Kevin Smith Reveals Project He Considers “Funniest Thing” He’s “Ever Been Involved With”

Considering Kevin Smith’s movies and other work, there’s a lot to laugh about. Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, and Zack and Miri Make a Porno only scratch the surface of his comedy work (even his non-comedies like Red State and Tusk are still pretty funny). Speaking on the latest episode of his FatMan Beyond podcast, Kevin Smith revealed the project he’s been involved with that he thinks was the funniest, and you may not guess what it was. Here’s a hint, Smith recently screened it at his Smodcastle Cinemas movie theater…and it wasn’t a movie. According to Silent Bob himself, Clerks: The Animated Series is the funniest thing that he’s ever worked on.

“You know the Clerks cartoon we made six ABC air two and then canceled it and then they put it out on a DVD um years ago called like Clerks The Cartoon Uncensored or something like that,” Smith said on his podcast. “But I’ve never watched it with a bunch of people and so we had 230 people packed in watching it. That show was funny man. Honestly, pound for pound, minute for minute, the funniest thing I’ve ever been involved with. Of the stuff I’ve made, my movies aren’t nearly as funny as the Clerks cartoon because the Clerks cartoon was like not just me. Generally it’s always just me writing my flicks, but the Clerks cartoon there was me and Dave Mandel, Scott Mosier, Brian Kelley, who went on to write for for The Simpsons. Steve Lookner, Paul Dini wrote an episode so like the oke per minute ratio is really high so it was playing like through the roof. It was awesome.”

Like Kevin Smith noted, the Clerks cartoon was previously an un-viewable chapter of the Viewaskewniverse. The animated show brought back the cast from the original movie, including Brian O’Halloran as Dante Hicks, Jeff Anderson as Randal Graves, Jason Mewes as Jay, and Kevin Smith as Silent Bob; but also brought in some newcomers including Alec Baldwin as Leonardo Leonardo, Charles Barkley as Himself, Gwyneth Paltrow as Herself, plus voices by Bryan Cranston, Michael McKean, and Kevin McDonald. 

Clerks: The Animated Series made its TV debut in 2000, arriving years before Clerks II would even become a reality. Some of the events of the cartoon were set to be referenced in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but no acknowledgement of what happened ever really popped up in the live-action Kevin Smith movies. Clerks III however would make Clerks: The Animated Series canon by bringing one of its characters into live-action.