Transcript

Intro Clip

The first Death Star was manned by the Imperial Army. The only people on board were stormtroopers, dignitaries, Imperials. Basically. So when they blew it up, no problem. Evil's punished. And the second time around? The second time around, it wasn't even done being built yet. It was still under construction. So? So a construction job of that magnitude would require a hell of a lot more manpower than the Imperial Army had to offer. I'll bet they brought independent contractors in on that thing. Plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers. Not just Imperials, is that what you're getting at? Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly, they'd hire anybody that can do the job. Think the average stormtrooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing in white uniforms. Alright, so they bring in independent contractors. Why are you so upset at its destruction? All those innocent contractors brought in to do the job were killed. Casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. Alright, look, you're a roofer. Some juicy government contract comes your way. You got a wife and kids, the 2-story in suburbia. This is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. Along come these left-wing militants and blast everything within a 3-mile radius with their lasers. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living. Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but, uh, what are you talking about? The ending of Return of the Jedi. My friend here is trying to convince me that any independent contractors who were working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when it was destroyed by the Rebels. Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer. Done and ready home improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can tell you a roofer's personal politics comes into play heavily when choosing jobs. Like what? 3 weeks ago, I was offered a job up in the hills. Beautiful house, tons of property, a simple reshingling job. They told me if I could finish it in 1 day, I would double my price. Then I realized whose house it was. Whose house was it? Dominic Bambino's. Babyface Bambino? The gangster? The same. The money was right, but the risk was too high. I knew who he was, and based on that, I turned the job over to a friend of mine. Based on personal politics. Right, and then next week, the Faressi family put a hit on Baby Face's house. My friend was shot and killed. Didn't even finish re-shingling. No way. I'm alive because I knew the risk involved in that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. Any contractor working on that Death Star knew the risk involved. If they got killed, it's their own fault. A roofer listens to this. Not his wallet.

Steve

It's 2 Dads 1 Movie. It's the podcast where 2 middle-aged dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are marching through the '90s in 2 Dads 2 Decades, and we have arrived at the year 1994. and we have watched the movie Clerks, written and directed by Kevin Smith. And this is one that I'm bringing to the table, and I just want to kind of make it clear, like, I am a homer for this movie. Basically, I am, I am a super fan, a stan, whatever you want to call it. I, you know, this was the first Kevin Smith movie that I saw. I saw it not the year it came out, probably, but like within a year, rented it from Blockbuster, you know, like 15 or so. And it immediately had an effect on me. It was like, oh my God, you can make a movie and, you know, you can just have your friends in it and just have it be in one place. And like, you know, there was— there's, there's obviously we'll get into all the details, but there's elements of the way Smith was writing dialogue for characters that is maybe a little too erudite at this point in his career, but still was like so refreshing and different and something that I'd never seen before that it really, you know, made me think about like, well, how do movies actually get made? That was maybe— this was maybe the first movie that had me thinking about how do you make a movie? 'Cause this was clearly a dude with a bunch of his friends getting together to make a movie. And now I was watching it 'cause I rented it at Blockbuster. Like how insane is that, right? So yeah, so Clerks is just something that I've seen a ton of times and had a huge impact on me. But Nic, I understand maybe less of a thing in your life, this movie.

Nic

Yeah, so I mean, this was around and I definitely heard about it and knew that people were really into it, probably around this kind of like late high school time, the Blockbuster card era.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, and I saw it then, and then I never really, uh, you know, I think so much of it depends on like what the people around you are into. Like when your friends are bringing up movies, okay, it's my turn to show something, like this is what I'm gonna put. And nobody, uh, that I was hanging with was like super hardcore into Kevin Smith. Interesting. So this didn't really come back up again. So I saw this in probably, I don't know, '97.

Intro Clip

Okay.

Nic

And then, uh, didn't see it again. I've seen Dogma and Red State. Okay, that might be it.

Steve

Oh my gosh.

Nic

Um, so yeah, so I, I have some, uh, viewist universe to, uh, to learn about, I guess. So yeah, I don't have much of a history with this, so it was interesting kind of seeing this as something that was like groundbreaking and, and innovative in the mid-'90s and watching this in the mid-2020s. Yeah, you know, seeing like, all right, am I, what am I pulling the same stuff from?

Steve

Yeah, well, I assure you one thing, we will be doing— there were 4 Kevin Smith movies in the '90s, and we will cover all 4 at some point on this podcast. I guarantee that much. Let's jump into the facts on Clerks. The movie Clerks was released on October 19th, 1994 with an R rating and a running time of 92 minutes. It was written and directed by Kevin Smith and stars Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, and Marilyn Gigliotti, I think is how you pronounce her name. Scores on Rotten Tomatoes, 90% fresh, a 7.7 from IMDb, which is pretty legit, and 2 thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert. It did not win a lot of major awards at the time of its release, although it did pull down certain awards. I think it was like at Cannes, it was the Youth Awards, basically like the young people choosing. It's like a People's Choice Award element of Cannes. This one—.

Nic

Like a fancy Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award.

Steve

Sort of, I think. Yeah. And then also won an award at Sundance. And so this was kind of a, you know, it was a festival darling film at the time. And it was added to the National Film Registry in 2019. But here's the interesting, fun thing about Clerks. If you ever want to know facts about this movie, this is the most important fact to know. This movie was made for $27,500. $2,175. Smith says he knows that that's the amount because that was the total added up debt limits on all the credit cards he could open. And he just maxed every credit card he could get his hands on in order to finance this movie. At the box office, it made, and I did it down to the dollar for this one, $3,158,707 for 115 times what it cost to make, which is just so astronomical. But like, how do you make a movie for less than $2,000? $28 grand. I mean, really, it's— we've seen movies with very low budgets. Nightmare on Elm Street was like $1.5 million. I think Breakfast Club was like $1 million. And these are great movies. Yeah. And they look maybe more like movies than this one does.

Nic

Right. But $27,000, just to get anything done for that much money is very impressive.

Steve

Just to get film developed and like everything. So yeah. So those are the facts on Clerks. Uh, let's go ahead and dive in. First thing I just want to mention, if you've You know, Clerks is filmed in black and white, and it was filmed in black and white because the film and the processing were cheaper. That's why it was filmed in black and white. Uh, there was—.

Nic

I also read that the, um, when they were setting up the lighting and stuff, it was difficult to get lighting that had a consistent color, uh, scheme or whatever.

Steve

That's true too. There was—.

Nic

So, and the black and white masks some of those limitations.

Steve

Yeah, it, it, there was— so it's cheaper and everything. Then also, yes, I think the way I read it was something like, because a convenience store is filled with colorful labels and signs and whatever, it looked like a fucking mess just to try and film in there. But, you know, by doing it in black and white, yeah, it kind of mutes all that. But we don't start off at the convenience store in this movie. We start off in the closet, really. The phone rings. It's a messy room, clothes all over the floor. There's a dog sitting there just chilling. But coming out of the closet door, falling backwards because he's been sleeping in there for some reason, is the hero of our tale, Dante Hicks. And Dante answers the phone, and we can tell from just hearing his side of the conversation that basically He was closed at the store last night, has been up late. He's got hockey to play at 2:00, but this is his boss saying somebody couldn't make it. You got to come in and cover. He's like, okay, but you'll be there by noon, right? Yeah, I'll be there. You know, kind of thing. So he is guaranteed if you show up at work and, you know, when you're not supposed to, I'll be there by noon and you'll be able to play your hockey game. So he goes in. He's a good guy. So we get a little montage of kind of Dante starting his day, the dog eating and drinking water out of the toilet. Dante putting on his shoes, just your standard sort of getting ready stuff.

Nic

Right. And his coffee, serving himself coffee in like the lid of the cookie jar.

Steve

Yes, that's right.

Nic

And so this is kind of very— it's like a version of the way you have a renegade cop who plays by his own rules, start his own day, you know?

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

So instead of like rolling over into like pizza box and beer cans, like he has all his shit that he's doing. So Dante clearly like a slob and living that life which, you know, so many of us have experienced where you have a job where you don't know your schedule until like the week before, but then also they can call you any fucking day, you know? So yeah, that shit sucks. So we're with Dante that we don't want to go to work right now.

Steve

Yeah, absolutely. But he does go in. We see him drive in. When he gets there, he's got a, you know, there's a bunch of those like rolling sort of steel doors. He opens up the one that's for the actual like walk-in door, goes inside, starts setting stuff up. He's turning lights. It shows the basic stuff. You're making that first pot of coffee. You're turning all the lights on. You're turning all the signs on, whatever. He notices that there's no newspaper that was delivered. So he goes with a single quarter to like a neighboring like newsstand thing, whatever, and takes all the newspapers out with the one quarter, essentially stealing a bunch of newspapers for his employer. Interesting choice. Gets the quarter back, which is fun. [Speaker] It's a good movie thing.

Nic

You never buy a single newspaper with a quarter.

Steve

Oh, you open up that door?

Nic

Hand them out to your friends. Hey, look, I made the paper.

Steve

But then he has to go back out to open up the rest of these sliding steel doors. And that's when he notices that the other 2 that are closed, somebody has shoved gum into the locks. So there's not, without a locksmith coming or, you know, basically you'd have to cut that lock off and put a new one on or something, 'cause it's not, he's not gonna get anything out of it. So he finds like a tarp in his trunk and he gets some shoe polish from the store and he creates a sign that says, "I assure you we are open." Yeah, I think it's Sign Management, I think is what it says on it or something like that.

Nic

Yeah. And that— and this is, you know, something that I learned about the film is that they had to film it all at night. So it was kind of like a workaround. So this is one of those things that you can definitely appreciate no matter what you think of the movie, is just like taking what you've been given to work with and working it into the film in a way that adds to it. Yeah, right. So it could just be like, yeah, well, it's night, we don't show the outside of the store or whatever, but it's kind of in a funny way addressing like the reason why everything's going to be, you know, dark inside the store.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. It's, it's, it was a thing of like, you know, Smith got the owner of the, the Quick Stop and the RST. These are real businesses. He worked at RST Video, Kevin Smith did. And so he got the owner to agree to let him do this. And it was like, yeah, you can just like do some shots, whatever, in the video store during the day because people don't come in there that much. Like you can work around that. But like, he's like, no, the convenience store, people are in and out of there all the time. I'm not going to close anything. So they shot a bunch of the exterior shots and the shots on the roof, whatever, during the day so that the lighting was reasonable. But every single shot that takes place anywhere other than the doorway. There are a couple shots, a couple scenes that are shot where they're kind of standing inside the convenience store, but at the door, and you can see that it's light out. But any of the shots where the characters are like behind the counter or deeper in the store or whatever, that was all done at night. And so, yeah, the closed, the locked closed steel doors are the way to kind of do that and not make it be like, wait a minute, why is it dark outside? So again, that kind of creativity is the kind of thing that lets you make a movie for $27,570. The one of the first people that Dante has to deal with as a customer is this guy buying coffee, and he asks like, hey, can I just sit here? Drink this coffee. He's like, yeah, I don't care, whatever. Guy walks up, another guy walks up to—.

Nic

And why would you want to do that, right?

Steve

Well, we found out why in a second, but yes, it doesn't make any sense. It's a very strange thing. It's also another one of my pet peeves about movies though. It's a clearly empty cup that he's like sipping from. I hate that. I just put some water in it or something, like make it like— give it some weight, give us some physics here, give us so that there's something to sip, like, I don't know. But yeah, so it's, uh, but it's an empty cup. But a guy walks up to buy a pack of cigarettes and the guy, the customer, goes Sure about that? Is that what you want? You sure about that? And he's like, and he pulls a blackened lung out of his duffel bag and it's like, oh my God, what is that? Well, that's what your lung looks like now. You've been smoking this long and stuff. And he's basically just like, hey, you know, you can choose to not smoke. Why don't you buy some gum here? Here, buy some Chuli's gum. And he makes a big deal about buy this gum. And, and so, you know, Dante's kind of like, the guy leaves with the gum and then Dante says, hey, if you're going to drink that here, I don't want you to bother the customers. Like, no, no, no, I think I'm fine. I'll talk to whoever I want to. He's very, now, you know, he was asking permission to drink the coffee there. Now he's like, asserting his dominance basically. And Dante doesn't have any balls to tell him to leave, so he stays there.

Nic

Yeah, and so this guy's like harassing everybody that comes up to buy cigarettes. He's got his presentation material.

Steve

Oh yeah, and he's now— he's got a crowd gathered. He's like, you know, like, oh, you know, do we have to pay for— it's like somebody says like, oh, we're all gonna die anyways. Yeah, sure, but do we have to pay for the privilege? Do we have to like buy our cancer? And like all this stuff. And please, Mr. Merchant of Death, sir, please sell me something that stinks up my breath and my clothes, like whatever. And it's just like, poor Dante is like, it's his fucking fault. He's just like, whatever. Um, but they're literally start throwing cigarettes at him, calling him cancer merchant. Yeah, cancer merchant, cancer merchant, throwing the cigarettes at him. And that's when Veronica, Dante's girlfriend, shows up and grabs a fire extinguisher from, I guess, near the front of the store and fire extinguishes everybody in the crowd.

Nic

Yeah, finally somebody has a little bit of, uh, a little bit of hutzpah, a little bit of oomph.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And so then it turns out this guy who was giving the anti-smoking, uh, spiel is a Chewlee's Gum representative.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So this is their guerrilla marketing technique, I guess, or just a guy who's very passionate about his job.

Steve

I think, you know, yeah, I mean, it's either way. And this is the first moment. So Veronica's, uh, uh, the actress who plays Veronica, uh, Marilyn Gigliotti, like, um, okay, I'm just gonna put it this way. The acting in this movie is not great, just, just kind of across the board. Yeah, these are very sort of like amateur actors. They obviously—.

Nic

Brian O'Halloran, that's one way you make a movie for $27,000.

Steve

Absolutely. You don't have to pay your friends, you know, so it's not a SAG job You don't have to pay scale. But no, Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson are passable. I think Anderson, the guy who plays Randall, is probably the best actor of the group, maybe.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

The two of them though are pretty equal to each other. And then almost everybody else is like quite a bit of a step down from that.

Nic

Pretty bad.

Steve

And the biggest problem I have is that Veronica seems to stumble over Kevin Smith's dialogue fairly often. Like she says, the way she delivers the line, which is something like, oh, you're Chewlee's gum representative and you're, you know, stoking all this anti-smoking sentiment to what, sell more gum? The way she does it is like, You're stoking all this anti-smoking sentiment to what? Selmore Gunn? And it's like this kind of pressured speech of like, she's trying to sound like angry. And it's like, you don't sound angry by doing that. You sound angry by being calmer than you should be. And that makes you sound angry. You know, there's little things like that, but she struggles with a lot of the dialogue through most of the movie.

Nic

Yeah, it's kind of an issue that I have. I don't love the way the dialogue is. I don't really love this style.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And yeah, you do notice it a lot where it's like, okay, like, it has to be catered a little bit to the actor's normal cadence or their ability, because if their natural delivery is completely like issued for the way that it's supposed to be, then it doesn't— it works and it seems very forced. So yeah, like you said, it could be just the limitations of the actor. So if you had a more skilled actor, they could deliver that a little bit better.

Steve

And a more experienced writer-director would have been doing rewrites during shooting, right? Like, they would have been rewriting these lines to make them still say the same thing with the way the character— that they want the character to be, but in a way that the the actor wasn't fighting against it.

Nic

Yeah, that's a good point too.

Steve

And that's the thing that like Smith, you know, you don't have this problem, A, because later he gets to work with better and better actors over time, obviously, as he gets budget, but also he learns things about, you know, how to adjust. And I do think that he's got that sort of like auteur flag he flies and he doesn't like to change things just to change them 'cause they're his vision. But I do think there's an element of that, that anybody, you know, with more experience than he had in 1993 or 1994 while filming this, it would've been a little different. But it is one of the places in which the movie lacks a bit is in the delivery of some of this dialogue. And I think it's equally Smith doing too much with the words and the actors not just really being up to the challenge. Yeah.

Nic

So Dante and Veronica are like kind of sitting behind the counter now. She's painting her nails, like kind of—.

Steve

He's painting her nails.

Nic

He's painting her nails. She's sitting behind him. Yeah. The business is still continuing. There's just a sign that says, please leave money on the counter, and they're just sitting right behind the counter.

Steve

Yeah. And she asked him like, aren't you— don't— won't people steal stuff? How do you know that they're leaving the right amount? He goes, eh, people see money out in a sign, they think they're being watched. Yeah. And it's just coffee and newspaper at this time of the morning. Yeah. Yeah.

Nic

Um, so they're talking about, uh, you know, sex, sexual history.

Steve

Sure. Yeah.

Nic

You know, the usual, uh, conversation that always ends well.

Steve

Right. I, I think, uh, It's never any problems.

Nic

Look, the body count, you never want that information more than it will damage you by hearing it. There's no— first, before you ever ask this, think about what's your perfect answer and what's, what's going to happen if the answer is different than that and how will you deal with that? And then tell yourself, you know what, let's talk about something else.

Steve

Yeah, right. Yeah. I think it's important to understand not just what information you're trying to get because we know what that is, but like, what is it that you think you're going to do with that information? Yeah. And what do you think about that action will improve things for you? Right. And if and when you think about it that for a second, it should become quite clear that it does not fucking matter and you don't want to know. Yeah.

Nic

And so we have, we have Dante and Veronica, and Veronica's like, you know, well, how many, how many women have you slept with? He's like, I slept with 12 women. How about you? And she's like, you know, it's 3 or 4 guys. I forgot what her number is.

Steve

She says 3.

Nic

3.

Steve

But I mean, but so she loses it on him at the 12, calls him a pig, and like, because they're like 22, this is, you know, like, so 12 people in, let's assume, maybe 6 years of sexual activeness for him. That is kind of a lot at that age. So she's like, you pig, oh my God, you know. And so what was there for you? And she said, 3, and it's— that's including you. So it's 2 other guys and then him. And he's kind of like, oh, okay, yeah, cool, cool. And, um, then there's a, a character that shows up named Willem, uh, and, uh, Willem, I think, just ordered some cigarettes or whatever, but it's like, you know, oh hey Veronica, like I know you, like how's it going? And she's like, oh hey, you know, like there's clearly like a history there. Um, and they— he asks her about her friend Sylvan and like whatever. And so then when she leaves— when he leaves, Veronica says There goes Snowball. He's like, why do you call him Snowball? He's like, oh, it's a sex thing. And he likes, even after a blowjob, he likes having it spit back into his mouth. He gets off on it. And she's like, oh my— Dante's like, oh my God, Sylvan can get talked into anything. And that's Veronica's like, well, no, not Sylvan. Like, I snowballed him. And he's like, wait a minute. Like, you didn't mention him in your list of 3 people. And she's like, oh yeah, no, I didn't. I never slept with him. I just went down on him. And she's— and that's when he starts losing it. He goes, well, how many guys have you gone down on then? And she's like, I don't know, something like 36. And he's like, what does something like 36 mean? I'm like, that's so insane. Uh, and it's 37 including Dante, but he loses his shit.

Nic

He loses it. And you know, Dante is a very good-looking, likable, successful guy, and he deserves to have these ridiculously high standards for a woman asking a question that she didn't want to answer.

Steve

To be fair, you're landing on the point. That's not the point that's missed. That is the point, is that Dante is that way.

Nic

It's like, oh Jesus Christ, so self-absorbed. Um, and, uh, this snowball— so there's a couple I think this is one of those things, and movies will do this sometimes, where they introduce something that's like just in the culture or on the streets, but the movie is the first time that a lot of people hear about it. And then the movie kind of gets credit for introducing a thing where it's like, well, you just picked this thing up from being around. American Pie introducing the concept of MILF is a good example, right? So like, this is one of those things where I'm just kind of like, all right, like you wrote a joke about snowballing, but I'm not giving you credit for like making this up or anything like that. Yeah. And, uh, I don't know. So there's a couple of things in this where it's like, all right, that was just around there. And then you're having the guy say, yeah, you didn't come up with this. Um, but yeah, so Dante is very mad at his girlfriend. And then I think another customer comes in and he's like, oh, my girlfriend just told me she sucked 37 dicks. And the guy's like, in a row? I love it there.

Steve

I love that. But I think the better joke is actually as she leaves, he follows her out and yells after her, trying not to suck any dick on your way out to the parking lot. Yeah. At which point another guy, random guy, stay there, starts following her and he goes, hey, get back here. That part, that's my favorite.

Nic

I didn't notice that.

Steve

Oh my God, he starts walking, the guy's, "Hey, get back here." Like, yeah, that was actually funny when, I always thought it was funny that the first draft that Smith wrote of Clerks II that ended up getting out in the early 2000s was 137 pages long. And I thought it was funny that it was 137. But yeah, so now we're getting introduced to Randal. He works at RST Video, the store next door, and he's like showing up. But like, I think before that, it's the old guy is like trying to return a video to Dante because like the store's not open or whatever. And he's like, hey, like, where's that idiot? That's not a hard job, whatever. And the guy's just like giving Dante shit. Uh, and but as he goes to leave, usually he leaves the tape, but he also forgets his keys. And so Dante's like, you forgot your keys? And he like just drops them into the garbage can. And, uh, so now Randall shows up and he goes over to get the keys to RST Video from Dante and some tapes that need to be returned. Uh, and he spots the old guy like on his way out, and the guy's like, hey, have you seen a set of keys around here? And for whatever reason doesn't really make any sense. Randall quotes Temple of Doom, goes, "No time for love, Dr. Jones." And I don't know why that's in there, but I love that he says that.

Nic

I mean, and this is a big deal with this movie. It's just like people of our age range, you know, Gen X, millennials are very into like quoting movies and shows and stuff. You know, it's funny, older people, like I'll hear boomers a lot will say stuff to me like, you know, nobody tells jokes anymore. You used to be able to tell. And it's not. And I always have to tell them, 'Cause this is something that's like meaningful to me. Like I do comedy. I think about this stuff a lot. It's not that you can't tell jokes. It's just that the way we communicate humor to each other as a generation is different.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

But if you're born in the '50s, you're like, hey, you know, one Italian, a Belgian, and a Mexican walk into a bar. That's the way you do it. And the way we do it is drop quotes from like movies that we've all seen in Star Wars and Indiana Jones and stuff. And I think this was the first, movie that kind of addressed that? Oh, aside from like just super generic, ultra broad quotes from very well-known movies that you might hear in another movie. Yeah, I, I, I was looking at you, kid. Like, the Ninja Turtles say that.

Steve

I would challenge anyone to find a film released before 1994 wherein a character discusses almost anything about Temple of Doom or Star Wars the way that they do in this movie.

Nic

Do you know what I mean?

Steve

Like, it would surprise me. I can't remember if there was like like, you know, certainly to the extent that they discuss Star Wars is like not anything that ever happens. It comes later in the movie. But like, you know, that level of sort of detail of like plot they end up discussing is strange. But quoting Temple of Doom is like, even among the Indiana Jones movies, that's like the deeper cut.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know what I mean?

Nic

Well, he didn't say like the thing and then be like, Temple of Doom, ever seen it? 'Cause I didn't catch that Temple of Doom quote.

Steve

Oh yeah, Short Round, yeah, yeah. But yeah, Yeah, so I think next up is, uh, Dante learns, uh, there he's talking about how, yeah, he's dating Veronica, but he's been talking to his ex-girlfriend Caitlin Bree. Caitlin and him have been like chatting. She doesn't live in the area anymore, but you know, they've been chatting a bunch, and he's kind of thinking like, yeah, maybe they can get back together. He's— this is like the one that got away for Dante, basically. Um, and, uh, and he's like, yeah, you know, I think it's the reason. And Randall's kind of like, oh, you think that's gonna— Randall's reading the paper. He goes, oh, you think you got a chance? Yeah, I think there's like a real chance. Like, what about Veronica? Well, you know, I'll have to talk to her. He's like, yeah. He's like, I think all four of you should sit down and talk. He's like, four? He's like, yeah, you Veronica, Caitlin, and Caitlin's fiancé. And there's an announcement and like an engagement announcement in the paper. And then before we like get to more of that, 'cause that certainly throws Dante for a loop, Randall has remembered he needs to place an order for more videos. So he is now back in RST Video and he's placing an order and a woman walks up carrying her like toddler and says, "Hey, do you have Happy Scrappy Hero Pop?" And he's like—.

Nic

And she's wearing a Bum Equipment sweatshirt, which I really love.

Steve

Yes. But you know, he's like, "Oh, Happy Scrappy Hero. Yeah, okay, let me, I'm about to place an order. I'll ask for it." for it. But before he can place the order for Happy Scrappy Hero Pup, he lists 19 adult titles. And I mean, I could run down them if we want to, but they're pretty egregious. The point is, I mean, you know, everything that they all mention, either like cum or holes or ass, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff. And so the woman's just standing there holding her toddler while he's rattling off these ridiculous titles. And then finally turns to her and goes, "Oh, what was the title you wanted?" And it's just like, but it's just like, I think this was just a chance for, for like Smith and like Scott Mosier and Jason Muse to sit around thinking up crazy riffs and some fake porno titles and just put as many of them. But like, 19—.

Nic

If they were the first ones to come up with Come on Eileen as the porn title, I really like that. I mean, give them mad props to that one. That's funny.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So, so Jay and Silent Bob, we see them a couple times. Yeah, that's the store.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And, and Jay What is he— he's ranting about like, oh yeah, I'm gonna fuck this. He just sucks. He's just one of these guys where you're like, I know. And hopefully you don't directly have a friend like this. It's more like one of those guys that, oh, remember when I told my cousin he could bring his friend to the barbecue and it was that fucking guy?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So it's one of those like, oh, Jesus Christ. And the fact that he's posted in front of this store, like, I've not gone into stores sometimes because I don't want to deal with whoever clipboard guys out there, like Trader Joe's. He's like, I don't need to explain to this 19-year-old why child fund is a bad way to spend my money or whatever. So Jay, it's like, I would avoid the shit out of that guy. He's going to be so fucking annoying. So we get a little view of that.

Steve

Yes, no, absolutely. And yeah, Jay and Silent Bob are interesting characters. Obviously Silent Bob is silent for most of the movie, as he is in basically all the movies featuring these two characters. Jay is like really based on Jason Mewes, the actual person. I mean, at this point in his life, he was he's like hooked on hard drugs, I believe. Uh, and you know, he's gone through like rehab multiple times, and Smith has always stood by him and helped him through stuff, whatever. That's a really great kind of, uh, friendship story for them. But like, this character is a real jerk and a real kind of just bad dude, whatever.

Nic

And apparently it's like not just funny enough to be as obnoxious, obnoxious as you are, and like one of those. But there's a lot of those guys out there.

Steve

Yeah, absolutely. Um, we get a scene here where Dante is about to like take— because there's a cat we haven't mentioned. There's a little black cat that lives at the, at the Quick Stop. And, uh, there's litter box. He's gonna go like, you know, maybe like change litter box out, but he decides halfway through doing that he was gonna call the newspaper about the engagement announcement. So he just leaves the litter box on the counter because we get a moment where the cat runs up to use it while a customer is waiting. But Dante calls the newspaper and is asking if there might be a vindictive printer or if like it's a mistake. And he's like, well, no, no, everything's spelled right. I'm just like, I talked to her and she never mentioned being engaged. So like there must be a mistake. This is a very funny thing where he's trying to convince the person on the line, no, no, no, Like, maybe somebody's doing this as a prank. It's like, why would someone do that as a prank? He's like, I don't know. But like this, you know, he just gets hung up on. And then I think we go back outside to Jay and Son of Bob and Jay's friend Olaf and her cousin or something. There's like some reference to like how he knows Olaf, but Olaf is from Russia supposedly and is in a metal band and does a song called "Berserker," which has the very funny lyric, "My love for you is like a truck berserker." 'Would you like some making fuck berserker?' Yeah. And it's just like, it rhymes. He got the rhyme down. And for English as a second language, like, congratulations, Olaf.

Nic

And again, the J-type guy is also going to have some other guy who really sucks too, but he'll be like, 'Yo, check this guy.

Steve

This guy's the fucking best.' So I think the name of his band is Fuck Your Yankee Blue Jeans, which is actually pretty legit.

Nic

And I do remember when I did see this movie the first time, I thought the Olaf part was very funny. So it shows how things change. Over 20 years. Um, uh, this, this was funny. So another quick— so some of these little like quick moments between Dante and the people in the store I think are very well done.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And really great. Uh, the guy who has his hand stuck in the Pringle can— you know, Donnie's like, you can't get greedy and go for the chips at the bottom.

Steve

Usually I dump it out, but I just thought this time I could grab it. He goes, man, sometimes you gotta let that last chip go.

Nic

It's okay.

Steve

Uh, but there is definitely a lot of little moments in this movie that are clearly like either, you know, things that actually happened in working at stores like this or things that they thought of, wouldn't it be funny if this happened? And they just found places to put them into the movie. And that's definitely one of them. There's this fairly long conversation next that, like I mentioned, kind of Star Wars. We hear Dante is, or Randall rather, is like watching Star Wars, Return of the Jedi actually, in RST Video. You can't actually hear anything from Star Wars or Return of the Jedi or whatever because that would've been too expensive. So it's just weird laser blast sounds. Like it's nothing that's actually Star Warsy. But he goes and he talks to Dante. And it's one of my favorite sort of like conversations that these characters have 'cause they're discussing you know, when the first Death Star was destroyed in A New Hope, like that was just Imperial soldiers, whatever it was. Everybody on it was like bought into the plan. So when they, you know, that's casualties of war, but then there's construction happening in Return of the Jedi on that Death Star. So there's contractors and there's like people doing aluminum siding and there's plumbers and electricians, like, and they all die too. And isn't that a moral failing, you know, of the Rebel Alliance? And it's an interesting conversation. They're going back and forth a little bit until a guy walks up and is like, hey, I couldn't help but over here, I'm a roofer. And he tells this story about turning down a job because it was like some mob guy's house. So he gives it to his friend and that friend is then killed in a drive-by at the house, like later. It's just, to me, this is a very funny thing of like, you know, explaining how, you know, like the roofer doesn't just think with his wallet, he thinks with his heart or his morals. It's just, to me, it's a very funny kind of like whole conversation. And it was the kind of thing that my friends and I talked about in high school. Like, no, we never got into this specifically, but like talking about Star Wars in particular to deep levels was something we did. I used to sit in chemistry class with Patrick Inception and like, and like trivia each other on like the deepest deep cut Star Wars trivia we can think of before, you know, Mr. Hensie or whoever it was got in for chemistry. Like, you know, it was just that kind of thing. And so having these two people on screen do this conversation was so like, I feel seen for me in this movie. And it really has stuck with me ever since. But yeah.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, it definitely the first time we're seeing this kind of thing. And I honestly, just the conversation with Dante and Randall about the Death Star stuff. And this has also been like this has influenced a lot of shitty stuff. And it's kind of hard for me. It's kind of like, like Anchorman. Anchorman's a very funny movie. People annoyed me for 20 years quoting Anchorman. That diminished my perception of Anchorman, even though it's not the movie's fault, you know? So I think like derivative versions of this conversation in particular, I think have shown up in a lot of things. And I really, you know, I fucking hate Randall. I can't deal with that guy. I hate the way he talks. I don't like him at all. But when the real— so this conversation is happening, I'm just like, ah, Jesus, give it. And also, you know, full disclosure, I'm not really a Star Wars guy. I've seen those Star Wars movies maybe like 2 or 3 times, uh, or so, which I think is a fair amount of times, but not, not for our generation.

Steve

Right, right.

Nic

Uh, but the roofer guy coming in to raise the stakes of the bit, I think really pulls it together. Yeah, like just the conversation, I'm just kind of like, okay, because who gives a shit about this guy? But this guy coming grounded in reality and being like, actually, this ridiculous shit you're talking about happened to me this— just this last year.

Steve

Right? Yeah.

Nic

So I liked that. I like these other people coming in to like validate the conversations they're having.

Steve

Yeah, there's definitely a stark kind of line drawn between the clerks, Randall and Dante, and all these like regular people that kind of come in because none of them are as delusional about themselves as Randall and Dante are. You know what I mean? And there's this like kind of like undercurrent of like, like, you know, these two guys think so highly of themselves, not even necessarily of each other, but just their own like self kind of importance is so enormous that it's such a stark contrast between them and like almost everybody else who comes into the store. Yes. Is just a regular person for the most part. And so I feel like there's a fun sort of thing that happens there.

Nic

And I know, I mean, so doing, uh, doing comedy and stuff and just in life, but especially in that world, you meet a ton of people who are these fucking been like blown away by their own intellect as philosophers. Like, they're not trying to be funny when they're talking to you. They're talking about some stupid bullshit that they're extremely confident about and nobody cares about, and they're wrong about, you know. So I like, I know so many of these. So Randall, I'm just like, oh, I've fucking talked to Randall twice every single fucking Tuesday night. Um, so, uh, so part of it I'm like, oh, I know that guy. But that's the purpose. The point of the movie isn't look how cool Randall is.

Steve

No, it's look how cool Randall isn't. Yeah, exactly.

Nic

Exactly.

Steve

We do get a great Randall moment next though, because he's just sitting reading the paper, something on the counter at RST, and a woman comes up, asks him about, hey, are either of these movies any good? Yeah, right. And he's just like, like, I don't really know, I don't pay attention to what people like. And, you know, and she's kind of like, what are you talking about, you work here? So then she tries to— she turns around and goes, well, what about these two? And turns around, he goes, oh, those suck. And she's like, ha, these are the same two movies. And this is my favorite Randall line in the whole movie: I don't appreciate your ruse, ma'am. She's like, my what? Your ruse, your clever attempt to trick me. Yeah. And he talks about how it doesn't feel good to be right, you know, whatever. It's— I think it's a very funny moment. But, um, but yeah, I don't appreciate your ruse, ma'am, is something that I've carried with me. Um, yeah.

Nic

Um, so we've got them. Oh, and the other thing is people keep coming in ordering, uh, cigarettes.

Steve

Yes, buying cigarettes.

Nic

And they're just saying cigarettes.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Even though there's like 30 brands on display behind them, you know.

Steve

100%. Also, you'll notice, speaking of the cigarettes and what's behind them, at one point— I don't remember exactly where, because I don't think I wrote it down— but at some point, very offhandedly Eventually Dante makes a comment about, "Man, isn't it weird how all the prices end in 9?" If you look behind him, literally none of those prices. They're all 95s. There's a couple of 98s. There was like a something 86. Not a single one of the prices we can see ends in 9. And I always thought that was, like, I feel like that must have been deliberate. But yeah. Yep.

Nic

And then we have another like weird customer. A guy who's like sitting on the floor, pulling every egg out of the carton. And he's like, "Well, why don't you just mix and match and make a—" He's like, "No, I need to find the perfect dozen." a, you know, just a goofy-ass, like, you know, mentally ill guy going through the eggs.

Steve

Mentally ill, except we find out apparently because a woman walks up to chat with them about this guy, another customer, and she's like, oh, I've seen this before. It was at like a grocery store down the street like last year. It's a guidance counselor. And they're like, why does this happen to guidance counselors? And she goes like, if your job was that worthless, wouldn't you like be, you know, trying to find something you can control in your life? She goes, that's why it's very important to have an important job. That's why I manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination, which is another just like, man, that's a line that's just packed. Like, it's like 7 or 8 words long, but it's fucking packed. And they just watch her leave. Very funny to me.

Nic

But yeah, uh, and they're talking about, uh, let's see, now Randall and Dante are talking about the, the jizz mopper profession.

Steve

Yeah, I think, I think Randall sells cigarettes to a little girl first. He's not paying attention to what he's doing and sitting behind the counter at Quick Stop, but like ends up handing a pack of cigarettes to a little, like a 4-year-old, whatever, little kid. And that comes back later. But yeah, then they're talking, then Randall's talking about like, you know, you know, like, I think like, how much do you think a jizz mopper makes? Or whatever. And he's like, what are you talking about? It's like nudie booths, you know, adult bookstores, whatever. And he kind of explains the whole thing while a customer walks up to him. And what's the customer buying? A roll of paper towels and like a thing of Windex. And he's very offended at their conversation about what we can only assume is his profession. So the jizz mopper himself gives them shit for like talking about it.

Nic

And I do like it. He says, I don't know if you knew this or not, but cum leaves streaks if you don't clean it right away. It's like, oh my God. Um, so, and, and this is the kind of stuff that comes out if you're just like beating a certain conversation topic into the ground, like, right, what jokes can we churn out of this? And that come leave streaks line I think was just, uh, yeah, that was a nice one. Yeah. Uh, so they're talking about like the types of customers that piss them off, right? You know, so the classic thing, the person saying like, so how much does this cost? Yeah, right behind them Is this big sign about how much it costs? And, you know, just asking obvious questions. And then Randall hates everybody at the video store.

Steve

Yes. Although the one, the one thing that I've taken from this scene, like, I literally, I can't remember all the contexts, but I will use anytime I can shoehorn, ooh, Navy SEALs into something, I will, like, just to reference, like, a bad thing that someone's excited about.

Nic

Like, this, this offended me a bit because I like the movie Navy SEALs. I think it's very fun. I like that they refer to beers as rain grenades. Grenades. And, uh, there's lots of, lots of good stuff in Navy SEALs. We'll be getting to it in season 9. Oh good. 2 Dads 1 Movie. Uh, but yeah, it's funny to kind of go through because every job you have this like, uh, these types of people. And it doesn't matter, you know, where it's at. If you have a certain type of job, you have this kind of person that's always driving you fucking crazy.

Steve

Randall says this job would be great if it weren't for the fucking customers. He means all of them. Yeah. Uh, but at this point Veronica comes back to sort like talked to Dante and smoothed things over from earlier. And they kind of left, you know, she left kind of in a huff or whatever, but she's brought him lasagna, again, another totally empty platter, clearly the way that Dante takes it from her. But you know, like, that's cool. You do, we do hear from Randall off screen, 37, just like from off screen with whatever. But yeah, so then he finds out, Dante does, via phone call that the boss is not coming in. It's already past due.

Nic

He's not getting relieved.

Steve

He's not getting relieved. Boss went to Vermont, right? They're in New Jersey. He's in Vermont now. So clearly the guy was like, He had no plan to come. No intention to come. Just get Dante there, let him open the store, and then I'll just go on. And you know Dante will stick around for the whole day.

Nic

Like calling in the sick day from the line at Space Mountain. Yeah, right. Like we've talked about. Exactly. I had no plan to show up.

Steve

But yeah, this is also, I think, the third time of five that Dante says, "I'm not even supposed to be here today." That does recur several times. I haven't mentioned the other ones, but yeah, that's something that he yells into the phone. Alone. Yeah, but they got to deal with this hockey game now. This is— yeah, they've got a commitment. We, we got a commitment.

Nic

And, and again, uh, great usage of the budget because I think it shows 3 total people in this rooftop hockey scene, you know. But the sound is very effective. You feel like there's really a game going on and you get a lot of shots of the rollerblades.

Steve

Yeah, of the sticks and of the ball. And there's, you know, there are definitely 2 people in, uh, goalie gear because Randall is wearing goalie gear in his CCCP sort of USSR jersey. And there's somebody else that also has got goalie gear on. So it's like either, yeah, there was just, they switched things around and then shot people, you know, for just a moment or whatever. But yeah, it makes it look like it might even be like 3 on 3. Like it looks like a fairly, you know, large amount of people up there. But they have locked up the stores and there's a sign, I think, on the front of Quick Stop that says like, we'll be back open after the first period or something like that, right? And so they've started playing up there, but there's a guy who's come to the store who wants to buy a pack of cigarettes, like literally everyone in this town wants to do at all times. And you know, he cries, climbs up the sort of ladder and is like, when are you guys gonna be open? What the fuck? I want to buy cigarettes. Like, ah, you know, wait, wait. And he basically starts talking shit about how bad Dante is at hockey. Um, and so, you know, Dante's like, fine, get up here and you do better. And my first thought, from the first time I saw this movie, my first thought was like, yeah, but that guy's not got rollerblades on. Yeah, he's gonna fuck you up. Like, you wear the rollerblades because it's a— you can make the difference on sneakers. Like, it's a deliberate disadvantage to be on the rollerblades. The rollerblade is the—.

Nic

It's the QWERTY, uh, board alignment. It's meant to slow you A little bit.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. So this guy, they go to do the face-off and he just bowls Dante over, slams him to the ground, and then, you know, Brett Hull slap shot the ball off into oblivion, uh, at which point that's when they realize that, oh my God, nobody brought a second ball. That's it, we only get to play for like 8 minutes or whatever and then we're done. Unfair.

Nic

So unfair. Yep. Um, and another— man, we've had a couple hockey scenes with, uh, Wayne's World, a couple episodes. Yeah.

Steve

Big fan. I do love a line here from Jay. This is probably the best line delivered by Jason Mewes, is when they're looking for another ball and Dante looks down and just says, anybody, any balls down there? And Jay goes, pear the biggest you ever seen, dingleberry. I just love that. About the biggest pear you ever seen.

Nic

Uh, so we're back in the store and there's this old man, uh, who goes up to Dante. He wants to use the bathroom, right? And but then he has all these follow-up, you know, conditions He's like, customers only, but yeah, sure, go ahead. Okay, and what's the toilet paper like in there? Is it the soft kind or is it the hard— oh, you know, it's the rough stuff. Well, can you open a package of the soft stuff and send it back there with me? You know, oh, I need something to read, I need a magazine. Can you give me a porno magazine?

Steve

Um, oh my God, he does.

Nic

So he's off in the bathroom, uh, and then more more ex-girlfriend news for Dante. He finds out that one of his exes died. Yes, mid-backstroke.

Steve

Oh, at the YMCA. And which is actually reused as a plot point in Mallrats. Oh, okay. Get there, there will be someone who dies at the YMCA mid-backstroke with a little, with a little more backstory and explanation as to why in that one. But this one starts an argument between Dante and Randall because, uh, you know, there's a funeral, it's today, it's at 4, it's the only time, she's buried tomorrow, like, or whatever, right? And, and he's like, oh my God, I gotta go, you gotta cover the stores for me, like, watch. And Randall's like, no, I'm not gonna miss what might be the social event of the season, like, I gotta be there too. And Dante is like, "You didn't date her. You barely knew her." Like, whatever. And so they agree basically to close the stores, both of them, and just go to the wake. And so they drive off there and they arrive and they're there for 5 minutes, I think it says on the thing, 5 minutes, and off they run because there's a huge problem and they need to leave because Dante knocked over the casket. No, no, Randall.

Nic

Randall knocked the casket over. Knocked the casket over.

Steve

Yeah. Oh my God.

Nic

Yeah, so they, they come running out of there. They're kind of getting chased. Yeah, everyone. So short-lived little trip over there.

Steve

I did miss the conversation in the car about Cousin Walter. Cousin Walter again is another thing that Kevin Smith reuses, referring to horrible sex stories by someone named Cousin Walter. Okay, ends up showing up several times. Jason Lee's character in Mallrats has a Cousin Walter in a story that he tells about him. But, but yeah, it's basically like Randall basically gets Dante to admit trying to suck his own dick and then makes fun of him for it, even though he clearly like baited him into it by insinuating that he himself had tried, because that sounds like the kind of friend Randall is.

Nic

Sure, yeah, yeah, right. So he said this guy Walter broke his neck trying to suck his own dick, right? And he got there.

Steve

That's what he said.

Nic

At that point, if you're like, look, if I'm paralyzed, can you just keep me posed like this then? I'm not going anywhere anyway. Um, so there's an old man, uh, at the store, a customer there who's talking about kind kind of like Weekly World News type stuff, like National Enquirer headliner thing. And, and he won't leave. Like, he says this one thing and then he's hanging there and he keeps just saying shit. And they're, they're having a conversation, but not— yeah. And then, uh, at some point Randall just like spits water in this guy's face. Yes.

Steve

Yeah, because he's— Dante's basically saying, you know, you can't do certain things because, you know, you work here. And Randall's like, oh, so you're telling me, you know, position dictates or title dictates action? Like, like that I will or won't do I will or won't do strictly because I work here and therefore an employee. And he's like, and so he spits in the guy's face just to sort of prove, it's almost like a juvenile version of, you know, Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park talking about chaos theory. It's a very juvenile kind of version of that. But he's basically like, look, see, I did something the title would dictate I wouldn't do. So you're wrong. And it's like, not really what he meant.

Nic

Not fully understanding it.

Steve

Definitely not getting it. But yeah, but the guy freaks out but ends up like, I think Dante has to give him his money back and the guy leaves. The next customer that shows up is this like fitness trainer guy who chats with Dante a little bit. Dante gives him a gallon of milk and the guy's, "Oh, I heard you grunt there." He's like, "I didn't grunt." Like, "I saw you." "No, you're outta shape," you know, giving him some shit. And he's chatting, this girl their age walks up and they're all chatting, kind of realize they all know each other, at which point some other random guy walks up and goes like, "Do you work here all day or whatever?" And he's like, "Yeah." And Dante's not really paying attention to this other guy, but finally he like basically writes out this thing and hands him and goes, "Here's a fine for $500." was like, whoa, what the fuck? What do you mean $500 fine? Like, what happened? He's like, well, you know, somebody here sold a pack of cigarettes to a 4-year-old. You say you're the only one who's been working here all day, so the fine's yours. Like, and given the, like, extreme, you know, age of the child, it's an even bigger fine. And both the other 2 people are like, damn, dude, fuck you. Yeah, yeah. Selling cigarettes to kids? Jesus.

Nic

Like, I like the fast action by the regulatory agency here. I know, right? This is a record response time.

Steve

Must be the city, like the municipal group. It can't be anything higher up than that. Um, but yeah, so Dante gets the big fine and, and yeah, was pissed off. Yeah.

Nic

I mean, as it should, it's as a cat, as an employee somewhere, I mean, to personally get fined, that's gotta be, that's gonna be rough.

Steve

But that's the, that's definitely what happened. I mean, that's definitely the way those things are written out for sure.

Nic

Yeah. Um, so Randall, even though he works at the video store next door, he's like, I gotta get a movie for tonight. And he's like, okay, we'll pick a movie. He's like, I need to go to the good video store. Um, And, and I totally get this, and I, I know that the video stores were like this maybe a little bit, but the theaters were for sure where the same movies weren't going to the same— that now I feel like every theater gets the same movies more or less, at least the top 10. Yeah, are gonna go to all theaters. And, uh, to have to like find the right store to even rent, uh, to have a selection for you is good. So he's gonna go do that. And, uh, and now Caitlin showed up, right?

Steve

So Caitlin shows up surprising Dante and is basically like saying like, hey, when I saw— when I— when my mom told me that she told the paper about the engagement, like, I decided to come down here and like talk to you because I knew you'd freak out. And basically her thing is like, her fiancé or boyfriend, whatever, asked her to marry him and she said like basically, I don't know, you know, didn't answer him right away, didn't say yes, but he insisted she wear the ring. And then the mom— her mom saw that, and so then her mom told the newspaper. Like, that's sort of what happen. But she's like, but I don't want to marry him. I don't want to marry anybody. I'm not looking to get married. She wants a career. Yeah, she's finishing college and she's going to like start her career and like, and then maybe someday get married kind of thing. Um, but this is all Dante needs to hear to understand that like they can get back together basically. Like Caitlin's saying, like, I'm not going to date him and I'm not going to marry— I'm not going to marry him. I'm not going to marry you. But by not marrying him, like that ends that relationship. Like, that's not— he's not going to stay with me, whatever. So I am back with you sort of thing if you want me kind of thing. Which delights Dante to no end. Like, this is clearly what he wants.

Nic

And this is the girl they were talking about earlier, had cheated on him 8 and a half times.

Steve

8 and a half times, right, exactly.

Nic

So yeah, I mean, just Dante going back to the same self-destructive behavior. Terrible, terrible idea.

Steve

Dante, or Randall rather, returns from Big Choice Video to explain to Dante the wonderful movie that he has rented for the evening, the hermaphrodite porn Best of Both Worlds. So good for him, I guess.

Nic

Oh, there's one thing they do to Dante. So he's inside the store, and I think Jay and Silent Bob do a little prank on him, and they write like a speech bubble that says, "I eat cock," right, on the door, so that when Dante comes out to be like, "What's going on out here?" it's like right there. So I like that kind of stuff.

Steve

Yep. So now Dante has convinced Randall to like hang out of the store for a while so he can go get changed so that he can take Caitlin out to dinner. They've agreed to go on a date, so he leaves, and now it's just Randall at the store. And then Caitlin comes back. She has changed her clothes. She looks like ready for a date, like whatever. She's like, it's a little Paula Poundstone for me, a little like a tie, whatever, but whatever. You know, so she's chatting with Randall a little bit and is just like, hey, can I use the bathroom in the back? And Randall's like, well, there's no lights back there, so you can go ahead, but like, you know, be careful. There's no lights. So she goes back there and then Dante shows up and is like wearing a sweater and like the whole kind of this looks like a guy going on a date in the mid-'90s. Yeah. And is talking to Randall, is just kind of like, oh man, this is so great. Can you believe it? Like whatever. And then Caitlin comes back clothing a bit disheveled, satisfied look on her face, is surprised to see Dante at the counter and is like, "How did you get here so fast?" And he's like, "Well, I left an hour ago to go get changed. What do you mean get here so fast?" Turns out she thought that back in the bathroom, for whatever reason, there's no good reason why she thought this, but she thought that Dante was back there and letting her just do whatever she wanted with him. Turns out that old guy from earlier who got the porno and the nice toilet paper He was dead, and apparently rigor mortis affects most parts of the body, it sounds like, because he still had an erection, and Caitlin fucked a dead guy. And they all figure this out, and Caitlin gets sick, and they like call the police and like, you know, to come get the guy. And like, there's this very, uh, makes Dante look very bad sort of conversation with like a police or, you know, some kind of whatever the investigator, the person that's there, you know, is like getting information. So when did this guy show up? And, you know, why did he have a porno? I gave it to him. Why'd you give him a porno? Well, he asked for it. You know, like all this stuff. And it just makes Dante sound like an absolute degenerate. Uh, but you know, sure enough, uh, she even says— this is like one of the most unrealistic lines in a movie, full of them to be fair— is like, oh, she's gonna need years of therapy. Like, as if a cop or whoever would say that about the person in the moment, you know? And then she's in the— Kaylin's in the— go ahead. No, I was like, Kaylin's in the back of the ambulance and Willem climbs into the back of the ambulance. I— that's weird.

Nic

I also don't get like, why is she riding in the same ambulance with the dead guy? Like, it doesn't make sense. This is the subject of your trauma. Yeah, that 'You're gonna need years of therapy. Now we leave you in there,' you know?

Steve

It's because Smith could only afford the one van. He had to film the whole thing all at once. That's definitely what happened. It is kind of—.

Nic

It's an extreme version of John Candy's story in Home Alone about leaving his kid alone with the corpse. It's like, this is taking that to a much higher level. Much higher level there. Um, yeah, so Caitlin— I mean, for that character, that character is treated fucking brutal.

Steve

Yes. It's not good. All for the—.

Nic

All for the crime of cheating on the worst guy in the world 8 and a half times.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, so this craziness is all happening, and then Jay and Silent Bob, who've been hanging out out front— they're like the drug dealers, they're just like always out front of the, uh, store— and they invite— they invite him out to a party later, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve

Just like, hey, you should come out with us, whatever. And, and Dante's like, yeah, that doesn't sound like what I want to do right now. And, and this is when we get, you know, Jay is telling him all this stuff, whatever, it's kind of spouting nonsense. But he goes to leave after insulting Dante, and Silent Bob— this is when Silent Bob speaks for the only time in this movie— and he says, you know, basically like, because they're talking about how like, oh, that girl Caitlin, you're with her? He's like, not really. I thought you were with that girl Veronica. I saw her, I always see her bringing you shit, whatever. He's like, yeah. And then Silent Bob says like, there's a million beautiful women out in the world, but only not very many of them will— or like very few of them will bring you lasagna at work. Yeah, right. And it's just like saying like, know what you have, dude. Like, stop, stop chasing, you know, whatever. And so, so there is that. In the meantime, Randall is talking to Veronica, thinking that he is doing— claiming that he thinks he's doing Dante a service by letting her know he really wants Caitlin. Yeah, you should just, you should just back off. He wants Caitlin. Uh, and, uh, then Veronica goes to confront Dante about this because Dante has realized from the talk with Jameson and Bob, oh shit, I should be with Veronica. She really cares. Yeah, she cares about me.

Nic

With a fucking fire extinguisher earlier, like Yeah.

Steve

And, and so this is, this is the person I should be with. I should stop chasing someone like Caitlin, who by the way is probably not going to be going on any dates anytime soon. She's got some shit to work through now. Um, but yeah, like that's his realization. So he wants to go kind of reconcile with Veronica, but she's just been told what, you know, and she like, again, this actress does struggle with these lines a little bit. The, this, this tirade she goes on lasts quite a while and is full of odd sentence structure that I can't tell again if it's just the way it was written or is it the actress just kind of stumbling over pieces of it, but it loses some of its oomph. But the end result being she's breaking up with Dante. Like that's, they're over. She's been tired of like supporting him and waiting for him to figure out like what the fuck to do with his life. And now, fuck you, I'm gone, I'm done. So yeah, that's it for Veronica and Dante.

Nic

And what is Dante supposed to be like 22, 23 years old? It's so funny to think about someone that age being like, you gotta do something. With your life. You got to figure it out. It's like, shit, dude, I'm in my mid-40s and I'm maybe kind of figured out some of it, but not—.

Steve

You and I at 22 were in college working towards upper division credits and majors. Something going on there.

Nic

Um, yeah, so, so that's it for Veronica and Dante. And now, uh, Randall and Dante are kind of—.

Steve

Well, Randall comes back in the store and Dante tackles him, basically. They're fighting over this fact that, you know, Randall just blew up Dante's spot essentially and then ended his relationship quite, uh, with quite a bit of finality, right? That was sort of like, like maybe there would have been more trouble between Veronica and Dante, probably would have been, but Randall kind of nailed that last nail into the coffin and shut the lid and everything. So, so they fight for a while but end up, you know, sort of just making up the way a lot of guys do, especially at that age. You know, you fight with your friends and then you sort of just like talk it through kind of thing.

Nic

Um, yeah, don't leave. If you get in a fight with one of your friends, don't leave the scene because you need to have that moment where you're just both kind of sitting there afterwards like, oh man, oh Jesus, I can't believe you hit hard. And then you really bond. We see this here. We saw this in They Live with, uh, oh, that's right, with Keith David and Roddy Piper. So hang out, like, have the fight but hang out. Yeah.

Steve

And then this is when— and Dante drops the fifth and final 'I'm not even supposed to be here today,' which pisses Randall off. And there's this whole thing. So, but they end up choosing to clean up together. And it's, uh, pretty much, I think, close to it. I don't remember where it ends after that.

Nic

Like, yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's the end of the day. They kind of lock up. So yeah, day in the life.

Steve

And the last line is, is, 'You are, you are closed,' because it says like, 'Are you sure you were open and Randall throws that back in like, oh, you're closed now or something. Yeah.

Nic

So that's Clerks. All right. So that is Clerks.

Steve

Yeah. I'll go ahead and give my, my thoughts first. So like I said, this, this is a movie that I know for sure. Like I am a super fan of, I love this so much from this movie because I have so much nostalgia for it because it meant so much to me in both my movie sort of viewing history, but also my just interest in films and in moviemaking, which is not something I ever really explored through my life, but it's always just kind of been in the back of my my head. This is something that, you know, I love it for what it meant for later films that came, right? This is the movie that made studios and other people in Hollywood look at Kevin Smith and give him money to go make other movies. So there is, there is, there is a seed of almost everything that came after and Kevin Smith in this film. It actually has a sequel that far is far superior to this movie. It's actually got several sequels, but Clerks II is like a legitimately hilarious movie in ways that Clerks couldn't quite be, uh, so much of. Um, but yeah, this is, this is like one of those movies I know I'm gonna give a higher, much higher score than you are, Nick, and that's fine. But I'm a 4 out of 5 on Clerks. I love this movie. I can't give it something higher than that because like, you know, the, the script is too erudite for the characters. The actors stumble over so many of the lines. But there's so much about this movie that means so much to me. I'm not going to give it a lower score than that. And I'm a 4 out of 5 on Clerks. All right.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And, um, Um, yeah, so there's certain things about this that, like, you know, your, your comment about the script being too erudite for the characters is right on. And that's something that sticks with me in a lot of situations where I'm like, I fucking hate this, I just don't like this. Um, the— in Kevin Smith himself, uh, it's funny, I haven't watched a lot of his movies. I'm very interested in the guy because I think he does a lot of weird things, like this whole kind of world that he has created, like with his fandom and stuff. And he has very loyal fans and everything. My favorite podcast is a podcast called Guys. Okay. And what they do is every episode they'll take a certain type of like obsessed online community through Reddit or whatever. It'll be, you know, rockabilly guys, guys that are really into the band Tool, or guys that are, you know, really into motorcycles or whatever. And they did an episode about Kevin Smith guys. And I didn't know that Kevin Smith will literally sell anything. Like, it's amazing what— like, this mentality of, I had to max out all my credit cards to make Clerks, has never left him. Yeah. And it seems like he is scraping for every possible dollar out there and will license or like do whatever with his fucking characters. But he has this whole community of people that really love him and love, love what he does, you know. It just doesn't quite hit exactly for me. Sure. These two characters, like we talked about in the last movie, we kind of have competing visions of of an apathetic, like, youthful existence, uh, depending on where you grow up. Like, Dante and Randall seem to care about their lives. I mean, at least to the— caring about their own comfort and caring about what happens tomorrow, but they're not putting a lot of thought into, like, long-term planning for their life. And then O-Dog and Kane, you know, the same thing, but they have zero opportunities. Yeah. And, uh, I think the, the message should that Randall and Dante should both get killed in some way, and O-Dog and Kane should move to New Jersey and work at a video store and a convenience store. Fair enough. This— I get the influence of this movie, and I am impressed by what they were able to do with the budget, but Clerks can't do any better than a 2 out of 5. That makes sense.

Steve

That's a 6 out of 10 from the 2 Dads 1 Movie. I think 2 is a very, very respectable score given you don't have all of the little markers that I have for this one. So not not a big deal at all. All right, that was 1994, and what are we going to watch for 1995, Nick? What's next up?

Nic

Okay, I'm excited about this one because this is another one I don't think I've seen since high school. All right, and a movie that at the time, like Clerks was for a lot of people, one of these movies where you're like, now this is what fucking cool— okay, and I want to see if it holds up because I, I'm thinking that maybe it wouldn't. But we are going to 1995, uh, one of kind of earlier, like, that, that came out in this phase of, uh, with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. And then we had the people that were like coming out alongside Tarantino but had similar influences, uh, and this is, uh, Robert Rodriguez's 1995 film starring, uh, the great Antonio Banderas, who we might know from Puss in Boots. Uh, we're gonna go to Mexico and, uh, and hang out with 1995's Desperado. Wonderful.

Steve

I don't I've ever seen Desperado all the way through. All right, I, I remember I watched El Mariachi, which was, which was sort of his precursor. That was his Reservoir Dogs slash Clerks, right? That was his first thing. I don't think I've ever seen Desperado, at least not all the way, so I'm very excited. Banderas is fantastic. Uh, yeah, very much.

Nic

Uh, Salma Hayek. Yeah, gorgeous. Not to mention the ladies here.

Steve

Absolutely. So that'll be a lot of fun. Next week we will watch Desperado. Uh, thank you for that one, Nick. That's a wrap. So if you like what you hear, please consider heading over over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website at twodads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. We'd also love it if you followed us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @twodads1movie. Once again, this has been Clerks, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve. And I'm Nic. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week. Thanks everyone.