PASADENA, Calif. -- New Jersey filmmaker Kevin Smith and his Red Bank posse strolled into the Television Critics
Association press tour, bringing a bit of a wiseacre attitude with them.
The purpose was to promote the animated ABC series "Clerks," based on Smith's 1994 comedy about hyper-verbal
convenience store staffers in Leonardo. But Smith and his cohorts -- "Clerks" actors Brian O'Halloran and Jason Mewes,
producer Scott Mosier and co-creator David Mandel, formerly a "Seinfeld" writer -- didn't give the project the hard sell.
Mostly they just kidded around.
"We're the replacement for 'The View,'" O'Halloran said. "We thought young men needed a little talk show of their
own."
Asked about the visual style of the animated cartoon -- which wasn't ready for preview and probably won't debut until
March -- Smith went off on a tangent about "the history of the project."
At first, he said, "ABC approached us and asked us if we wanted to do a game show, and they pitched this crazy, stupid
notion of Regis (Philbin) hosting a game show. And we were like, 'That will never fly.' So we pitched our version, which
was Kathie Lee (Gifford) hosting a game show, something to the effect of 'Guess How Many Sweatshops She's
Operating Now?' And they wouldn't go for that. So we said, 'Well, can we do a cartoon?'"
The result is an animated continuation of the adventures of Dante and Randal, the minimum wage workers of "Clerks,"
and their supporting cast of Garden State eccentrics. The absurdist, amazingly profane comedy made a fairly paltry
amount in theaters -- around $3 million in North America. But it had a huge afterlife on videotape and has become a
cult classic with the under-30 set.
That made the prospect of a cartoon spin-off enticing to ABC, a subsidiary of Disney; Disney also owns the boutique
mini-studio Miramax, which distributed "Clerks" and most of Smith's other movies.
Smith and Mandel said the TV version of "Clerks" would necessarily cut down on the film's profanity, raunch and drug
references. But they said the animated format would compensate by allowing more room for flights of fancy.
Alec Baldwin will provide the voice of the town's resident evil millionaire (". . . a blatant homage to Mr. Burns on 'The
Simpsons,'" Smith conceded). Guest voices will include Gwyneth Paltrow, James Woods, Charles Barkley, Judge
Reinhold and, for some reason, Chris Rock as the voice of a cartoon Patrick Swayze.
"Rock won't imitate Swayze," Smith explained. "You're just gonna see a cartoon Patrick Swayze and the voice coming
out of it will be Chris Rock's."
There will be superhero fantasies, outlandish plots and parodies of halfhearted public service announcements, a la the
Saturday morning cartoons of the '70s and '80s. In one episode, Randal will slip in the convenience store and sue
Dante and the owners; the episode will conclude not with a trial verdict, but a self-contained variety program done in
the style of a Japanese anime cartoon.
Smith says if the show fails, he won't be stung. There's a "Clerks 2" movie in the works, and he and his co-creators will
be able to take solace in the fact that they reached a network audience, whatever its size.
"We've never done big box-office business with any movies," Smith said. "The first episode is guaranteed to have the
biggest audience of anything we've ever done."
What's Happenin'
