Smith originally offered to direct a Degrassi episode, but Schuyler said no because the show’s key staff have to be Canadian.

“Which was the first time I’d ever been told no with that reason — you can’t do it because you’re not Canadian. But she said, ‘How would you like a cameo?’ So I wrote her back a week later with this idea of a three-episode arc.”

Smith shows up at Degrassi to research a new movie, Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh? His Clerks sidekick Jason Mewes appears next Monday, along with Los Angeles-based Canuck singer Alanis Morissette, who played God in Smith’s films Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

“I said, ‘Do you want to come up and play the principal in the fake movie we’re doing in the show?’ She was really sweet about it,” he says. “That’s one of the nicest things anybody’s ever done for me, was just to jump on a plane and come to Toronto just to shoot that one scene.

“But just because she knew it meant a lot to me, that was really kind of cool of her.”

Now, Smith would like to do an entire episode in which Morissette just plays herself. And he’s already thinking of making his own comeback when Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh? makes its fake screen debut.

“I told them I gotta come back next season to premiere the movie.”

Marilyn Ghigliotti checks in with us on that newsbite we ran about an early film appearance yesterday:
“So not worth checking out. Very cheesy movie I did about 3 – 4 yrs prior to Clerks when I was still green. One I wish I hadn’t done.”