The 1994 indie classic Clerks from writer and director Kevin Smith is a straightforward flick. A really chill hangout movie, it focuses on Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson), two 20-something Gen X'ers on a normal work day in retail. The movie doesn't utilize a standard three-act structure because it doesn't need to. Instead, it's divided into bite-sized chapters, and it only ends when they clock out. The simplicity of the movie isn't a bad thing; it's what makes it magical and why it still resonates nearly three decades later.

After the original film screened in New York, it was noticed by producer Bob Hawk, which eventually led to the film being purchased and distributed by then-Disney subsidiary, Miramax. At the time, Miramax was the company that distributed and funded a lot of classic indies, and with it being owned by Disney, this of course meant they wanted to look at these movies and directors as franchise starters.

Clerks Lamentation

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The powers that be assumed that since Clerks has such a universal and basic premise, it was prime for a TV adaptation. They were absolutely correct, because Clerks is an American pop culture landmark, and the original movie was even put in the Library of Congress National Film Registry back in 2019 for being culturally significant. The film spawned an entire cinematic universe over a decade before Marvel made it cool, and it spawned two direct sequels, with Clerks III coming out this September, multiple spin-offs, comics, and more. And it did eventually have a TV show that became beloved, but it took more than one attempt.

The 'Clerks' Sitcom Never Moved Beyond a Pilot Episode

The first attempt at a TV show was a standard live-action sitcom about Dante and Randal, now played by Andrew Lowery and Jim Breuer, respectively, working in a strip mall. Dante spends the episode feeling pressured to move on with his life while Randal is more focused on messing with customers. Dante is also having relationship problems with his girlfriend Veronica (Noelle Parker), which largely stem from his insecurities, like the movie. It has the same foundation as the original movie, just with a few more characters sprinkled in.

Clerks TV pilot

While the pilot never went to series, it was leaked online 20 years later and can now be watched in full on YouTube, preventing this odd little time capsule from the mid-'90s from being lost forever. What is most noticeable about this pilot, at first, is that it's pretty bad. The punchlines aren't all that funny, the location doesn't feel as real as Quick Stop, and it comes across like any generic '90s sitcom with nothing really special going for it. This can largely be attributed to how the pilot was made.

As previously mentioned, the pilot was created in the first place to capitalize on Clerks as a brand. As is sadly the case for a lot of IPs that Disney buys, they pushed forward with this pilot without the involvement of anyone who created the source material. At the time the film was being made, Kevin Smith and the majority if the cast and crew of the original were off making Mallrats for Universal.

Not only was the pilot being pushed forward without any of their involvement, no one even knew about it until an agent slipped up. According to Brian O'Halloran, he found out during a meeting with a new agent who asked him if he was going to audition for the pilot. He ended up calling Smith shortly after to ask if he was involved, which is how the rest of the Clerks crew found out.

The very idea of a TV show piqued Smith's interest, and he wanted to join as a producer and writer, but the script he wrote was rejected. This led to he and his producer partner/future podcast co-host Scott Mosier to leave the project. O'Halloran and Anderson both auditioned for the show, but were rejected. It seemed like it was a mandate that the show could not share any significant ties with the original film, other than the character names and the brand name.

Is It Really 'Clerks' Without Jay and Silent Bob?

The original ending of 'Clerks' was re-shot by director Kevin Smith after investors told him it was too dark
Image via Miramax Films

The biggest mark the original team left on the show was the changing of a specific character. Because while Disney now owned Clerks, the characters of Jay and Silent Bob have always been owned by Kevin Smith exclusively, which is why they can appear in any of his projects regardless of movie studio and continue to be the faces of Smith's brand 30 years later.

Silent Bob never appeared in the pilot, but a version of Jay did. In the original film, both of these characters were the stoner drug dealers hanging out in front of the store. Drug dealers weren't exactly allowed on a network sitcom at the time, especially as leads, so Jay was recast as Bodhi Elfman and portrayed as a burnout. But due to Smith pointing out that he owns the character of Jay, the "Jay" on the show was renamed Ray. The episode has him trying to shoplift from Dante's store and is given none of the charm and magnetic personality that Jason Mewes always gives the role in the official material.

'Clerks' Sitcom Wasn't a Complete Failure, Though

To play devil's advocate for this show, it isn't a complete failure or even outright terrible. The producer and writer of the pilot was Richard Day, a veteran of sitcoms. Just to name a few projects from his pretty impressive filmography, he has worked on and written for Dinosaurs, Mad About You, and Arrested Development. It's not like he doesn't understand comedy, and the writing for the Clerks pilot actually does very accurately replicate the tone and pace of Smith's famously verbose dialogue. The back and forth of the characters feels very accurate. It's just that the words they're saying are very softball, obvious jokes. It's to the point where it feels like the script was made in an assembly line to replicate Saved by the Bell. This could even be blamed on the pilot just being a proof of concept to give off the tone and show the chemistry between the characters. Luckily, the pilot wasn't a complete waste of time and resources.

For starters, the pilot does feature Jim Breuer before he went on to become a cast member of Saturday Night Live for three seasons. This pilot was a nice testing ground for him that displays he can still be funny, and have excellent comedic timing, even if the material he's given isn't good. Keri Russell also appears in this show, before she became a staple in the works of J.J. Abrams. She does a good job in a very thankless role as the love interest of a secondary character.

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The biggest gain from the show, however, was the realization that Clerks could totally work as a TV show. Just a few years later, Smith teamed up with TV legend David Mandel to create Clerks: The Animated Series. Mandel is a creative force and is most well known for being the showrunner of Veep, so it is easy to see from that credit alone what made him such a perfect match with Smith. Smith was also able to repurpose the writing that was rejected for the live-action pilot in this project.

Unfortunately, ABC cancelled the show after only airing two episodes, but it went on to become a fan favorite. The early 2000s was the peak time for TV getting a second life in DVD sales, that being the reason why shows like Futurama and Family Guy got more seasons after initial cancelations. Clerks: The Animated Series never got that chance for revival like those shows, but it still has a cult fan base to this day and that's all thanks to the DVD sales.

The initial TV sitcom pilot remains a bit of an odd duck. It continues to live on in infamy over its legendary bad status on the internet. But when looking at it through a certain point of view, there's some charm to it. It's such a blatant rip-off of other '90s sitcoms that it gives the pilot a very strange, nostalgic aesthetic. It also helped further the careers of several actors and creatives, whether that was intentional or not. But mostly, it helped add more fuel to Clerks as a brand, showing that it still had life outside the original film. Somewhere deep down, this pilot must’ve been part of the spark behind the franchise still going strong to this day.

To see what's going on in the lives of Dante and Randal these days, check out Clerks III when it releases this September.