>Both of the Cheech and Chong movies I've seen would be examples
>of the latter category, since they consist of little but a series of
>sketches.

I wouldn't consider this drugs so much as just vaudeville, one of the major sources of American film comedy.  Check against Marx/Ritz Bros, Fields, Cantor, Olsen & Johnson, Wheeler & Woolsey etc reaching an extreme with Abbott & Costello, burlesque instead of vaudeville and to the point where scripts left blanks for A&C (or writer pal John Grant) to insert whatever old stage routine they felt appropriate.  But of course nobody cares about the plots.

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