Clerks

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Originally produced May 31st, 1995

You're probably familiar with the movie "Clerks", the first movie by director/writer Kevin Smith. It was a low budget black and white film about life in a New Jersey mini-mall, filmed in the very convenience store Smith himself worked in at the time.
Clerks

It was released in November, 1994, and was an instant commerical and critical success, making Smith an instant auteur. Its distributor, Miramax, looking for a way to capitalize on its quirky success, joined with Touchstone Television, affiliated with Disney studios, to create a tv sitcom based on the film. Kevin Smith was not consulted, or involved in anyway at this point (he later signed on, briefly, as executive producer, but left due to creative differences), so I assume Miramax had some sort of television series rights in its distribution contract. Kevin did learn of it while it was In mid-1995, while he was filming "Mallrats", he found out about it when an actor who had read for one of the parts in the show told him it was in production, and was not very good, which Smith was probably not too surprised to hear. After all, much of the appeal of the film was its rawness in language and attitude. These characters were salesmen who totally despised their customers. The film's tagline: "Just because they serve you doesn't mean they like you". So how do you give them that essential quality for any tv character, likability?
Veronica and gang

Their solution was to make them lovable losers. Gone are the cynical attitudes, references to "snowballing" and the hardcore pornography titles. Instead, Dante Hicks (Andrew Lowery, above left) is a clean cut not-ready-for-law-school guy, but who otherwise seems fairly straitlaced. In fact, he looks like he plays golf regularly. In the center is Todd (Rick Gomez), the ice-cream clerk, with the goatee that Dante had in the film, but here it's less radical because it's on the goofy guy. The video clerk is Randal Graves(Jim Breuer, on the right), who's not a hustler like he was in the movie, but more of a physical comedian, in the style of Jim Carrey. They're constantly horsing around, tossing bags of potato chips like footballs and watching their own videos instead of tending to customers. Speaking of which, there are very few customers with speaking parts, unfortunately, which is where most of the humor would be. Yet having them mistreat customers would make them unlikable, to advertisers especially, whose sole concern is to attract customers to their stores, so there's the dilemma in this pilot.
Todd and Sandra

To avoid this problem, the mini-mall is treated like a campus malt-shop, as background for customers and clerks who all are about the same age. Here we see Todd (Rick Gomez), longing for the mini-mall's tanning salon clerk, Sandra (Keri Russell), who believes tanning lotion, not the sun's rays, cause skin cancer.
Bodhi Elfman

The only character who could fit comfortably in the original movie is Ray (Bodhi Elfman), a chronic shoplifter, and a lousy one at that. Maybe it's because he's the only one who expresses contempt for everybody. Ray was not actually in the original, but Ray and Todd do kind of sound like Jay and Bob ( who are not in this show!)
Veronica

The only main character who is able to thrive in this difficult compromise between Touchstone's show and Smith's movie is Veronica Loughran (Noelle Parker). She was originally played by Marilynn Ghigliotti.
The women of "Clerks" the movie seemed to exist to plague the male characters with their difficult demands, colorful sexual histories, and infidelities. As written, her character here is greatly toned down, but Noelle still manages to give her back that edge, through body language and a sassy demeanor.
Veronica and Dante

The original Veronica wanted Dante to go back to college. Here, she doesn't really dwell on it; instead, she justs wants him to use his head once in a while, for his own good.
Veronica and Dante

That doesn't stop her from needling him about it, though:

Veronica: Busy day at the office?
Dante: I've been promoted to Zordac, God of all things convenient!
Veronica: So I guess this isn't the day you're getting on with your life!
Dante: I've got big plans...!
Veronica: Mmmm, what kind of big plans?
Dante: Big vague plans!

Veronica's miffed because his idea of a hot date is watching Randal's rentals together on the security monitor:
Junk food and videos, what more can you ask for, wonders Dante?
Veronica: "I can't think of anything. . . oh wait: sex and a car!"
She's an accounting student who works at the campus bookstore, and she can find time for them; why can't he ever get time off his lousy job for a real date?
Veronica, Todd and Randall

To make matters worse, halfway through the video, Dante leaves to have an awkward talk with his dad. Veronica immediately finds herself in a geek sandwich with Todd and Randal on either side of her. She's trying to watch the remake of "Little Women", while they try to decide if the movie "sucks" or "blows".
(See, if this were "Clerks" the movie, these two guys would've been graphically comparing and contrasting the body types of Winona Ryder and Claire Danes in "Little Women". Veronica would still be disgusted, and there'd be a whole discussion of their male shallowness; to no avail, of course!)
Veronica and gang

Dante's discussion with his dad is awkward, alright, but nothing major. He doesn't seem to mind too much that his son sells microwaved hotdogs. In storms Veronica, who's had enough of Randal's obnoxious mugging, and Todd's desperate snuggling. So why didn't Dante come back to her rescue immediately?
Veronica and gang

Dante responds with a hug and a friendly boost in the air, which dispels her mood for the moment. While watching, Randal makes some sort of joke about it. As played by Jim Breuer, Randal's behavior towards Dante has a definite homoerotic subtext. It's obviously meant just for laughs, as if he were a jealous boyfriend of Dante's, and wouldn't merit any further discussion except when you look back in hindsight after seeing Kevin Smith's later films. Thinking of some of the male characters' latency in "Chasing Amy" and "Dogma" only makes Breuer's interpretation funnier in ways he could not have predicted.

Veronica excuses herself for a moment. . .
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