Trivia for
Clerks. (1994) More at IMDbPro »

• Financed largely by credit cards and money borrowed from family and friends.
  
  
• Filmed at the same store in which director Kevin Smith was working at the time. As he was only allowed to film outside of business hours, and because bright enough lights couldn't be afforded, the plot included an explanation for the shutters being always down.
  
  
• The cost of obtaining the rights to the soundtrack (approx. US$27,000) outweighed the entire production costs for this film (approx. US$26,800) - a first in motion picture history.
  
  
• Dante's beard changes because Kevin Smith asked 'Brian O'Halloran' to shave his goatee before filming started during rehearsals, then, after seeing what it looked like without it, told him to grow it back. The scenes shot earlier in the shoot show a thinner beard while the ones shot last show a thicker goatee as it had longer to grow back.
  
  
• Randall and the Happy Scrappy Hero Pup lady are not actually in the room at the same time. Jeff Anderson refused to read the list of porno movies in front of her, and particularly in front of the child (although the reaction shots of the Happy Scrappy Hero Pup lady were obtained by reading the list to her).
  
  
• Willem Black was supposed to be a collegiate type, but the original actor for the role, Dan Hapstak, changed his mind and opted out of the role. Scott Mosier was then cast as the role, but since he didn't look collegiate, they reworked the character into an idiot man child.
  
  
• Walter Flanagan, who plays the guy who buys the cigarettes even after the Chewlies Gum Rep does his lecture, is wearing one of Brian O'Halloran's stage beards as a wig.
  
  
• Clerks was filmed using a 16mm Arri SR-2 camera and used Kodak Plus-X film.
  
  
• The "smoker's lung" that the Chewlie's Gum rep slams on the counter is actually a calf's liver thrown in dirt and burned with cigarettes.
  
  
• Jason Mewes was left off the cover and poster because executives believed him to be too odd-looking for advertising.
  
  
• Despite having almost no violence in the film (with the exception of the fight between Dante and Randal), it was originally given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA based solely on its graphic dialogue. The film's distributor Miramax hired attorney Alan M. Dershowitz (of the O.J. Simpson defense team) who successfully petitioned the MPAA to lower its rating to R without any cuts.
  
  
• The "Clerks" logo is made out of letters cut from various magazines and food items. The C is from Cosmopolitan Magazine, the L is from Life, the E is from Rolling Stone, the R is from Ruffles potato chips, the K is from Clark Bar and the S is from a Goobers box.
  
  
• Felix the Cat is on Silent Bob's hat.
  
  
• The offended customer in the "jizz mopper" scene is buying paper towels and glass cleaner.
  
  
• The offended "jizz mopper" customer was originally written as a woman.
  
  
• Dante wears a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey during the hockey game, playing against opponents wearing New Jersey Devils jerseys. Randal wears a USSR (CCCP) jersey during the game, but wears a New Jersey Devils hat.
  
  
• The first draft of the script was 168 pages.
  
  
• The anti-smoking sentiment in the film represented Kevin Smith's own viewpoint when he wrote the screenplay. Silent Bob doesn't inhale when he puffs on his cigarette because of this. After filming this movie, he became a two-pack-a-day smoker.
  
  
• Silent Bob is not so silent. In Clerks and Mallrats (1995) he speaks only once, but in Dogma (1999) he speaks twice. In Chasing Amy (1997) he has quite a long speech while in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) he becomes almost chatty.
  
  
• This is the first film in Kevin Smith's intricately interconnected View Askewniverse series (the others being Dogma (1999), Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) and Clerks II (2006)). The movies are all linked by characters, themes and events and each contains numerous references to the others.
  
  
• There are at least two different versions of the scene where Randall is ordering a video for the woman with her little girl. The two versions have two distinctly different voices for the little girl when she says "Happy Scrappy"
  
  
• The hat Jay is wearing while stealing the donuts during the roofer's story is a San Jose Sharks hat. The Sharks are an NHL team.
  
  
• Clerks is loosely based on "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri hence the name. Also, there are nine breaks in the movie to represent the nine rings of hell.
  
  
• When Dante asks Randal whether he's ever thought about the fact that all prices always end in.99, most items behind them have a price that end in.95.
  
  
• Kevin Smith originally cast himself as Randal which is why Randal gets some of the best lines.
  
  
• No cigarette brands are ever named. Primarily, it was to avoid lawsuits over royalty payments, but also to avoid associating any manufacturer with the "cancer Nazis".
  
  
• When Jeff Anderson (Randal) auditioned, he read Jay's lines because he had nothing else to use (the actors were allowed to bring in a separate dialogue to read instead of the script).
  
  
• Jeff Anderson (Randal) auditioned for the role of Jay.
  
  
• The original cut of the film ended with Dante getting shot in a robbery. This was cut out of the release version, but can be seen on the supplementary section of the Laserdisc and DVD.
  
  
• The VHS cassette of this film is the most stolen video tape in video stores across the USA.
  
  
• Grace Smith who plays the "Milk Maid" in the movie, is Kevin Smith's mother.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Kevin Smith] [star wars] Dante and Randal argue over which is the better film, Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) or Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983).
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Kevin Smith] [jaws] After the fiasco involving Caitlin and the dead guy in the bathroom, Randal is pulling a chip through a jar of salsa saying "we're gonna need a bigger boat...” alluding to Jaws (1975), one of Smith's favorite movies.
  
  
• While standing outside the video store, Jay exclaims, "I'll f**k anything that moves!" This is a reference to the same line that is said by Dennis Hopper's character in Blue Velvet (1986).
  
  
• Director Kevin Smith's childhood friend Walter Flanagan appears in several different roles. Due to this, Smith later said that Flanagan was the Lon Chaney of the '90s.
  
  
• The guy who, when Dante says, "My girlfriend sucked 37 dicks," responds, "In a row?" was originally slated to play Silent Bob.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Kevin Smith] [37] see above.
  
  
• According to Kevin Smith in an interview in the book "My First Movie", part of the movie's financing came from an insurance settlement. The settlement was from a car that he and Jason Mewes both drove, that was destroyed in a flood. Jason Mewes had told him there would be a flood, and asked if he could move the car uphill, but Smith didn't trust him.
  
  
• One of the early scripts penned by Kevin Smith involved Dante being shot in the chest at the end of the film, after Randal leaves the store. This scene was actually filmed but was cut from the released version. It was later included on the 10th Anniversary DVD
  
  
• Kevin Smith (I)Scott Mosier attended the Vancouver Film School, British Columbia, Canada and made a pact that whichever of them first started directing a movie, the other would produce. Smith created his film first, and Mosier produced it, as he has all of Smith's films.
  
  
• In the documentary "The Snowball Effect" on the special edition DVD, Kevin Smith says that the film's original title was "Inconvenience". Then it was changed to "Rude Clerks" before being shortened to "Clerks".
  
  
• Kevin Smith has said on speaking tours that the reason he cast himself in the movie was that if the movie failed and he was in near-permanent debt for the rest of his life, he could at least point at his face in the movie as proof he did it.
  
  
• Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier edited the movie in the video store next to the convenience store.
  
  
• Originally, Dante ('Brian O'Halloran') was going to die because Kevin Smith didn't know how to end the movie.
  
  
• Jason Mewes (Jay) was so camera shy, that during the dance scene with him and Kevin Smith (Silent Bob), everyone had to leave and go into the video store, and just left the camera rolling, so that Mewes wouldn't be so nervous
  
  
• The scene where Dante confronts Caitlin about her marriage to an Asian design major in the video store is done in one shot, which lasts for over five minutes. It was shot on the first night of filming.
  
  
• According to an unfilmed scene that was animated and put into the 10th anniversary DVD, Clerks takes place on Saturday. In Mallrats, a reference is made to Julie Dwyer dying "yesterday". Mallrats takes place on Friday.
  
  
• Kevin Smith says that he got his inspiration to be a film maker and make "Clerks." after seeing Richard Linklater's Slacker (1991).
  
  
• Kevin Smith, a keen comic book fan, sold a large part of his collection to help fund this film. He has since been able to buy most of them back.
  
  
• After Randal is introduced and is walking back to the video store, he turns to a pedestrian and says, "No time for love, Dr. Jones!" This line was taken from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).
  
  
• Randall watches a porn movie called "The Best of Both Worlds", which is the name of a real series of porn movies. However, the real movies are about bisexuals, not hermaphrodites.
  
  
• Kevin Smith isn't listed in the opening credits as one of the actors.
  
  
• Although he disliked them, Jeff Anderson (Randal) had to eat eight sticks of beef jerky for the scene when he spits water on the tabloid customer.
  
  
• The role of Dante was written for Ernest O'Donnell, but Kevin Smith felt he wasn't quite right and also the fact that he did not learn his lines for the audition and cast him as Rick Derris instead.
  
  
• The "Dave's Fruit Pies" sold at the mart are actually Hostess Fruit Pies with the word Hostess blocked out and "Dave's" put in its place.
  
  
• The "RST" in RST Video stands "Rajiv, Sarla, Tarlochen." Those are the first names of the son, mother, and father team who owned (and still own) the video store and the Quick Stop.
  
  
• In the final scene we see Dante leaning on a newspaper rack. The tabloid headline reads "Worlds fattest man weds tiniest woman".
  
  
• Vincent Pereira originally had a scene in which Randal (Jeff Anderson) talks to a clerk at Big Choice Video, a perfect clerk, but the sound machine gave way in the middle of the take and they had to scrap the scene. Sound survives up until that point.
  
  
• The character Caitlin Bree was named after the character in the TV show, Degrassi Junior High, one of Kevin Smith's favorite TV shows when he worked at the Quick Stop in his hometown. Caitlin Ryan was his favorite character on the show.
  
  
• Dante's car is a 1976 Buick Century.
  
  
• The movie was named as one of "The 20 Most Overrated Movies Of All Time" by Premiere.
  
  
• The RST Video store is no longer in business, but the owners of The Quick Stop convenience store keep it looking as it did in Clerks for tourists that frequent the store.
  
  
• The word 'fuck' and its derivatives are said 91 times throughout the film, mostly between Dante and Jay.
  
  
• Jason Reitman has said that this film revealed to him his desire to be a filmmaker. Reitman later told Kevin Smith this, which lead Smith to jokingly quip, "You're the son of Ivan Reitman. You grew up on the sets of Ghost Busters (1984), and 'Stripes (1981)'. It took ME to let you know that you can be a director?".
  
  
• Kevin Smith raised the film's minuscule $27,000 budget by selling off his comic collection, borrowing $3,000 from his parents and maxing out his credit cards.
  
  
• Smith worked in the store where they shot the film. They shot for 21 straight nights. He would clock on at 6am and finish at 11pm. They would then shoot till 4am, after which he would try to grab an hour or two's sleep before getting ready to go back to work.
  
  
• The film was never dubbed into German, an extremely rare occurrence for German audiences. The DVD and Blu-ray release feature German subtitles, though.
  
  

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