Need a little comic relief? Then enter our throwback machine and check out these hysterical clips from marijuana-themed sitcoms of the 80s and early 90s. Back then, pot and the American public were not the best of friends—according to Gallup, between 1980 and 1997 only about 25 percent of Americans favored legalization (compared to 58 percent today).
It wasn’t until That 70s Show’s infamous high circle sessions that marijuana moved past being routinely portrayed as a scourge on society; and that didn’t premier until the summer of 1998.
Cannabis users during the last few decades of the 20th century had to deal with a lot of stereotypes and stigmas, but 30 or so years later, and now the judgmental tone of these shows only look, well, wonderfully awkward. Oh yes—A TV show wasn’t complete until someone righteously equated getting high with the overall destruction of society, being a slacker, or just repeatedly made bad puns on the word “dope.”
So, grab your smoking apparatus, sit back and enjoy a trip to a time when Punky Brewster had a little run in with the “cool girls,” Bill Cosby had moral leverage and even Roseanne Barr had to insert a few bad stereotypes into the cannabis conversation.