In the middle of filming Mallrats back in 1995, Kevin Smith found out that casting was underway on the TV version of his classic indie comedy Clerks. Up until that moment, he had no idea anyone had been adapting the movie he wrote, produced, directed, and edited -- into a TV series.

He's Silent Bob, not Deaf-Mute Bob.
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A pilot episode was eventually shot. It didn't include a single member of original film's cast, and the characters are all cleaner and more TV-friendly, making them the harder-to-relate-to versions of their film counterparts. Smith's patented vulgar, snappy dialogue that feels like it would be more at home in a stage play performed in a middle-school-aged boy's bathroom is gone, replaced with generic sitcom setups and punchlines so weak the only way to tell someone had told a joke is by waiting for the inevitable cue of canned laughter.
Everything that felt fresh and original, and even revolutionary, about Smith's movie was burned to the ground and replaced with a strip mall. It's a perfect example of what happens when you take a small, crude, underground voice and point of view and try to sanitize it for mainstream audiences. After hearing about the show, Smith tried to take part by writing a script for an episode ... which was rejected by the producers. Though, even if they did like it, it's not like his script would ever been shot. The show never made it past its pilot episode. Watch it, and you'll see why:
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