The Clerks cartoon was little seen, but it is wonderfully funny. Its network time-slot forced it to be sanitized, but this allowed for more visual humor and inspired greater creativity. So, of course, it was canceled after only two episodes (which were barely advertised).
The show still has the elements that made the movie great, minus the potty mouths. It also adds some inspired lunacy, in the Clerks nemesis, Leonardo Leondardo, voiced brilliantly by Alec Baldwin. The original actors are back, and they show great talent for voice acting. Jeff Anderson especially comes across well, seemingly more at ease behind the microphone than he was in front of the camera.
The stories are fun and inventive, with the second show being a parody of clip shows (the joke being that they've only had one episode to look back on). The episode revolving around Dante's coaching a little league team and Randal being held prisoner in a mine is truly hysterical. It has great comedy and sends up The Bad News Bears, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Last Starfighter. In fact, movie parodies were a large staple of the show.
It's a shame that ABC never gave the show the chance it deserved. It was really better suited to HBO or another cable channel, where it would have been less inhibited; but, the creators used those limitations to spark their creativity. The six episodes are available on DVD and are definitely worth the price. The commentary tracks are entertaining (as Smith's usually are) and are very revealing about how producers interact with television networks and how a great show can be sabotaged.
The show still has the elements that made the movie great, minus the potty mouths. It also adds some inspired lunacy, in the Clerks nemesis, Leonardo Leondardo, voiced brilliantly by Alec Baldwin. The original actors are back, and they show great talent for voice acting. Jeff Anderson especially comes across well, seemingly more at ease behind the microphone than he was in front of the camera.
The stories are fun and inventive, with the second show being a parody of clip shows (the joke being that they've only had one episode to look back on). The episode revolving around Dante's coaching a little league team and Randal being held prisoner in a mine is truly hysterical. It has great comedy and sends up The Bad News Bears, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Last Starfighter. In fact, movie parodies were a large staple of the show.
It's a shame that ABC never gave the show the chance it deserved. It was really better suited to HBO or another cable channel, where it would have been less inhibited; but, the creators used those limitations to spark their creativity. The six episodes are available on DVD and are definitely worth the price. The commentary tracks are entertaining (as Smith's usually are) and are very revealing about how producers interact with television networks and how a great show can be sabotaged.