When JASON LIVES: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI was released in 1986, it had been just six years since the birth of the franchise, and with just as many films under their belts, you could sense that the producers were scrambling for gimmicks to keep Jason Voorhees hacking up campers for years to come. While speaking with Mick Garris on Post Mortem, JASON LIVES director Tom McLoughlin revealed that Friday the 13th producer Frank Mancuso Jr. approached him about making another film following the release of JASON LIVES. At the time, Mancuso was interested in pitting Jason against NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET's Freddy Krueger (which wouldn't happen for another seventeen years), but McLoughlin had a different idea – Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong vs. Jason Voorhees.
[Frank Mancuso Jr.] wanted me to do another film after we did Jason, and I said, ‘What are you thinking? I don’t know what it could be now.’ And he said, ‘Well, what do you think about Freddy (Krueger) and Jason?’ And I go, ‘But Freddy’s at New Line and the guys at Paramount have [Jason].’ And it’s like, ‘Well, we’re going to try and see if we can work something out.’ So, I started thinking about that, going, It doesn’t make sense. I mean he lives in one realm and — you know, I take this stuff very seriously, what realm a monster’s supposed to stay in. And he came back, he goes, ‘Eh, forget it, it’s not going to work anyway.’ And I said, ‘You know what? You guys own Cheech and Chong. What if we do Cheech and Chong-meets-Jason? They’re like camp counselors or something. It’s like, ‘Hey, man, I saw Jason out there.’ ‘No, man, that’s a myth.’ But he said, ‘You know what? No.'
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For one brief perhaps glorious moment, the possibility of a Cheech and Chong FRIDAY THE 13TH movie existed. There's no telling whether their inclusion would have been brief cameos or even leading roles, but it surely would have been something to behold. Instead, we got Jason Voorhees vs a telekinetic teenager in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD.
Sure, it would have been stupid, but would a Cheech and Chong FRIDAY THE 13TH film really have been any worse than FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN?
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