seek out “L.A.’s underground pot market” in order to raise the money to give him a proper burial.
Hey, you know what was fun about the first Half Baked? Not a single character overdosed on weed, probably because that has never actually happened in the entirety of recorded history. This sounds less like a Half Baked sequel, and more like a Reefer Madness reboot written by Nancy Reagan and Daren the D.A.R.E. lion.
Deadline reported that production on Half Baked: Totally High finished way back in November 2022, but for some reason, the movie still has yet to see the light of day. Supposedly it will be released on Blu-ray next month, but since no trailer has been released anywhere, we’ll just have to wait and see if this thing actually exists.
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