Taking place in the same world with the same characters as Kevin Smith’s hit independent film (of the same name), Clerks never quite found its audience and as such was cancelled after airing only two episodes. With the -uncensored- DVD release, however, this comedic animated take on Smith’s raucous film was given new life, becoming one of the first DVDs to find a larger audience in DVD sales than in its television viewership.

Fans of the Clerks films, as well as other Kevin Smith movies, will recognize the main characters of the series: Dante Hicks, Randal Graves, and Jay and Silent Bob. Focusing the series around Dante and Randal, Clerks followed the same format as its film counterpart by taking in the day to day happenings of Dante (the convenience store worker) and Randal (the video store ‘worker’), while spicing it up with guest appearances by Jay and Silent Bob. While the names and the basic premise is the same, the show took drastic steps to separate itself from the shadow of the hit indie film by taking the four lead characters and placing them in wildly unpredictable and random situations. By changing up the locales and the pace of the program, Clerks became less about clever conversations and more about madcap comedy.

With storylines such as Dante and Randal taking down their new villain Leonardo Leonardo (voiced by Alec Baldwin), Clerks was a refreshing bit of random comedy which was never given a chance by ABC. Aired out of order, hilarious bits such as the second episode of the series being a flashback clip-show, were never fully realized… leaving us to scratch our heads asking why they were remembering such arbitrary memories. These problems were solved, however on DVD, making us remember just how funny this series could have been, as well as how successfully it was able to work off of its film property. If you have never seen this series, it is worth watching for the final few minutes of the fourth episode – where the show ran out of money and was forced to send the rest of the episode over to Korea to be completed.