49 Fun Facts About Pineapple Express

What is Dale Denton's job in Pineapple Express?

Process server Dale hands out subpoenas for a living and wears disguises to make people admit who they are, which is how he ends up parked outside Ted Jones's house at the wrong moment.

Apatow produced Pineapple Express, but who directed it?

David Gordon Green was known for quiet indie dramas such as George Washington; he met Apatow and Rogen about the project on the set of Knocked Up, and it became his first studio comedy.

Which actress plays Carol Brazier, the corrupt cop who helps Ted Jones commit the murder Dale witnesses?

Rosie Perez, an Oscar nominee for Fearless, plays the crooked officer who chases Dale and Saul across the city after they make off in a patrol car.

How does Dale accidentally lead Ted Jones to him after witnessing the murder?

He tosses a rare roach, and Ted recognises the strain at once: only Red and his customer Saul have it, so the trail leads straight to them.

Who plays Red, the middleman dealer in Pineapple Express who keeps getting shot and refusing to die?

Danny McBride had made his acting debut in the director's drama All the Real Girls; Red brought him mainstream notice, and a year later he was Kenny Powers in Eastbound & Down.

When Dale and Saul find Red bruised after a beating, what does he claim is wrong with his lip?

A cold sore is his cover story: Ted's henchmen have just beaten him for information about Saul, and he says he cried only because he had never had one before.

When Dale and Saul try to hide out in the woods, what goes wrong?

The car battery dies because the pair fell asleep with Dale's talk radio still playing, so Dale decides they will walk back to the road and hitchhike.

In Pineapple Express, Dale's girlfriend Angie is still a student at what kind of school?

High school is where Dale visits her, envying classmates he calls "strong and handsome"; her father later forces him out of the family home at gunpoint.

How do Dale and Saul raise bus fare to get out of town?

Selling weed to teenagers backfires fast: a police officer arrests Dale, and Saul, thinking he is rescuing him, makes off with her patrol car.

Why does Dale break up with Angie over the phone late in Pineapple Express?

She starts talking about marriage moments after the two make up, and a rattled Dale ends it on the spot before setting off to rescue Saul.

Which rival outfit attacks Ted Jones's lair in the climactic shootout of Pineapple Express?

A Korean drug gang at war with Ted storms his hideout in the finale, and one of its members sets off the bomb that kills him.

How does the henchman Matheson finally die in Pineapple Express?

Red rams him with a car, crashing through the barn wall to make amends for backing out of the rescue; he is shot for it and still walks away.

Red is making a birthday cake for which dead pet when Dale and Saul first visit?

His cat died three months earlier, but Red says it is tradition to get up extra early on its birthday and make its favourite dessert.

Judd Apatow said Pineapple Express grew from Brad Pitt's stoner character Floyd in which crime film?

True Romance (1993) gave Pitt a glassy-eyed walk-on as a roommate; Apatow thought it would be funny to follow that character out of his apartment and watch bad guys chase him.

Why did Seth Rogen say Sony gave Pineapple Express only $25 million?

It was a weed movie, in Rogen's words: $40 million "would've been nice", but "because it's a weed movie, you get $25 million". It still grossed about $100 million worldwide.

Which role was Seth Rogen originally going to play before Judd Apatow suggested a swap?

Saul, the dealer, was Rogen's part until Apatow proposed the swap; Rogen first refused because he wanted the jokes, then changed his mind after Franco's table read.

Which 1980s hitmakers recorded the theme song "Pineapple Express" for the film?

Huey Lewis and the News got the job after Rogen took Lewis to lunch in November 2007, reportedly asking for something in the vein of "The Power of Love".

Which M.I.A. song became a US top-five hit after it was used in the Pineapple Express trailer?

"Paper Planes" got a huge boost from the trailer and climbed to number four on the Hot 100 that September; M.I.A. said she agreed because it was "just the trailer".

Which film kept Pineapple Express at number two on its opening weekend at the US box office in August 2008?

The Dark Knight, in its fourth weekend, took $26.1 million to Pineapple Express's $23.2 million; Tropic Thunder knocked it off the top a week later.

Who wrote the Pineapple Express screenplay with Seth Rogen, his writing partner since their Vancouver childhood?

Evan Goldberg and Rogen were writing scripts together by the age of 13; Apatow, who shares the story credit, enlisted the pair to write this stoner action film.

James Franco's Saul Silver earned a nomination for which award?

A Golden Globe nomination for best comedy actor capped what Entertainment Weekly called a huge stretch for an actor best known as Peter Parker's playboy pal.

Which magazine gave James Franco its 'Stoner of the Year' award for Pineapple Express?

High Times gave its Stony Award winners bong-shaped trophies, and Franco turned up at the 2008 ceremony in Malibu to collect his in person.

Seth Rogen and James Franco first worked together on which short-lived 1999 TV series?

Freaks and Geeks was cancelled by NBC before all 18 of its episodes had aired, yet it launched both men: Rogen played Ken Miller and Franco played Daniel Desario.

What does Saul hurl at a patrol car to "rescue" the arrested Dale?

Slushies let Saul steal the cruiser with Dale still in the back, a rescue Dale never needed: the officer had believed his story and was going to help.

Who plays drug lord Ted Jones?

Gary Cole, the micromanaging boss Bill Lumbergh in Office Space, plays the drug lord Dale catches shooting a rival at home with a police officer's help.

Which character actor plays Budlofsky, the henchman who refuses to kill Saul?

Kevin Corrigan's Budlofsky pays for his mercy when his own partner shoots him for it; Corrigan is also remembered as Uncle Eddie in the sitcom Grounded for Life.

Which future star of This Is the End plays the henchman Matheson?

Craig Robinson was The Office's warehouse boss Darryl at the time; his Matheson ends up turning his gun on his own partner in the final shootout.

Which Spinal Tap and St. Elsewhere veteran plays Angie's furious father, who throws Dale and Saul out?

Ed Begley Jr.'s Robert Anderson forces the pair out at gunpoint, minutes before Ted's henchmen arrive and the family has to flee to a motel.

Which SNL cast member plays Private Miller, the army test subject in the Pineapple Express prologue?

Bill Hader's Private Miller is smoking the army's secret "Item 9" in the test, and the general in charge ends it with a one-word verdict: illegal.

Which actress plays Angie Anderson, Dale's girlfriend in Pineapple Express?

Amber Heard broke through to mainstream audiences in 2008 with supporting parts in this film and the martial-arts drama Never Back Down.

Which 1980s road movie did the director cite as an influence on Pineapple Express?

Midnight Run was a touchstone he discussed with the writers, along with The Blues Brothers, Running Scared and Stir Crazy: "classic buddy movies" rather than stoner comedies.

What did Sony release on April Fools' Day 2013 to tease Pineapple Express fans?

A fake trailer for a follow-up film, it was really a teaser for This Is the End, in which the actors play themselves and shoot a homemade Pineapple Express 2.

Why, in Seth Rogen's 2020 telling, was a Pineapple Express sequel never made?

They asked for too much money, Rogen told Howard Stern in 2020: emails leaked in the Sony hack show the studio killing the sequel over its budget.

Grace Jones's cover of which Johnny Cash song is heard in Pineapple Express but left off its soundtrack album?

"Ring of Fire" in Jones's version was a studio outtake from the early 1980s that went unreleased until a 1998 compilation of her Compass Point sessions.

Which Eddy Grant hit is on the Pineapple Express soundtrack?

"Electric Avenue" takes its name from a real market street in Brixton, south London, and Grant wrote it about the riots there in 1981.

Which Cypress Hill weed anthem appears on the Pineapple Express soundtrack?

"Dr. Greenthumb" introduces B-Real's alter ego, a cannabis grower who explains how to hide plants from police helicopters; he kept the persona and later hosted The Dr. Greenthumb Show.

Which Wang Chung hit appears on the Pineapple Express soundtrack album?

"Everybody Have Fun Tonight" turned the band's own name into a verb with the line "everybody Wang Chung tonight", and reached number two in the US in 1986.

What career does Saul tell Dale he plans to take up once he is done dealing?

A civil engineer: in the middle of a blazing row with Dale, Saul announces that he will one day design septic tanks for playgrounds.

Hiding in the woods, Saul insists he had two ideas for where to go: "Nowhere" and which sandwich chain?

Quiznos is Saul's comeback after he calls the woods scary and Dale snaps that at least he had an idea, while Saul had none.

Why does Red tell Dale he has no hair under his arms?

It makes him aerodynamic in a fight, Red insists, offering his bare armpits as proof that he can handle danger when Dale tries to keep him out of trouble.

In meteorology, what is a Pineapple Express?

An atmospheric river from Hawaii carries tropical moisture to North America's west coast, where it can unload torrential rain and heavy mountain snow.

Urging Red to act heroically, Dale says a brave man is reborn as an eagle, a dragon or which actor?

Jude Law caps Dale's pep talk on reincarnation: live like a jerk and you return as a cockroach, act the hero and you return as something glorious. Red picks the dragon.

During the police-car chase in Pineapple Express, what does Saul kick his leg through?

The windshield: driving blind with the wipers dead, Saul kicks at it on Dale's advice, gets his leg stuck in the glass, and later brags to Red about it.

Who picks up the battered trio at a diner at the end of Pineapple Express and drives them to hospital?

Saul's grandmother, his beloved "bubbe", is the reason he deals at all: he says he only started selling pot to put her in a nice retirement home.

Saul says smoking rare Pineapple Express is almost a shame, like killing a unicorn with what?

A bomb, he adds after a pause: "It's like killing a unicorn... with, like, a bomb." It is his pitch to Dale for what he calls the rarest weed known to mankind.

A sneak peek of Pineapple Express was attached to the DVD of which earlier Rogen film?

Superbad, from the same writers and producer, reached DVD in December 2007, and the disc carried a first look eight months before the new film opened.

In the Pineapple Express prologue, Private Miller says the drug makes him feel like what?

Butter melting on flapjacks is how he feels at first; his stoned tirade against the army then gets the experiment shut down and the drug declared illegal.

What does Red call the water pipe Saul asks for before they get high at his house?

Bong Mitzvah is Red's name for the bong Saul got in Tel Aviv; Saul, sure the danger has passed, wants to get "super-duper high", unaware that Red has already sold him out to Ted's men.

Citing his Buddhism, the badly wounded Red tells Dale he is just like which animal?

A hermit crab, he says, moving from one shell to the next; Dale warns that a bad life earns a worse shell, and Red agrees to help after all.