Clerks: Wow this show looks a lot like Fillmore!

10:30 AM · May 19, 2021 "disney watch really made me forget what adult shows were like."

Clerks is a lot like Madeline. One of those on the fence shows. It never actually aired on Disney, heaven forbid, but it was animated by the folks at DTVA, one of the primary companies in the Disney Watch. I think I figured if I was doing Wuzzles, I might as well do Clerks too.

It's also a little bit out of order. Clerks the Animated Series came out in the late 90s, but I held off until now. The reason for that is, I started this show right after finishing Fillmore!

Like take a look at Fillmore and Third vs Jay and Silent Bob.

They look like they're in the same show, don't they? The only real different is line thickness (which can vary from scene to scene in both shows). So I essentially felt like I was still in the Fillmore universe, but around adults.

Clerks the Animated Series is an interesting case. We've seen a lot of cartoons based off movies. Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, to name a few, all kid movies. And Clerks was... sill somewhat involved with Disney at the time (distribution rights were given to Miramax, which was owned by Disney in '94), so I guess that doesn't make it all that special.

And it's not like cartoons based off more adult films are uncommon. There's The Real Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, Beetlejuice. Clerks is probably one of the first adaptations that didn't age down anything about it, including swearing... And also slurs.

10:46 AM · May 19, 2021 "coming onto clerks after finishing fillmore is like. a little jarring. they have very similar styles. would vice principal jeff probst call me a queer to my face?"
10:33 AM · May 19, 2021 "kind of fucked up how one of the main characters is just like. actually homophobic"

It's a 90s stoner comedy. You sort of come to expect this thing.

Clerks is also the second shortest series on my list, with six episodes, only beaten out by Star Darlings with three, and I kind of see why. Surprisingly it's not the edgy humor thought! The thing about Clerks is it's actually pretty impressive. Some of the stories it tries to tell are great at being funny. But the way it goes about it is pretty experimental. The first episode, "Leonardo Leonardo Returns and Dante Has an Important Decision to Make" has some pretty goofy scene cuts and jokes that would make a typical person pretty angry as they don't really show what should be the high action points of the episode, opting for a more [scene cut] "we did it" response. I can respect that in some ways and I think it was used pretty well. Another example is the infamous second episode "The Clip show Wherein Dante and Randal are Locked in the Freezer and Remember Some of the Great Moments in Their Lives," which is a clip show entirely about the first episode. And it's funny, though the bit does get old after a while. That's likely more of the reason it got pulled, as that was the last episode to air (though the first episode didn't air at all? They aired the fourth for some reason instead.)

I hate using the word troll in a not-online, but I do think Kevin Smith kind of is one. It's evident in the Clerks cartoon that jokes were made to annoy people, and I think you can kind of see it in Kevin Smith's other works. I haven't seen Masters of the Universe: Revelation, but from what I know about it, that cartoon is a good example of what I mean. Everyone got so mad about Adam dying and Kevin Smith lying saying that the Master of the Universe reboot would be about He-Man. And it's like. I may not have seen anything this man has made other than 4 of 6 episodes of the Clerks cartoon, but man you kinda let yourself get suckered there.

Fun fact, the Clerks 3 trailer actually dropped the day I planned on making this blog post, but I don't know if I had anything else to say here. Wow It's Clerks! Here's a funny post about Clerks?! Like, I haven't seen the movie and don't plan to, so I don't really know what else I'd say.

3:07 PM · May 19, 2021 "also jay is kind of g"

I guess that.

Overall Rating for Clerks the Animated Series: C Tier