They've long since cemented themselves as beloved pop culture icons, but what do we
really know about Jay and his longtime companion Silent Bob?
We've compiled an exhaustive timeline of the lives, loves, trials and good fortunes of
this foulmouthed dynamic duo.
If you're wondering where the story of Jay and Silent Bob begins, it might be best to
start with Genesis — the book of the Bible, not the band.
Yes, the biblical story of creation is canon within Kevin Smith's universe, and it's more
relevant than you might think.
As outlined in Dogma, the stories of the Bible hold literal sway in the View Askewniverse,
with Biblical figures — including God herself — showing up to influence the events of
the world — and also to kill people.
In the beginning, God created all that is, developed an unknowable plan for existence,
and looked suspiciously like Alanis Morissette.
While a lot of the events depicted in the holy texts are presented as subjective and
even misleading, turns out the story was, in broad strokes, pretty accurate.
"Is that a f---in' Bible?"
"Hey, the Holy f---in' Bible, son."
Why is this important?
Well, aside from answering man's most fundamental questions about nature, being, and the nature
of existence, it sets the stage nicely for two stoners to meet at a convenience store
in New Jersey in the 1970s.
The place?
The unincorporated community of Leonardo, New Jersey, just outside the Quick Stop.
The time?
The 1970s.
What is about to occur is nothing short of destiny.
"What the hell?
Excuse me, who's watching these babies?"
"The fat one's watching the little one."
Just like that, Jay and Silent Bob were united, hetero life-mates from the cradle to the grave.
Also, did you know Kevin Smith's daughter is playing baby Silent Bob?
It's her screen debut.
It's adorable.
That's right, savages, the second movie in the Askewniverse takes place before the first.
Here's how you can tell:
Most of Mallrats revolves around a dating game show, run by Michael Rooker's character
machiavellian Jared Svenning.
After tragedy strikes the original contestant, Svenning's daughter Brandi is forced to replace
her on the game show at the last minute.
“My dad’s asked me to help him with his new show.”
“What, like his assistant?”
“As a contestant.”
“You mean that dating game ripoff thing?!
That IS what you’re talking about here, right?”
The original contestant is named Julie Dwyer.
Wanting to look skinny for the cameras, she goes on an ill-advised exercise binge at the
YMCA pool, unexpectedly dying of a brain embolism in the process.
This disaster triggers the plot of Mallrats, with the boyfriend of Svenning's daughter,
Quint, and his friend Brodie ending up in a cartoonish farce with Jay and Silent Bob
at the local mall, where the game show is being shot.
In the end, Quint wins over his girlfriend, Ben Affleck goes to jail, and we're promised
that Jay and SIlent Bob will get an orangutan someday.
And they will.
Just not yet.
This brings us to Clerks, Kevin Smith's first movie.
In this film, Quick Stop employee Dante and his pal Randal attend Julie Dwyer's wake,
placing the movie directly after the events of Mallrats.
It's like the Indiana Jones movies, but with more pot.
Clerks introduced the world to Jay and Silent Bob, scumbag supporting characters who serve
as counterpoints to the main characters' dour minimum wage existence.
They also served as founts of wisdom and a stoner Greek chorus.
Jay and Silent Bob spend the majority of Clerks doing what they do best.
They hang out in front of the Quick Stop, slinging drugs while Jay makes noise and Bob
doesn't.
At first glance, the romantic comedy Chasing Amy doesn't feel like a Jay and Silent Bob
story at all with no snoochies nor boochies to be found.
This is a movie about love.
Smith mainstays Ben Affleck and Jason Lee play creative partners on a comic book series
titled Bluntman and Chronic, which details the lives and adventures of two vigilante
stoners, one lithe, loud, and obnoxious, the other portly and less verbal.
They are, of course, based on Jay and Silent Bob, who Ben Affleck's character, Holden,
goes to meet at a diner to pay them their royalties for their likeness rights.
There, Silent Bob delivers his biggest speech to date, giving the movie its title.
"You're Chasing Amy."
He also reveals an unprecedented number of details about his own personal life, including
a lifelong desire to be a dancer.
But there's more backstory to this scene than the movies even fill you in on.
Before they go to meet Holden, Jay and Silent Bob crash in the living room of Mallrats character
Trish Jones, sister to Chasing Amy's Allyssa Jones, in a story that connects the stoners'
arc from Mallrats to the movies that follow.
A four-issue comic book miniseries, Chasing Dogma, bridges the gap between Chasing Amy
and Dogma, finally answering the question "Hey, what do you think Jay and Bob were doing
around 1998?"
"Smoking weed, drinking beers, doing coke, drinking beers, drinking beers beers beers,
rolling fatties, smoking blunts, who smokes the blunts?
We smoke the blunts"
Here's the basic synopsis: after Jay gets the two of them thrown out of Trish's house,
the duo heads to the mall's department store to watch John Hughes movies on VHS.
They get in a fight, then get kicked out of the RST Video parking lot.
They they head to Shermer, Illinois to try and sell weed to the Brat Pack characters,
then get verbally assaulted by Mister Rogers, eventually landing work on the set of an adult
film directed by Neil Patrick Harris called Doogie Nights, and that's all in the first
two issues.
In a weird twist, issue three explores their adoption of an escaped orangutan and subsequent
scrapes with a federal wildlife marshal, which will sound familiar to some.
Yes, that particular storyline from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back apparently happened
twice.
At the end of the run, Jay and Bob discover that there is no Shermer, Illinois, and decide
to bury their disappointment by heading to a family planning clinic to meet women.
They're nothing if not consistent.
Theologically speaking, everything sort of comes to a head for New Jersey's favorite
unlicensed herbal peddlers in 1999, when, while cruising at the clinic, they meet Bethany
Sloane, the last descendant of a genetic line shared by Jesus Christ.
This is the movie in which Jay and Bob are revealed to be prophets sent by God, which
still isn't "ironic," though it is amusing.
Jay and Bob escort Bethany on an interstate journey of self-discovery and heavy religious
introspection.
Along the way, they befriend Rufus, the secret 13th apostle, and Serendipity, a muse responsible
for most of history's most financially successful box office performances.
Silent Bob proves to be a remarkably effective demon slayer, defeating two actual demons
over the course of the adventure.
Jay has less success, and his attempts to kill a fallen angel with an Uzi mostly make
things worse.
Still, through offhand remarks, he takes a potential end of the world scenario off the
burner and helps to save God from a comatose state incurred during one of the Almighty's
trips down to Earth to play skeeball.
Bethany immaculately conceives a holy child, and according to Kevin Smith, that's all we'll
be hearing on the matter.
After four movies and various side projects in the supporting cast, 2001's Jay and Silent
Bob Strike Back put the pair center stage.
The movie sees the duo learning two important things: one, Hollywood is adapting Bluntman
and Chronic into a big budget blockbuster, and they deserve a cut of the royalties.
Two, the internet exists, and people are mean there.
"We gotta put a stop to these f---in hateful sons of b----es before they ruin our good
names."
The two head off to Hollywood to try and shut down the movie, or at least get paid their
share for their likenesses.
Along the way, they befriend a quartet of female jewel thieves masquerading as animal
rights activists, and are conned into stealing an orangutan from an animal testing facility
as part of an elaborate coverup.
Bob and the ape become dear friends.
Jay falls in love with one of the criminals, and Will Ferrell appears as a Will Ferrell
character.
The jewel thieves are arrested after Justice, the member of the group who garnered Jay's
affections, turns them in to save Jay and Bob from going down for a crime they didn't
commit.
She asks Jay to wait for her while she's incarcerated.
Jay and Bob confront Banky Edwards, the co-creator of Bluntman and Chronic played by Jason Lee,
and walk away with a cherry cut of the proceeds from the forthcoming feature film, leaving
them financially solvent for the foreseeable future.
Shockingly, in the years between Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Clerks II, the beloved
Quick Stop burned to the ground.
Our boys aren't to blame, though — they were in rehab at the time.
As chronicled by Jay during his first day back at work, they bought a car, but were
pulled over for suspicion of mischief, also known as
"Driving around with a deployed airbag.”
The police found marijuana in their vehicle and the dynamic duo was sentenced to six months
of rehab.
Back on the outside, they continued dealing drugs, but stopped using.
They also seemingly picked their business venue based solely on where Dante and Randal
were working at the time, setting up shop in front of a Mooby's fast food restaurant.
They keep to themselves in the background for the most part.
Silent Bob achieves his dance dreams in a sequence of heightened reality, and the two
are arrested again during a madcap comedy of errors surrounding a donkey show put on
inside the restaurant.
After everyone gets taken to jail, the two offer to finance Dante and Randal's reclamation
of the rebuilt Quick Stop in exchange for a permanent residency in front of the store.
As the credits roll, a line of text reads
"Jay and Silent Bob might return someday.
Until then, they're taking it easy."
Fans speculated as to whether or not they'd ever see their heroes again.
13 years passed.
And then...
After a decade-long career detour with the studio comedies Zack and Miri Make a Porno
and Cop Out, as well as a dark horror phase centered on the great white north of Canada,
Kevin Smith decided he was ready to go back to the View Askewniverse.
The return is officially kicking off in October 2019.
Remember the plot of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?
Kevin Smith has described the sequel as being basically the same movie, even comparing it
to director Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot Psycho remake.
"Where we taking it from, Gus?"
"I'm busy."
"You're a true artist, Gus."
The movie will follow Jay and Silent Bob as they try to stop a big-budget Hollywood remake
of the movie they tried to put a stop to in Strike Back.
A ton of Smith regulars make appearances, including Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, and Shannon
Elizabeth, reprising her role as Justice, who introduces Jay to their love child Millie,
played by Kevin Smith's kid, Harley Quinn Smith.
She's less adorable this time around, though.
This time, she means business.
"Either you take us both to Hollywood or I stab you to death on my front f---ing lawn."
Well, like father, like kid.
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