Critic Reviews

Only six episodes of this adaptation were ever made, but each one feels like a gift.

Kevin Smith's animated "Clerks" is pure looniness with a crunchy layer of sweetness at its heart. The stars of the original 1994 indie film are all here, including Smith as Silent Bob. The animation is crisp and the facial expressions alone can be hysterical. [31 May 2000]

A treat while it lasts. [31 May 2000]

The new toon's appeal may not go beyond the core audience of mostly male 16-to-35-year-old hipsters.

In the transformation to animation, Clerks has seen its cutting edge go pretty dull. [31 May 2000]

The endless ironic wit creates a big black hole in "Clerks," and there's nothing left to fill the void but tedious buddy characters doing their slacker thing in an unimaginatively drawn New Jersey setting. [31 May 2000]

A lot more imperfect than interesting. Smith and Mosier teamed with "Seinfeld" veteran David Mandel, but the sneaky charm and subtlety of the movie and the deft shadings of the main characters - not to mention the joyous profanity, sexual anxieties and many drug references - have all been pretty much washed out. And the snappy dialogue that gave the film much of its energy plays sluggishly here, as if it had been padded in the editing process. [31 May 2000]

Clerks is dumber than it is refreshingly risky.

It is not, "Beavis and Butt-head" it is not "The P.J.'s," it is not "South Park," it is not "The Simpsons." Heck, it's not even "King of the Hill." "Clerks" is like a more amusing version of my least favorite animated show of all-time, "God, The Devil and Bob," which mercifully went to cartoon hell about four minutes after the premiere.[31 May 2000, p.95]

Clerks: TAS wobbles along the fine line between "too dumb for Clerks fans" and "too rude for network TV executives."