In the Groove
Jay and Silent Bob Reunite—and Get Downright Cartoonish with Super Groovy
Jay and Silent Bob only costar in one movie, 2006’s Clerks II, since they headlined their own film 12 years ago. Jason Mewes and filmmaker Kevin Smith, who play Jay and Silent Bob respectively, have kept the characters going with a live podcast series, but the Jersey duo will return to the big screen next month in animated form. Made for a meager
Jay and Silent Bob Reunite—and Get Downright Cartoonish with Super Groovy
Jay and Silent Bob only costar in one movie, 2006’s Clerks II, since they headlined their own film 12 years ago. Jason Mewes and filmmaker Kevin Smith, who play Jay and Silent Bob respectively, have kept the characters going with a live podcast series, but the Jersey duo will return to the big screen next month in animated form. Made for a meager $69,000, Jay and Silent Bob’s Groovy Cartoon Movie will premiere at the Center Stage Theater in Atlanta on a well-timed date: April 20.
“I am very, very excited about the movie,” says Mewes. “Kevin wrote it a few years back, and I told him I wanted to produce something. I wanted to do something different than acting. He said he had this sitting on the shelf for a couple years now, and he gave it to me. I ran around and called this animator that was doing stuff on our YouTube channel.”
That animator is Toronto-based Steve Stark. He originally introduced himself with a YouTube cartoon based on an episode from Smith’s online SModCast Network. Stark continued to work with Smith and ultimately landed the director’s chair for Groovy Movie, which features the voices of Eliza Dushku, Tara Strong, Ralph Garman, Neil Gaiman, Ben Gleib and Jon Lovitz.
“[Stark] started animating stories from Kevin’s SModCast, and I thought he was really funny,” Mewes continues. “He really knows how to make characters’ faces move and wink and do stuff even if it’s not written [in the script]. I knew I couldn’t produce this with Little Mermaid type of animation. It will be too expensive, and it will take a long, long time. My wife and I got together with the animator with penny out of pocket, and I got the first 10 minutes animated. I showed Kevin, and he got super stoked about it. He thought I was just going to sit on it or that it wouldn’t be this good. He got all excited, and next thing you know he’s like, ‘We are going to get this person to do this and this person to do this. Let’s try to get it done by April and tour it.’ We just got the trailer done, and I literally watched it 20 times because I am so excited about the movie.”
Most of Smith’s movies are stoner classics, but the writer-director didn’t become a regular cannabis user until working with Seth Rogen on Zack and Miri Make a Porno. This means Groovy Movie is the first Jay and Silent Bob story written by a true stoner.
“In the last Jay and Silent Bob appearance in a movie,” explains Smith, “there is not a lot of weed references. Jay and Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie, however, is just riddled with weed references. You can clearly tell Kevin Smith wrote this after he started smoking weed.”
In Reel Time
As with 2011’s Red State, Kevin Smith is taking the movie on tour, and each screening will be followed by a live Jay and Silent Bob podcast. After the 420 premiere in Atlanta, the tour stops in places like the Crest Theater in Sacramento (Apr. 30), the Warfield Theater in San Francisco (May 2) and the Wiltern in Los Angeles (May 5).
