Tom Penny's Cheech and Chong Skateboard Deck Reissue

This board graphic is a classic from the 1990s. It was originally released in 1996, screen printed at Screamin'Squeegee, with artwork by Bernie Tostenson. It’s inspired by the Cheech and Chong comedy duo, created by Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong in the 1970s. Flip didn’t hold the rights to use the images of them when they first released the deck.

The board model was then called “Tom’s Friends” or “Friends”. Flip winged it at first without Cheech and Chong knowing about the graphics. Then years later they eventually found out. Cheech Marin was a fan of skateboarding and was rad enough to continue letting Flip make the board as long as they both got some royalties. So they actually still pay them on a monthly basis! This was around 2012 when the board was “legalized”. Flip officially named it Cheech and Chong.

This graphic has seen many reissues over the years, with various background colours or tie dye and marijuana patterns. 96' to the present day, one of Flip's best-selling boards.

1996 Screen printed - Toms friends.

1996 Toms Friends, Screen printed with black background.

Legalized - Official licence artwork. 2012.

Using original images from collectors decks, and vectors from modern transfer versions, we managed to re-create the artwork. Took hours and hours to sort out. Trapping, overlaying inks, halftone gradients, pin strips and all with extremely tight registration to consider!

Monster of a job with 11 colours on the bottom and 3 on the top.

All are printed on the original 90’s Prime mellow concave design.

Blank decks from Prime, like the first ones in 96'

Making sure and double checking everything registers up spot on.

3 colour Flip oval top print.

Starting with the back ground light smoke colour!

White pass, tight butt up registration to the blue pass. I would certainly print white first with trapping next time - doh!

Inner brown smoke.

Outer brown smoke, plus skin tone/shade on faces.

7 colours down.

Light blue halftone hat, and rectangle boxes.

Purple boxes.

Yellow text and bandana/hat, overlaying the light blue to make a limey green!

Red Bandana.

Films positioned onto check reg and last pass.

So far, so good...

Around twenty four print passes on each board. Top and bottom.

Hand screened decks are intentionally left with sloppy ink edges because that’s how the originals were done. Scraping with blades cleans up the edges but then the graphics look more similar to heat transfers which they are certainly not. The occasional dragged edge within the graphic art print is normal too. These are 100% screen printed by hand the old way.

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