‘Hetero Life-Mates’: 15 Trivia Tidbits About Jay and Silent Bob
They’ve been drug dealers. They’ve been prophets. They’ve been superheroes. They’ve also been movie stars — both in real life and in their own fictional reality — and they’ve teamed up with a monkey twice. They’re Kevin Smith’s most notorious creation, Jay and Silent Bob, and as a fan of the duo for over 20 years, I’m here to serve up some trivia tidbits about Jay, and his hetero life-mate, Silent Bob.
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Meeting of the Minds
Smith and Jason Mewes both grew up in Highlands, New Jersey. Recounting how they first met when they were teenagers, Smith said, “Jason was a figure of suburban legend. People’d be like, ‘There’s that Jay Mewes; he broke the window at Cumberland Farms,’ or ‘There’s that kid Jay Mewes; I heard he fucked a dog once. Everyone would say stuff about him. He was a figure of mystery.” Then one day, Mewes just showed up at Smith’s front door and asked, “What are we doing today?” Since then, they’ve been best friends. “I kind of adopted him,” Smith has said.
‘The Most Original Person I’ve Ever Met’
Smith has often referred to Mewes as “the most original person I’ve ever met.” Because he was so funny and unique, Smith thought someone should put Mewes in a movie someday. Smith eventually did it himself when he made Clerks.
Bob’s Inspiration
While Jay was based on the original craziness of Mewes himself, Silent Bob’s influences came from a number of places. Smith said the name Bob was inspired by Bob from Twin Peaks and Joker’s goon Bob from the 1989 Batman film. He was also inspired by the silent writer Herb from the film My Favorite Year.
The Real-Life Inspiration for the Duo
Smith was an employee at the Quick Stop when he made Clerks and has said that drug dealers were always out in front of the store when he was working. He wrote a couple of dealers into the script and decided Mewes should be one of them. After deciding not to play Randal himself, Smith became the second drug dealer.
Dancing in the Dark
Mewes was so shy filming the dancing scene in Clerks that the crew went into the video store to let him be. The camera was running unoperated during the scene.
Jay vs Wicket the Ewok
The first of many Jay and Silent Bob appearances in comic book form was in February 1998 in Clerks (The Comic Book). Dante and Randal’s story centers around selling used Star Wars toys, while Jay and Silent Bob get frustrated that people are buying toys instead of weed.
They Almost Fought Hellraiser
Shortly after Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back put a temporary end to Smith’s View Askewniverse, the evil Weinstein Brothers proposed teaming Jay and Silent Bob up with the horror properties owned by Miramax, including Hellraiser, Michael Myers and the Children of the Corn. “For about five minutes,” Smith said in an interview. “We all mulled over Jay and Silent Bob Meet Michael Myers. My favorite was the idea where Jay and Silent Bob meet Hellraiser, where they find the box, and their version of hell is they wind up in rehab. It will never come to pass, but I thought that was kind of funny.”
Blabbermouth Bob
The only movie with Silent Bob where he actually remains silent is Scream 3.
The Seed of Snooch
In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Smith explained the origin of Mewes’ phrase “Snoochie boochies.” “Basically, it was a defense mechanism,” Smith explained. “It was almost like a nervous condition. He would be like, ‘I slept with your mom last night — neh!’ And ‘neh’ meant: ‘Don’t hit me. I didn’t really sleep with your mom last night. I’m joking.’ The kid was always going, ‘Neh, neh, neh, neh, neh, neh,’ and then it grew; he started finessing it. He’d be like, ‘Noitch!’ and then like, ‘Nooch,’ but (it meant the) same thing, ‘I slept with your mom, nooch.’ He got to throw a Dutch on it, and then it would grow to where he’d be like, ‘I slept with your mom last night, snoochie boochies,’ and stuff like that. It was amazing. I watched the language grow.”
Suzanne’s Real Origin
In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the duo sets animals free from a lab and ends up keeping an orangutan named Suzanne. This plot point was recycled from Smith’s comic book Chasing Dogma, a miniseries bridging the gap between Chasing Amy and Dogma.
SFW Snooches
In the short-lived Clerks cartoon series, Jay and Silent Bob didn’t sell weed in front of the Quick Stop. Instead, they sold illegal fireworks.
More Animated Adventures
In addition to the Clerks cartoon, Jay and Silent Bob became animated characters in 2013’s Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie! The movie serves as an animated origin of the duo becoming the superheroes Bluntman and Cronic after winning the lottery and amassing a number of supervillains known as “The League of Shitters.”
Jay and Silent Bob’s HQ
Smith owns Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, a comic book shop in Red Bank, New Jersey, filled with memorabilia from his films and giant Funko Pops of Jay and Silent Bob.
Me with the giant Funko Pops of Jay and Silent Bob in Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey
The One-and-Only
After the success of Clerks, Disney (which owned Miramax at the time) decided to make a live-action Clerks TV show without Smith’s involvement. It featured Andrew Lowery as Dante and a pre-SNL Jim Breuer as Randall. There was also a stoner character named “Ray” played by Bodhi Elfman, who served as a stand-in for Jay. (There was no Silent Bob replacement.)
Collider explained their absence by saying, “While Disney now owned Clerks, the characters of Jay and Silent Bob have always been owned by Kevin Smith exclusively.” This means that Jay and Silent Bob will only ever be played by Mewes and Smith.
They’re Video Game Heroes, Too
In addition to being stars in films, TV shows and comic books, Jay and Silent Bob recently starred in a video game called Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl, an 8-bit retro-style game where you fight evil pretzel men and beat up the Easter Bunny.
