Clerks Is 30! Take a Look Back at Every Kevin Smith Movie Featuring Jay and Silent Bob
Thirty years ago, director Kevin Smith introduced the world to a pair of New Jersey oddballs known as Jay and Silent Bob in his 1994 debut feature film, Clerks.
The award-winning film became an instant cult classic and launched Smith’s “View Askewniverse,” his loosely connected cinematic universe centered on slacker characters based in and around Monmouth County, New Jersey. While Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jason Lee, Joey Lauren Adams, Eliza Dushku and Rosario Dawson have all been mainstays of the Askewniverse, appearing in various roles in Smith’s films, only Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) have appeared in all nine entries — plus a short-lived animated TV series.
On the 30th anniversary of Clerks’ release, take a look back at Jay and Silent Bob’s three-decade-long journey through the Askewniverse.
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‘Clerks’ (1994)
Jay and Silent Bob first appeared in 1994’s Clerks. The black-and-white indie film depicts a day in the life of Dante and Randal (Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson), two New Jersey convenience store workers whose many shenanigans include dealing with the boisterous and crude Jay and his more subdued, largely nonverbal sidekick, Bob. The two characters spend the film loitering outside the shop, dealing drugs and shoplifting, before Bob breaks his silence to impart some of his signature wisdom.
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‘Mallrats’ (1995)
Set the day before the events of Clerks, 1995’s Mallrats finds Jay and Silent Bob hanging out at a New Jersey mall. The characters are enlisted by Jason Lee’s Brodie and Jeremy London’s T.S. to sabotage a local game show that’s filming at the mall in a ploy to win back their ex-girlfriends (Shannen Doherty and Claire Forlani).
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‘Chasing Amy’ (1997)
While its sexual politics haven’t aged super well, 1997’s Independent Spirit Award-winning Chasing Amy remains the most poignant entry in Smith’s Askewniverse canon. The film centers on comic book artist Holden (Ben Affleck), who falls for a queer woman, Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams), only to have his own insecurities sabotage their relationship. Jay and Silent Bob appear in a cameo, in which Holden pays them for the right to use their likenesses in his indie comics and describes what’s going on between him and Alyssa. This leads Bob to deliver his most moving monologue across all of the nine films in which he and Jay appear.
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‘Dogma’ (1999)
Jay and Silent Bob were back in much bigger roles in Smith’s 1999 apocalyptic comedy Dogma. After being mistaken for prophets, the bumbling duo embark on a quest to help a lapsed Catholic abortion clinic worker (Linda Fiorentino) prevent the end of all creation by stopping two fallen angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) from entering a New Jersey church.
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‘Clerks: The Animated Series’ (2000)
The Askewniverse expanded to TV in 2000 with ABC’s short-lived Clerks: The Animated Series, and Jay and Silent Bob (voiced by Smith and Mewes) were along for the ride.
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‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’ (2001)
In 2001, Jay and Silent Bob took center stage in Smith’s first movie built entirely around them. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back finds the duo revisiting several Askewniverse alumni — including O’Halloran and Anderson’s characters from Clerks and Lee’s Brodie from Mallrats — before discovering that Affleck and Lee’s characters from Chasing Amy have sold the movie rights to their comic book alter egos “Bluntman and Chronic” to Miramax. Jay and Silent Bob then set out on a wild quest to make sure the movie never gets made.
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‘Clerks II’ (2006)
A more direct sequel to 1994’s Clerks, Clerks II finds O’Halloran and Anderson’s characters Dante and Randal working at a fast-food restaurant after their convenience store burns down. Fresh out of rehab and now apparently devout Christians, a sober Jay and Silent Bob continue to deal drugs outside the restaurant — as they did outside the shop in the first movie. Needless to say, hijinks ensue.
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‘Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie!’ (2013)
In this 2013 animated feature, Jay and Silent Bob (once again voiced by Mewes and Smith) win the lottery and use their newfound fortune to become superheroes, adopting their “Bluntman and Chronic” comic book alter egos introduced in Chasing Amy.
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‘Jay and Silent Bob Reboot’ (2019)
Jay and Silent Bob’s next-live action adventure finds them once again on a mission to stop yet another Bluntman and Chronic movie from being made. Like their 2001 film, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot features appearances by many familiar Askewniverse characters, including Mallrats’ Brodie (Lee), Clerks’ Dante (O’Halloran) and Chasing Amy’s Holden and Alyssa (Affleck and Adams).
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‘Clerks III’ (2022)
For the third Clerks film, Smith went extra meta. The movie finds Dante and Randal (O’Halloran and Anderson), now owners of the Quick Stop convenience store, trying make a movie about their own lives. The duo cast Jay and Silent Bob to play themselves, with Bob having the novel idea to shoot the film in black-and-white — just like the original Clerks.
Source: People
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