There is a lengthy argument in the new comedy “Super Troopers 2” about who, exactly, Danny DeVito is. A confused Canadian insists he’s the guy from “Taxi” — NOT the guy from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Or that other guy who played the Penguin in “Batman Returns.”

This scene turns out to be a friendly tweak on the actor from director Jay Chandrasekhar. “Danny DeVito was an executive producer on the first ‘Super Troopers,’” Chandrasekhar says. “I write him two sizable [royalty] checks a year. I ran into him once and said, ‘Hey, Mr. DeVito — I directed ‘Super Troopers.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I’m involved with that film. It’s on my list of films to see.’ I was like, ‘This motherf – – ker hasn’t seen it?’

“I told the other guys this story while we were sharing a joint outside our hotel while making [‘Super Troopers 2’], and they said, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if the mounties [in the movie] didn’t know who Danny DeVito is?’”

“Super Troopers 2” arrives nearly two decades after the original, a 2001 cult stoner comedy about bumbling Vermont cops (Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske). In the first movie’s best-known scene, a motorist (Jim Gaffigan) is pulled over by two troopers, who have a bet going about how many times one of them can casually work a meow into the conversation with the guy. Gaffigan, naturally, returns for the sequel.

“Jim’s career in stand-up kinda coincided with the release of our first film,” Chandrasekhar says. “He still gets people yelling ‘Meow’ from the audience.”

“Super Troopers,” which received withering reviews upon release, gained notoriety on home video as word of mouth got around about its truly oddball comedy. “It was probably about two years later when we started to realize something big was going on,” Chandrasekhar, now 50, says.

He attributes the film’s often absurdist tone to the closeness of its core cast, who met at Colgate University in 1990 and formed the comedy troupe Broken Lizard. “We spend time together, often in bars, and we’ll meet strange people and we start riffing on them. They become inside jokes. And then we say, how do you get this joke in the movie? So what audiences are seeing are these private jokes in a superbroad comedy.”

It’s no coincidence that the Indiegogo-funded “Super Troopers 2” is out on the stoner holiday April 20 (“420” being a code of sorts for smoking pot). Chandrasekhar even says that aspiring screenwriters should consider weed as a source of inspiration.

“I would strongly recommend it,” he says. “It makes you look at things a little differently. You can’t write scripts high, but what you can do is write a story and structure while sober, then write jokes high. But you have to set ’em up. All jokes need a great setup.”

“Super Troopers 2” is in theaters meow.

Warning: Graphic language