For me, Stripes is a nearly perfect comedy. Bill Murray and Harold Ramis are brilliant, as is the rest of the cast, including John Candy, Judge Reinhold, Sean Young, and John Larroquette. When I was in college in the ‘90s, it was one of the VHS tapes we nearly wore through because my friends and I watched it so many times. However, there is a bit of trivia I never knew until just recently. The original script of one of the best movies of the '80s was written for two very different comedic actors: Cheech and Chong. Oh, how different that would have been. (Image credit: Paramount Pictures)It Would’ve Been A Full Cheech and Chong JointTo hear director Ivan Reitman, who died in 2022, and producer/writer Daniel Goldberg talk about it in a behind-the-scenes feature on the DVD, this wasn’t a case of casting Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong in the roles of John Winger and Russell Ziskey (the characters eventually played by Murray and Ramis, respectively, in one of Murray's funniest performances ever). No, this was a full-on Cheech and Chong “join the army” script. It would’ve been filled with the stoner humor we all know from their movies and comedy albums. When Reitman and Goldberg approached Cheech and Chong, they were up for it, but according to Goldberg, they really wanted full creative control, and Reitman wasn’t willing to give that up, so they abandoned the casting idea and decided to go after Bill Murray, whom Reitman had worked with in Murray’s first big-screen appearance, Meatballs. That led to signing Harold Ramis on to help write and co-star with Murray, as they had also just worked together on Caddyshack and would work together a few more times before they had a falling out over a potential Groundhog Day sequel. (Image credit: Columbia Pictures)The Script Was Rewritten, But Some Jokes SurvivedReitman and Goldberg knew that they would have to tweak things to work for Murray and Ramis, of course. By the sound of the stories in the behind-the-scenes special, much of the movie ended up being improvised anyway. That’s not surprising given the acting talent involved. It's what makes it one of Reitman's best movies (and one of Candy's best, too). However, some of the jokes originally written for Cheech and Chong did end up in the movie, according to Reitman, who said they ended up mostly delivered by Judge Reinhold for his character, Elmo. Reitman explained:Elmo was really the compendium of all the best Cheech and Chong jokes from the original script that we had created for that duo.That isn’t a surprise, either, as Elmo is the stereotypical stoner in the movie, especially when we meet him at the bus depot as we meet all the other characters. It was, it’s worth noting, also Reinhold’s first big role (as it was Ramis’ first acting role in a movie as well). I’ll be completely honest, though I love Up in Smoke and listened to Cheech and Chong’s comedy albums a lot in high school, I’m glad they didn’t make a deal with Reitman and company to star in the movie. It would have been a much cheesier movie, filled with the same kind of jokes I’d already burned out on (pun intended) by the time I discovered Stripes. I don’t think it would be a classic like it is today with Murray and Ramis leading it.