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The Weed Episode: When Black Sitcoms Talked About Cannabis · CashcolorcannabisPodcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am Mecca, and this is Cash Color Cannabis Podcast, a higher level of conversation.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: There was a time when you knew something serious was about to happen on your favorite TV show.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it always started just about the same way.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow something lighthearted was about to turn really serious.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: You could usually tell by the music change and the crowd going, ooh.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Those moments could center around something like an unassuming character having a gun, an unexpected pregnancy, or something worse.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: You could be found with drugs.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if someone showed up with pills, something in a baggie, or for today's topic, a rolled-up joint, then you knew a lesson was about to be learned.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Before cannabis became something that was openly discussed on television, and way before characters would casually smoke without it becoming the entire plot of the episode, Bud had a very specific role on TV.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Especially when it came to black sitcoms.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Weed usually wasn't something that just a character did, it was always a plot device.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And depending on what decade, it could represent everything from danger and peer pressure to teenage rebellion and eventually just another setup for a joke.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're looking back at six black sitcoms that gave us their own version of the weed episode.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what those episodes said about Canvas might tell us just as much about America at that time as the characters did.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man, so we're starting off in the 70s with Sanford and Sun.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not gonna give them my age like that, but I will tell you, I am Sanford Sun aired on reruns when I was a kid years old.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't actually watch the show until after college, and even then it took me a while to really get into how great the show was.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But as I was thinking about this story, I thought about this show.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to myself, didn't Sanford and Son have a weed episode?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was right, they did.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was season four, episode 11, and it's titled Fred's Treasure Garden.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: In that episode, fan favorite Grady takes care of Fred's garden while Fred is away in St.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Louis.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: While watching it, he sees something that he thinks is wild parsley growing.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when Lamont and Rolo see it, they think Grady picked his weed.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, by then, Grady had already used what he thought was parsley to make a salad, which he was gonna serve to visiting police officers.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, everybody thinks Grady just accidentally fed the weed to the police.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Aunt Esther has to come in and be the voice of reason.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: After eventually tasting some of the salad herself, she realizes that Grady was right and this is actually parsley.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting about this episode is that nobody needs to smoke weed for cannabis to drive the entire plot.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: The possibility that marijuana could be growing in Fred's garden and that Grady might have accidentally served the police officers was enough.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Cannabis was really treated, cannabis wasn't really treated like a character flaw here.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Grady wasn't secretly trying to get high, nobody was pressured into smoking, there wasn't even actual weed.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The joke was the panic that was surrounding it, which honestly is hella on brand for sample design.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that the distinction matters because as we move into the 90s and early 2000s, weed stops being something characters are simply afraid of and starts carrying a much heavier tone.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Fast forward to Moesha.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Moesha was must-see TV for a young teen like myself back in the day.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: It had drama, comedy, and celebrities.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was dope.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: But one episode came to mind when I think of Moesha.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: In season four, episode three, Hello, what's this?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Dee finds a joint hidden in the couch cushion.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So immediately everybody in the house wants to know one thing: whose weed is this?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: The assumption falls quickly on Moesha, but the assumption quickly falls on Moesha, but we all eventually learn that the joint belongs to our younger brother, Bio.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's when the episode shifts from a mystery to an intervention.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is also where we start seeing one of the more common ways black family sitcoms dealt with cancer.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Weed wasn't simply something black teenagers were allowed to experiment with.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: If your parents found you were smoking weed, that just meant something was wrong with you.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So remember also the era we're talking about here.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: This episode aired in the late 90s, um, after America had spent years living through the war on drugs and the just say no message.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So weed represented something parents believed they needed to stop it before it became something worse.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like my father was like that.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: He just knew that smoking weed would lead you to smoking crack, which it did not for myself.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've never tried crack.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, but seeing a joint itself became evidence that a child might be heading down the wrong path.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what happened in this episode.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Mo catches Miles smoking a joint, and of course, like a big sister, she runs and tells.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Frank and Dee are now involved.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Apologies have to go out to my Moesha.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Miles lashes out for being put through an impromptu intervention while still high.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot was going on in 30 minutes.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: The craziest part about this is the very next episode, the whole family ends up going to family therapy.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's deep over a joint, but that's beside the point.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Wayne brothers took the idea that weed can lead you down the wrong path and gave us one of the most traditional versions of a weed episode possible.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in the episode The Highlight, Marlon meets a famous actor and gets caught up in the excitement of being around celebrities.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, he's pressured into smoking weed.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, his brother Sean is a happiness.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: He warns Marlon about drug use and where those decisions could potentially lead.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sean takes his brother and helps him get himself together and makes sure that he doesn't go back around the celebrity again.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is also one of those episodes where the show really wants you to not do drugs.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that just the overall vibe of the episode, but it's the fact that Sean actually breaks the fourth wall and basically tells the crowd to just say no.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, back in the 90s, sitcoms often turned those public service messages into entertainment.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is a perfect example of that.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna laugh for about 20 minutes, but somewhere around the minute 21, somebody was gonna be sitting on the couch next to you trying to explain to you why you shouldn't do drugs or yelling from another room.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: You better not be doing no.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm mimicking my mom right now.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Classic TV moments.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Huglys give us another version of the concerned parent format.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Again, another season four.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: This time it's episode one, joint custody.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Daryl and Yvonne discover a joint in their daughter Sydney's jacket.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, so now Daryl immediately goes into investigation mode as they do all the time.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sydney stands her ground and says it's not hers.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Come to find out, after all the investigating, the joint turns out to be Yvonne's.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was hers from her younger days, and she completely forgot about it.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Parents, right?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: In a fun twist, the kids decide that the parents should get the same punishment they did.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So they were grounded.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hope they learned their lesson.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, parents are hard to raise nowadays.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's Damon Wayans and My Wife and Kids.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: See, Damon Wayans decided fear wasn't enough.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted psychological warfare.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So in my wife and kids episode Grassy Knoll, Michael and Jay discovered Junior has been smoking weed.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like many, he was using the herb to find inspiration for a song him and a friend of his was trying to write.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Michael now could ground him.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Michael could take away his privileges.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: He also could give him a classic sitcom speech or do something like his real life brother Sean did on the weigh-ins and turn to the crowd and tell everybody just say no.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, Michael and Jay turn Jay's high into a bad trip.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as crazy as this sounds, this might be the evolution of these kind of TV conversations.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Cannabis is still something these parents discourage.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the message has changed that much.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: What has changed is how comfortable the show is in making weed itself part of the comedy.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: They joke about the paranoia and everyone seems to get it.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: No one is playing Pollyanna about this.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in the end, Junior freaks out and sees everyone acting so trippy and confesses to smoking weed.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of an all it's well that ends well type moment.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna end this on one of my favorite scenes to where weed comes into play, and that's on Everybody Hates Chris.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: In the episode Everybody Hates Lasagna, Chris is forced to hold a bag of weed for a local hustler who handed it to Chris while he was running from the police.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you know anything about Chris, you know that he does not want this.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to smoke it, he doesn't want to sell it, he doesn't want to have it on him.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: He just wants to stash it before everyone finds it on him and give it back to the person who gave it to him in the first place.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, Chris makes what is a completely logical decision that I think anyone else in this situation would make.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: In true TV fashion, Chris tries to hide the weed at school.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Coincidentally, the day he's doing this is the day the police would come by his class for a special presentation.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what do they bring?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Drug sniffing dogs.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Chris panics and puts the weed in a pan of lasagna that he was making for his home at class.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And more TV type stuff.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Chris now has to make a second pan of lasagna because the first one that he stashed the weed in, the weed is in.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, hijinks and shenanigans ensue, and the lasagnas get switched to rap.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Chris does end up getting the infused lasagna back to the kid who gave him the weed in the first place with no issues.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Except that his teacher, Miss Morello, ends up eating the lace version and having the time of her life in her classroom.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, compare this to some of our early examples.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: This episode isn't really asking whether cannabis will ruin Chris's life.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Here, we create the situation itself.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: We take center stage and how it plays out over the course of the show is what makes this episode stands out.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Cheers to them.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: This episode was actually hilarious.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and watch it if you get a chance.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's changed?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what makes looking back on these type of episodes interesting.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Cannabis changed on television because Americans' relationship with cannabis changed.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: For decades, we could barely appear without writers reminding the audience that drugs were bad, like the Wayans Brothers episode The High Life.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: But over time, television would reach a point where character-consuming cannabis didn't automatically require an intervention before the credits rolled.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, fast forward to today, cannabis can appear without becoming the episode's entire personality.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like characters can smoke after work, parents can consume, professionals consume, older adults consume.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And increasingly, cannabis can exist in the scene the same way alcohol existed on television.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a massive difference than finding a joint in the couch and calling for in a family emergency.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: These old episodes give us a snapshot of what black audiences were told about cannabis at different moments in American history through television.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: They show cannabis moving from something television treated as a dangerous and a taboo into something writers recognize as part of everyday culture.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're watching another evolution.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my question: What was the weed episode that you remembered?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Was it one of these?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or was there another show where cannabis suddenly appeared and immediately you knew somebody was about to get a very serious conversation before this show ended?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm sure I missed a few.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And by judging television history, there's plenty more weed hiding in somebody's couch.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's Cash Color Cannabis, a higher level of conversation.
• 12:04
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• 12:20
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