How About That Thing?

I’m just going to cut to the chase: Kevin Smith is my hero. In fact, he’s probably one of the extremely few heroes I have left in this world. Most of my other heroes are either dead, or they got #MeToo’d, or they just can’t seem to resist the urge to poke the bear to the point where even an edgelord like me doesn’t hink it’s funny anymore. Seriously, Dave, take the hint!

But Kevin Smith? That dude is practically the same guy I knew back in high school. The only thing that’s changed, near as I can tell, is he’s gotten a lot skinnier over the last few years. And after a heart attack with a twenty-percent chance of surviving, you’d probably want to start watching your weight too. Maybe.

Kevin Smith is the indie guy, from back when indie actually MEANT something other than I can play the ukulele and sound like a mumbly douche who turned the reverb up too high. He made a movie that could’ve effortlessly ruined him financially… And yet, it ended up becoming his gateway into infamy.

Then, around 2007 or so, he sold out, and started making movies like Cop Out.

Then, around the 2010s, he went indie again. This era of Smith gave us such films as Red State, and Tusk. Although it also gave us Yoga Hosers, but hey, two out of three isn’t bad. Right?

Then, he committed the greatest sin imaginable, and worked on a He-Man remake where a super obscure character that only the most hopeless basement dweller would ever remember was made into… Gasp… A BLACK GUY! OH HORROR!

“You wouldn’t be making jokes if it were YOUR childhood they were fucking with, asswipe!”

Yeah yeah, whatever.

Look, I admit He-Man was never my can of Pepsi. Hell, if Kevin Smith was never involved, I probably would’ve never even bothered. Honestly, as someone who thinks He-man is a glorified thirty-minute toy commercial, Masters of the Universe: Revelations was surprisingly good. At least, I liked it. I liked it a lot more than I thought I was going to, that’s for sure.

And yes, I shit on the basement dwellers, knowing full well I used to be one of them, and occasionally still have a meltdown over shit like the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie…

I’m pretty sure I was talking about something else a minute ago. [reads previous paragraphs] Oh, RIGHT!

Suffice to say, Kevin Smith has had an interesting career that’s full of ups, downs, more ups, and more downs… I think someone said he’s currently on his fourth wind with Clerks 3 and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, but I guess a lot of that depends on how you felt about Yoga Hosers. Even at his worst, though, I can’t bring myself to hate the guy even a little.

Kevin Smith was the guy I looked at in high school, and said: “Dude, I want to be that guy when I grow up.” Maybe not the film maker aspect, so much, but rather, just the chill dude who can find true beauty in things like The Phantom Menace of all things. The kind of dude who seemed to be unphased by anything and everything. The kind of guy who could make a monumental dud like Jersey Girl, and say “Well, that didn’t work”, and move on like it was no big deal.

I first discovered Kevin Smith through his then most recent film, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. There were multiple mistakes made in that moment.

Starting your journey into The Askewniverse with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is like starting Lord of the Rings two-thirds of the way into The Two Towers. IE, not a good idea. Smith himself had described Strike Back as a valentine to the fans, which basically meant there was a lot of insider humor newbies weren’t in on. IE, the obsession with the number 37.

It also didn’t help matters that the first time I watched Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, I was watching it with my dad. Much as I wanted to laugh at the jokes I DID get, I could feel the disapproval of my father radiate through the living room as we watched. Suffice to say, he didn’t think it was funny. And I think a lot of the reason I initially didn’t think it was funny myself was because of that imprint my father’s opinion left on the room as a whole. Which, upon retrospect, is actually kind of hilarious, because I remember a lot of things I liked were things he hated. IE, Norwegian black metal, Family Guy (back when Seth and company weren’t phoning it in), Joe Cartoon, etc.

Then, one fateful late night, watching reruns of shows like Duckman and The Critic on Comedy Central, I discovered the majesty of Clerks: The Animated Series.

To be fair, it didn’t click right away that this was a Kevin Smith show until Jay and Silent Bob showed up some time in to the episode. I thought I recognized those two from somewhere… And then, it clicked. This was the same guy!

Maybe it was because the animated series was toned down significantly compared to Smith’s other work. The usual profanity that filled a Kevin Smith project was gone, and Jay and Silent Bob were reduced to selling illegal fireworks instead of illegal substances. Hell, it aired on ABC for, like, a day before it got canceled early on. Maybe it was because I didn’t have my dad in the room reminding me that pot-heads weren’t people you wanted to idolize. Hell, maybe something just clicked in my head from that moment on. Whatever it was, I ended up loving this series, and when it disappeared from the lineup, I immediately ran to Amazon to get the DVD boxset.

The boxset definitely comes from yee olden days of DVD. For starters, only three episodes fit on one disk. Either because both disks had a shit ton of extras, or because they hadn’t figured out how this whole DVD thing worked. Hell, I have a boxset wher each disk has eight episodes, and it STILL has some bonus features. But I digress.

Such DVD extras include Director’s commentary that you’ll probably only listen to once, and movie trailers for other Kevin Smith movies that, at the time, were news to me.

The boxset also claims to be an uncensored version of the series… But in reality, that only applies to one episode. Apparently, a cutaway gag featuring a Flintstones styled version of Schindler’s List was considered in bad taste, and was editted out of the TV airing. Modern day keyboard warriors would probably be surprised to hear that THIS was the line, considering how much homophobic humor, and how “the R word” gets thrown around… But considerin this came out in 2000 on the dot, it’s pretty much par for the course.

Of course, if you REALLY want something that’ll make you cringe, Harvey Weinstein was somewhat involved in the production of this show. Yeah, a lot of us outsiders really didn’t know what kind of sick pervert he truly was back in those days, and knowing what you know now, even so much as having a mention in the credits might be enough to have some people cringe away in disgust.

In other words… Yeah, this product might not have aged especially well. Especially if you want to look good in front of your fellow rainbow flag waving friends on X… Or I guess they all moved to Bluesky… But I digress.

Honestly, despite all that, I still love this show. Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s loyalty to one of my childhood heroes, Or maybe, just maybe, the show is actually pretty funny even today! Who can say.

The one thing I know for sure is that this show was my gateway into The Askewniverse. To this very day, I still have that DVD boxset in my collection. I’ll even break them out and watch them from time to time. Partly because, as of this writing anyway, nobody streams them. But also because of all the live action intros between episodes featuring the real life Jay and Silent Bob.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, despite some people’s opinion of it being a time capsule of everything wrong with the 2000s, I still say you should check it out when you get a chance.