Clerks: The Animated Series
| Clerks: The Animated Series | |
|---|---|
| File:ClerksTitle.jpg Series title card featuring the main characters: Dante, Randal, Jay, and Silent Bob | |
| Created by | Kevin Smith Scott Mosier David Mandel |
| Starring | Brian O'Halloran Jeff Anderson Jason Mewes Kevin Smith Alec Baldwin Charles Barkley |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | 6 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 22 minutes per episode |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | May 31, 2000 – June 7, 2000 |
Clerks: The Animated Series (also simply Clerks) is an American cult animated television series based on Kevin Smith's 1994 film debut Clerks. It was developed for television by Smith, Smith's producer Scott Mosier and former Seinfeld writer David Mandel.
Plot
The main characters, Dante Hicks, Randal Graves, Jay and Silent Bob, as well as the setting and basic premise, are taken directly from the movie. The show differs from the movie in many ways, however, due to the additional freedom animation provides, as well as the language and content restrictions that broadcast TV demands. For example, the characters of Jay and Silent Bob were changed from drug dealers to mischief makers (selling fireworks instead of marijuana), and the profanity of the film (which was enough to initially achieve an NC-17 rating in the U.S.) is drastically toned down. The series also introduced a new villain, Leonardo Leonardo, after whom Leonardo, New Jersey is named, the town in which the series, and the film, takes place. Leonardo was voiced by Alec Baldwin.
The show has a pace quite different from the film (more in line, perhaps, with the frenetic pace of Smith films like Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), and the creators regularly play around with the medium, parodying different plot devices. For example, the second episode is a clip show, a common format for long running sit-coms where the characters reflect on previous events from the show and the majority of the show is archive footage. There is a long sequence of scenes — several of which are nested multiple levels into each other — that look back on previous episodes (and the episode itself), even though only a single episode had been produced before that one, and so most of the "clips" were actually original material created solely for the joke of the clips themselves.
As with the film, most of the characters are either cynically irresponsible or completely crazy, with Dante being the only really sympathetic "normal guy" around. As a result, Dante is usually the straight man to the hijinks of the other characters. Indeed, Dante seems to be the more intelligent one of the duo most of the time, in contrast to the film - the humor is essentially the same, but Randal's sarcasm, irony and witticisms are played as idiocy.
Besides the original voices of the film characters and Baldwin, the show sported an impressive list of guest performers. Gwyneth Paltrow, Charles Barkley (who appeared in five out of six episodes of the series, making him an unofficial cast member on the show), Grant Hill, Reggie Miller and Dan Patrick playing themselves as well as Gilbert Gottfried playing Patrick Swayze and Jerry Seinfeld, Michael McKean playing Professor Ram and The Creepy Guy, Kevin McDonald playing Batman Fan in Episode 6, Julia Sweeney playing the mom in Episode 6, Al Franken playing the Mayor of Leonardo, James Woods playing Major Baklava and Judge Reinhold playing a Judge version of himself. Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson voice Walt Grover the Fanboy and Steve-Dave Pulasti respectively, two characters they have repeatedly portrayed in Kevin Smith's films, in a number of episodes.
Clerks: The Animated Series on DVD
The show did make it to DVD, and it has proved to be much more popular than the show was when it aired on TV. It is sold in a 2 Disc collectors set called "Clerks Uncensored." It should be noted that the episodes themselves aren't as vulgar as an "uncensored" DVD is expected to be, other than the episode introductions that were edited into the beginning of each episode, starring Jay and Silent Bob.
Broadcast history
Only two episodes were aired on ABC in 2000 before the series was cancelled. [1] Several factors contributed to the cancellation, including low ratings, the show's not fitting in with ABC's other programming, unsuccessful test-screening to older audiences, and ABC's decision to air the shows out of order. ABC aired the fourth episode first, as opposed to the intended first episode, and then aired the second episode despite the fact that the second episode is the 'flashback' episode, and derives much of its humor from the fact that it flashes back almost exclusively to the first, unaired episode. In fact, the second episode aired without the scene from "Flintstone's List", the fictional RST Video rental that spoofed Schindler's List.
All six episodes were released on DVD (as well as VHS) in 2001, marking one of the first occasions in which a short-lived TV series found success in this format. The DVD commentary features cast and crew who frequently cite their disagreements with the network over the show's development. The entire series was eventually aired on Comedy Central in December 2002. In 2006 ITV4, a digital 'freeview' channel in the UK, began broadcasting episodes late on Monday nights.
Currently, an animated Clerks movie tentatively titled Clerks: Sell Out is in development, which is planned to start production in 2007. [2]
Several scenes filmed for but cut from the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (but included on the film's DVD release) contain metafictional moments when Randal makes references to the animated series, as well as its cancellation. On his DVD commentary for the film, Smith said the intent was to make the quick cancellation of the series a running gag.
Clerks: The Animated Series, was made by Touchstone Television.
Ideas for episodes that were never created
According to the DVD commentary, these were some ideas that were being considered for episodes of the show if it were to continue:
- Randal exploits Jay by making "snoogans" a catch phrase, leading to Jay becoming a recording artist.
- Randal buys KITT from Knight Rider at a used car lot. The car becomes jealous of Randal’s relationship with Dante and attempts to kill Dante and impersonate him at the store (a reference to Single White Female). He manages to trick everyone except Dante (and likely Silent Bob) with his thin disguise.
- Jay joins a boy band. Silent Bob is sad that Jay is gone, so Randal and Dante bring Bob in to work at the Quick Stop. He turns the store around and it becomes a great success. Silent Bob is given a piece of gum and says, "Mmm, Juicy Fruit," which shocks Dante and Randal (a reference to the Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).
- In what would have been the 7th or 8th episode, Dante and Randal would have added to their cast of friends a boy ward, named Robin, in a direct reference/parody of Batman's own "boy wonder", though like Lando, would probably not have been featured prominently.
- Briefly mentioned an episode idea where Ben Affleck would play the King of Canada
Episodes
External links
