Played by writer-director Kevin Smith and his childhood best friend Jason Mewes, Jay
and Silent Bob have been cult favorites for over two decades, appearing in movies, TV
shows, cartoons, and comic books, with no signs of stopping.
But what's the real story behind their popularity?
Here's a look at the untold truth of Jay and Silent Bob.
Jay is Jay
Smith based the loud, obnoxious, and aggressive character of Jay on none other than…Jason
Mewes himself.
Mewes told The Skinny,
"When we did Clerks, I was 18, 19.
That's how I used to act, exactly.
I didn't have any filter, I used to say stuff exactly like that, [like] 'what up' this and
'what up' that, that's stuff I had said over the years that Kevin had written down."
"Smoking weed, smoking weed.
Doin' coke, drinking beers.
Drinking beers, beers, beers.
Rolling fatties, smoking blunts.
Who smokes the blunts?
We smoke the blunts!"
Disaster movie
Smith famously self-financed Clerks, which had a paltry $27,000 budget, by selling off
his extensive collection of comic books, pilfering from his college fund, and then maxing out
a bunch of credit cards.
And a natural disaster also helped.
Smith explains in Stephen Lowenstein's 2002 interview collection, My First Movie, that
the rest of the budget came from an insurance settlement for a destroyed car he and Mewes
shared.
Mewes warned Smith that the area was going to flood, and that they should move the car.
Smith said he didn't want to.
Good thing they didn't.
Thank you for smoking
A standout scene in Clerks featured an anti-smoking tirade delivered by a guy who turns out to
have a self-interest in the matter: a representative of Chewlies, a fictional gum manufacturer.
"It's that kind of mentality that allows the cancer-producing industry to thrive.
Of course we're all going to die someday!
But do we have to pay for it?"
Ironically, Smith himself was a non-smoker until he filmed Clerks.
Puffing on-screen as Silent Bob was enough to get him hooked, and he eventually became
a two-pack a day smoker.
Luckily, he figured out a way to quit.
"Lemme see, I've been quit smoking now, off cigarettes for three years.
And it was very easy, I quit smoking but I just simply started smoking weed instead.
Jay vs. Scott Evil
Smith made Clerks himself, so he was free to cast anybody he wanted.
But because Gramercy Pictures bankrolled the quasi-sequel Mallrats, Smith had to deal with
some corporate interference.
Studio executives were opposed to letting Mewes play Jay again, and instead wanted the
more experienced and bankable Seth Green to step into the role.
Smith convinced studio executives that Mewes was right for the role that he originated,
but the studio still kept Green on call for the duration of the shoot as an understudy
should things not work out with Mewes.
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.
"Now, son of Jor-El, kneel before Zod!
Snootchie bootchies!
Haha!"
Dogmatic
After Gramercy's reluctance to cast Mewes, he showed up to the set of Smith's next movie
extra prepared.
He memorized all his lines before shooting on Dogma began … along with everybody else's.
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, namely the legendary Alan Rickman.
Mewes showed up and gave his performance everything he had because, as he put it, he didn't want
to "piss off that Rickman dude."
"Bow down, stupid!"
Life imitating art
Despite memorizing the entire script for Dogma, Mewes still had trouble filming the movie
because he was deeply addicted to heroin at the time of shooting.
In a series of blog posts, Smith detailed the times during the shoot when Mewes was
especially far gone, because it's visible in the film.
In the scene where the apostle Rufus is delivering his backstory outside the Mooby's, for example,
Jay struggles to keep from nodding off, a telltale sign of a heroin high.
Smith worked tirelessly for years to try and help his friend kick the habit.
After several failed attempts, Smith invited Mewes to live with him and his family.
But Mewes returned the favor by stealing Smith's bank card and using the money to buy heroin.
Smith didn't give up, though, checking Mewes into rehab time and again.
He has reportedly been drug-free since 2010 and is now happily married with a child.
Clerks: The Animated Series
In 2000, Disney-owned ABC commissioned an animated series based on Clerks.
While the film's dialogue and plot points are downright filthy, that kind of thing just
wasn't going to fly on primetime network television.
As a result, the family-friendly network required some alterations from the source material.
Among them: Jay and Silent Bob are not drug dealers on Clerks: The Animated Series.
Rather, they're just kind of pranksters who hang out outside the Quick Stop, and occasionally
sell fireworks to kids.
"Hi, I'm Jay."
"And I'm Silent Bob."
"And I'm Charles Barkley."
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Only two episodes aired before ABC canceled it.
Scream!
Over the years, Jay and Silent Bob have made a number of guest appearances in television
and film, including on on Degrassi: The Next Generation and in the 2000 film Scream 3.
Miramax studio head Bob Weinstein called Smith and told him he had an idea for a Jay and
Silent Bob cameo in the movie.
Smith came up with some lines for the scene on the spot, while Mewes was down because
he liked the $300 per diem and free T-shirt.
He told Smith, "We should do this all the time.
We can pop up in every horror movie, and get three hundred bucks a day and a shirt!"
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