They aren't as big as they were in their '90s heyday, but these lovable losers are still
together, and with more Jay and Silent Bob projects on the way, here's a look into the
origins and history of the degenerate duo.
Director Kevin Smith famously self-financed Clerks, which had a paltry $27,000 budget.
That's not a lot of money for a movie, but it is a lot for one guy to raise and then
spend on a movie that could've flopped hard.
Smith cobbled the money together by selling off his extensive collection of comic books,
pilfering from his college fund, and then maxing out a bunch of credit cards.
"Screw you!"
"Hey, you're not allowed to rent here anymore."
"YEEEEAHH!!!"
As he tells it in Stephen Lowenstein's 2002 interview collection My First Movie, the rest
came from an insurance settlement for a destroyed car that he and Jay himself, actor Jason Mewes,shared.
Mewes warned Smith that the area where the car was parked one day was going to flood
and that they should move the car.
Smith said he didn't want to, and the rest is cinematic history!
"Y'know, there's a million fine-looking women in the world, dude.
But they don't all bring you lasagna at work.
Most of 'em just cheat on you."
Smith made Clerks himself, so he was free to cast anybody he wanted, like Mewes, his
best friend, as Jay.
But studio Gramercy Pictures made the quasi-sequel Mallrats, and studio executives were adamantly
opposed to letting Mewes play Jay again.
Instead, they wanted the more experienced and bankable Seth Green to step into the role.
Smith convinced studio executives that Mewes was right for the role, which, fun fact, was
inspired by Mewes himself, but the studio still kept Green on call for the duration
of the shoot as an understudy.
To add insult to injury, the studio also refused to pay for Mewes to travel to the set in Minnesota
or for his hotel room during the shoot.
Studio executives even showed up to the first day of filming, fully prepared to fire Mewes
if they didn't think he was good enough.
Smith made Mewes aware of the situation, prompting him to give as good a performance as he could,
and the suits finally approved.
"Come, son of Jor-El.
Kneel before Zod!
Snootchy bootchies!"
After Gramercy's reluctance to cast Mewes, he didn't want to take any chances.
He showed up to the set of one of Smith's next movies, the epic religious comedy Dogma,
prepared.
Extremely prepared.
Not only did he memorize all of his own lines before shooting began, but he'd also learned
everybody else's.
Yep, he'd memorized the entire script.
This was because Smith met with Mewes before rehearsals and told him that he needed to
do his best work, because not only was Dogma the biggest production they'd ever embarked
on, but they had "real actors in the movie" this time.
Specifically, the legendary Alan Rickman had been cast in the movie as the angel Metatron.
Mewes showed up and gave his performance everything he had because he didn't want to, quote, "piss
off that Rickman dude."
Mewes first became addicted to heroin around 1995, and it was Smith who urged Mewes into
rehab.
But after a series of relapses during Dogma, and after becoming addicted to OxyContin,
Mewes was eventually arrested for heroin possession and sentenced to drug counseling and community
service.
"Whenever we weren't, like, literally shooting, and they'd be like 'Hey, we've got 20 minutes
while we set up these lights,' I would rush to my trailer, and I'd be doing drugs in the
trailer."
In an attempt to get him clean once and for all, Smith invited Mewes to live with him
and his family in California after the filming of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
Still struggling with drugs, Mewes stole Smith's bank card, withdrew cash, and used it to buy
stuff.
Undeterred, Smith continued to check Mewes into a series of rehab clinics, though none
of his stays lasted long.
Mewes says he hit rock bottom on Christmas Day 2003, when he woke up on a couch that
was on fire, which he'd started after getting high and falling asleep near a candle.
Mewes returned to New Jersey and attended court-mandated drug rehab.
As of 2017, he was seven years sober.
Jay and Silent Bob show up just about everywhere, even in a Canadian teen drama.
In 2004, Smith and Mewes, and their fictional counterparts, showed up in three episodes
of Degrassi: The Next Generation.
In their arc, Smith and Mewes played themselves, heading up north to Degrassi High School to
film a fictional movie called Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh!
While in Canada, they also get into the educational spirit of Degrassi and work hard to get their
diplomas thanks to the help of a principal portrayed by one-time collaborator Alanis
Morissette.
She just so happened to play God in Smith's Dogma!
See?
Everything's connected.
"You understand a word this hoser's saying, Silent Bob?
How the hell did she get to be principal when she don't even speak good-er English like
us Americans?"
Probably the most famous Degrassi "graduate" is actor and musician Drake.
In 2018, he paid homage to his past, with the video for "I'm Upset" taking place at
a Degrassi High reunion.
Even Jay and Silent Bob make a brief cameo.
Jay and Silent Bob, or rather Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, are not immune to Hollywood's
current obsession with remakes, reboots, and revivals.
They are, however, not lazy enough to just rehash the old hits without doing something
new, or at least poke fun at the whole endeavor.
In August 2017, Smith tweeted that he and Mewes were about to shoot another entry in
the "View Askewniverse" of Smith's films, a direct "follow-up flick" to 2001's Jay and and Silent Bob Strike Back called Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.
At a Q&A, Smith explained:
Smith hopes to have the film ready for release sometime in 2019.