Hey folks, Harry here with a look from the Reaper upon Kevin Smith's lecture/stump at Amherst last night. There's not too much new here, but I have to say I am very curious about the Animated CLERKS series and from what I've heard... it should be quite a bit of fun. Although I wish ABC was holding the debut for the Fall Roll Out. SIgh... Oh well... Here ya go...
Kevin Smith gave a three hour lecture at UMASS Amherst this evening. Although he didn't let any earth shattering news out, we did get to see EPISODE TWO OF THE CLERKS TV SHOW! Kevin joked about not being supposed to show it, but then became very serious with his no camera/recording devices warning, telling the audience that he'd have no choice but to turn the video off if he saw anything being filmed.
The show is really, really funny, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. All I'll say is that the episode deals with Dante and Randall getting locked in a freezer. To give away any more would ruin the humor. The translation from R-rated humor to Disney-friendly is generally well done. Although there are several shocking words (none the "forbidden seven"), and sexual visual (and audio) jokes, it is a lot less crass than South Park.
It was quite a trip seeing Silent Bob the cartoon versus the man standing in front of us. Kevin also said that he felt "fucked" by ABC, who has set the show to premiere in the summer graveyard TV season.
Like I said, though, there wasn't much revealed news wise. A few topics covered:
Kevin's next project - which he didn't want to talk about. The audience shouted "Mallrats 2!" and "Clerks 2!". Kevin laughed them off, which was surprising because the View Askew website ran a brief bit last week about Kevin entertaining the possibility of a "Mallrats" sequel.
The Genesis of Jay and Silent Bob - Kevin talked quite a bit about Jason Mewes, calling him a "muse". Among the highlighs was Kevin talking about his first time hanging out with Jason (taking him to a comic convention), and, possibly the best of the evening, the story of how Jay lost his virginity.
Superman Lives - Kevin must have spoke about this for a good 25 minutes. He basically told the entire story of his involvement with Superman Reborn (as it was called at the time), and was pretty blunt about how stupid a man Peter Guber is, and how WB told him that they were more interested in making toys than having a strong film. Kevin's description of his script sounded so good, I have a hard time thinking anyone would come up with something better.
DOGMA DVD - Kevin confirmed that he recorded the DOGMA commentary this past weekend. He also confirmed that there will be a movie-only version day and date with VHS, and the special edition will be out in October. He stated right up front that that was "raping" the consumer, but that the decision wasn't his.
Kevin was very self depriciating and cute, and said the word "cock" about 75 times. It was a good time. And it was kind of cool to see how "Clerks" translated to an animated form - made me much more interested in the series than I was before.
Oh, and to anyone that was there this evening : It's all about the Donkey Punch.
--D.F. Reaper
