When the world last heard of Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff
Anderson) back in 1994 they were still twenty-something slackers, each
respectively working at the Quick Stop Grocery and video rental store
somewhere in Leonardo New Jersey. While Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob
(Kevin Smith) went to become movie stars in such diverse and Academy
Award-winning blockbuster films like "Mallrats" (1995), "Chasing Amy" (1996)
and "Dogma" (1999), Dante and Randal's fortunes seem to have been left
hanging behind the Quick Stop's counter. Fortunately these two somehow
struck a deal with the devil (Attorney General John Ashcroft) that made them
make-believe animated characters (like U2's Bono) in a bonafide prime-time TV
show that would air on a national network (the 'Anonymous Broadcasting C
onsortium', or 'ABC' for short) that values the prestige of its 20+ year-old
late-night news program over the bottom line...etc., yadda, etc., yadda.
The above fable about life in a phony make-believe world in which the good
guys never finish last and God smiles upon America's working-class has been
brought to you by The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints. It's
also the sad make-believe background behind the demise of the animated TV
series based on "Clerks". Available on DVD since last year, "Clerks:
Uncensored" comes across as a labor of creative love, like someone's smart
but abused and battered child crying really loud to get the attention it
deserves and never got. Hard work and lots of effort from writer/director
Kevin Smith and a crew of talented writers, animators and voice-over actors
went into getting a look and rebellious sense of humor that would fit the
censored standards of a prime-time network TV cartoon. Lack of promotion and
a clash of culture with 'The Network' that pledged to support the show
conspired to get "Clerks: The Animated Series" canceled after only two
heavily-edited and out-of-sequence episodes aired in the summer of 2000.
Enter the Drag... I mean, Enter the DVD format to the rescue! These two
episodes, along with four finished but never-before-seen episodes and a
truckload of other DVD-exclusive goodies, have been repackaged by Smith's
View Askew production company and Miramax into a two-disc DVD set that now
goes by the name "Clerks: Uncensored". Since only two of six episodes ever
aired on 'ABC' (not the one you're thinking of; remember, it's the 'Anonymous
Broadcasting Consortium' :-P), more than 70% of the content in this anthology
of loosely-connected episodes hasn't been seen by anyone. These six episodes
start with the weakest link in the series (Episode 1, 'The Pilot') trying to
set-up the cartoon for those viewers that haven't been indoctrinated into the
"Clerks" universe; they conclude with the strongest and funniest installment
of the bunch (Episode 6, which is ironically called 'The Last Episode Ever')
paying an homage to the very b&w low-budget movie that started the ball
rolling for View Askew's warped take on pop-culture back in '94.
I'd love to print for you the names of the other wonderful episodes
in-between these two, but that's part of the warped universe in this series:
the names are too damn long to type, and some even give away the plot and
final resolution of the conflicts! Are you laughing already? "Clerks:
Uncensored" mirrored the movie's focus on Dante as an everyday slacker with a
tortured soul, and always being driven to extremes of craziness by his best
friend Randal. It used that chemistry, along with expanded cameo
performances by Jay and Silent Bob (who aren't shown dealing drugs in this
sanitized network TV universe), to build one crazy situation after another:
competition against a demented villain called Leonardo! Leonardo! (a
Bond-like villain with an assistant that looks like "Goldfinger's" Odd Job
but speaks intelligently and had a heart), an outbreak of a virus due to
rotten food being served to Quick Stop customers, a Little League-like
baseball team of 'handicapable' children (!) saving small indian children and
Randal (?) from being prisoners in a "Temple of Doom"-like palace, and so on
and so forth.
Did I also mention that the funniest parodies I've ever seen
written/drawn/performed anywhere about Japanese anime, "The Matrix", "Beverly
Hills Cop", "The Bad News Bears", legal TV dramas (like TV's "Law & Order"),
"The Last Starfighter" and a lot of other stuff can also be found within the
136 min. running time of "Clerks: Uncensored"? And that the show pokes fun
at such animation conventions as the 'flashback episode', the appearance of
the town's mayor and the morally-uplifting lesson of the day tag at the end
of children's shows? And that some of the stars appearing as either
themselves or someone else include Alec Baldwin, Gweneth Paltrow, Julia
Sweeney, Charles Barkley, Al Franken, Judge Reinhold, James Woods, Dan
Patrick and Mario Joyner? These six episodes are too small a sample to know
if this was a show meant for greatness or a flashy newcomer, but the amount
of laughs-per-minute and creative lunacy in "Clerks: Uncensored" definitely
deserves more than the meager attention it originally received. On creative
merits alone "Clerks: Uncensored" deserves to mentioned along with other
misunderstood TV classics like "Police Squad" (1982) and the Emmy-winning
"Ben Stiller Show" (1993), which also bombed their first time at bat on
network TV only to become cult hits.
Heck, even people who don't know s*** about the original "Clerks" that I've
shown these episodes to have been quoting lines and voices ever since they
were exposed to them by yours truly. It's always a good sign when a
particular 'something' makes someone who isn't a particular fan of that
'something' appreciate and like it, the same way Sony's "Hot Shots Golf"
PSOne series made me (and many others) fans of videogame golf. "Clerks:
Uncensored" is as funny and crazy as anything "The Simpsons", "Family Guy" or
"Futurama" have done during their respective runs. It made me appreciate the
original b&w film in a way I hadn't felt before, especially in the way it
uses the animation medium to take the low-budget charm of the movie to
unbelievable heights of creative genius. More than all the tech specs,
DVD-ROM links, commentary insults and Animatics packed in this two-disc set,
"Clerks: Uncensored" is worth checking just because it's a very funny network
TV show that still manages to earn an 'R' rating (for sexual humor) despite
not using foul language or nudity. You will be offended by something
somewhere in these two discs, but the ten or twelve laughs around that
offensive stuff will more than compensate for whatever politically correct
bones in your body Kevin Smith and his merry band of mischief makers break
with their persistence to offend.
The Disc:
Shown in its intended TV aspect ratio of 1:33:1, "Clerks: Uncensored" looks
about as brand-new and damage-free as material that never saw the light of
day after it left the editing suite in which it was put together will ever
look (which is the case for four of the six episodes). There are zero
instances of compression artifacts, grain, dirt or anything less than a
well-drawn and eye-catching animated picture playing in front of the viewer
at all times. The FMV introductions by Mewes (as Jay) and Smith (as Silent
Bob) to every episode seem to have been shot with overexposed camera filters
and reflective lighting, which gives these intros a washed-out and dull look
that's an odd contrast to the sharpness of the animation in the shows.
"Clerks: Uncensored" also has a clean and clutter-free interface with
exclusive hand-drawn stills (of which only the main menu screen animates) and
easy-to-read options that the viewer choose which episode to watch and how to
watch/listen to it (more on that later).
The audio is standard network TV fare, offering a serviceable Dolby 2.0
Surround track that's so new and clean that I was able to hear many
individual lines spoken by the characters start and stop on the master
recording (particularly Jeff Anderson's peculiar little laugh for Randal). I
really dig James L. Venable's title theme and many eclectic music cues (i.e.
ripoffs of better scores) for "Clerks: Uncensored", which I hope View Askew
retains for any future projects involving the "Clerks" license. Sound
effects, music and the hilarious rapid-fire dialogue are properly mixed and
sound good-enough to make me forget my 5.1 Surround set-up isn't being forced
by any "Clerks" media property to work at all. There are also English
captions for the Hearing Impaired, which are ideal to read the dialogue while
the View Askew recording session is played back on track 2. Speaking of
which...
... a feature-length commentary track throughout all six episodes by
executive producer Kevin Smith, producers Scott Mosier & Chris Bailey, series
co-creator David Mandel and actors Brian O'Halloran (Dante), Jason Mewes
(Jay) and the first appearance in a View Askew DVD commentary by Jeff
Anderson (Randal) highlight the Special Features section of both discs.
Second only to "Mallrats" in the annals of legendary View Askew commentaries,
which never take themselves seriously-enough to be boring or predictable, the
cast/crew don't mince words or hold back anything on their minds except for
the name of 'The Network' and executives that killed the series (for obvious
legal reasons). The bulk of the interesting anecdotes, jokes, complaints and
behind-the-scenes stories (particularly about Korean animation mistakes and '
ABC' executives) are told by David Mandel and Kevin Smith, who at one point
refers to an 'ABC' executive that he dislikes as an 'animal child rapist'
(sweet Jesus!). Everyone gets to throw their own arrows and thoughts about
the birth, agonizing struggle to get on the air and sudden demise of the
show, to great comedic and cathartic effect. The absence of Vincent Pereira
(my favorite contributor to View Askew commentaries), along with the bashing
by Mandel and Smith of "Family Guy" and "Sports Night" (two shows I
personally dig), are the only reasons why I can't rank this commentary higher
than the perfect looseness and hilarious antics of the "Mallrats" DVD
commentary. Still, second-best ain't bad considering the high standards in
the View Askew DVD universe.
The color palette and distinctive comic book style of "Clerks" Uncensored"
has unusually hard black edges around the characters, which purposefully
makes the animation look different than other animated shows while also being
stylish. Character Development (10:19) and The Clerks Styles (3:37) are two
featurettes in which the creators of the show explain over a video montage of
work-in-progress sketches/drawings how hard it was getting the animated look
of Dante, Randal, Jay, Silent Bob and the other recurring characters to match
their real-life movie counterparts and/or personalities. Comic book fans
will be in awe at the amount of talent on display in the sketches and
drawings shown here, since even the discarded material that Smith & Co. chose
not to use for the TV show looks edgy and cool (this coming from yours truly,
a guy who doesn't like or read any comic books whatsoever). A thirty-second
spot that 'ABC' used to promote the show during the Super Bowl is here, along
with an uncensored two-minute trailer shown at film festivals to promote the
show. There's also a Sneak Peaks section with theatrical trailers for
"Clerks", "Chasing Amy", "Princess Mononoke" and "A Hard Day's Night".
The featurettes, TV spots, Jay and Silent Bob intros as well as Animatics of
the entire 22 min. run for each episode appear on each disc. Animatics are
finished storyboards of the drawings used to pace a show before it's sent
overseas to be drawn and colored, and "Clerks: Uncensored" allows those that
want to to watch (a) each episode with normal picture and sound, (b) each
episode shown in unfinished Animatics with normal sound, (c) each episode
with normal sound and commentary or (d) each episode shown in unfinished
Animatics with commentary. Toss the DVD's into a computer with a DVD-ROM
drive though, and the viewer can watch the actual show, the Animatics, a
running copy of each episode's script (with plenty of funny gags that didn't
make it into the finished show) and the choice of normal sound or commentary.
This ability to see/watch a cartoon unfold from concept drawing to finished
product will be heaven for people even remotely interested in animation, and
will be on many people's wish list for future Disney and animated feature
releases (why can't Fox put the same effort into its "Simpsons" boxed sets?).
The DVD-ROM features also include web links to View Askew and Miramax
properties, as well as profiles for the characters in the animated series.
bottom line:
This show is to animated network comedies what "Police Squad" was to network
sitcoms back in the 80's and "The Ben Stiller Show" was to variety shows back
in the 90's: a breath of fresh and underappreciated air. The DVD production
values are through the roof with these six episodes (the commentary alone is
worth the $20 asking price), and even the DVD-ROM content is worth looking
at. Until the "Futurama" and "Simpsons" boxed sets start hitting the DVD
shelves more regularly, there is no better way to get a quick fix of
politically incorrect animated humor than "Clerks: Uncensored".
By - J.M. Vargas
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