Tommy Chong is one of the biggest cannabis icons of all time, but before the 'Cheech and Chong' movies turned him into a stoner comedy legend, Chong was just another lightweight in Arnold Schwarzenegger's smoking circle.

"When I smoked with Arnold, Dave Draper and all these muscle-heads would come around, and they got a big bong," Chong recalled in a recent interview with Joe Rogan. "Thing was, they put like an ounce in the bowl. Then they'd fire it up, and they'd suck on it so hard, whoever exploded the bowl into the water—if you made it explode, you were the hero. So all the muscle-heads are taking a big hit. Arnold takes a big hit, the thing explodes. Then they handed it to me," he recalled with chagrin because his hit wasn't as impressive as the bodybuilders' toking skills.

"They just looked at me like, 'Yeah, okay, go sit over there somewhere.'"

Back then, Arnold was not only a bigger but also a more noteworthy cannabis consumer than Chong. Not only did Schwarzenegger enjoy bong hits after workouts, but he also smoked a joint on camera during a shoot for 'Pumping Iron' (1977), which came out one year before the debut of Cheech and Chong's 'Up in Smoke.' 

But that stunt alone wasn't enough to cement Schwarzenegger as a cannabis icon, and Chong soon eclipsed Arnold's notoriety among the subculture. 

Check out Chong's full interview with Rogan in the clip below.