“Holy #%!&, I just realized this is the only shirt I own!”

by Karissa Barrows, Reviewer

Being a fan of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (Clerks, Mallrats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), I think it’s fun that my first-ever article for ComicsOnline gets to be on this first-of-its-kind event, LIVE From Behind:  Jay and Silent Bob Get Old streamed live on movie screens across the U.S. and Canada thanks to AK27 Productions and Fathom Events.

The idea spawned from Smith wishing he could be Dave Matthews (of the band of the same name) so as to broadcast material live to hundreds of thousands of people in theaters everywhere.  This became the idea to show the taping of their podcast, Jay and Silent Bob Get Old, live in over 500 theaters across the U.S. and Canada, complete with an hour and a half of Q&A.  When I found out about the event, I got myself a sitter and drove the 45 minutes to the theater Kevin (Gaussoin) had us going to.  And it was totally worth it.

After an absolutely hilarious hour and a half of the podcast, questions were taken from the in-house audience in Toronto, Twitter, and YouTube.  Twitter questions/comments, including profile pictures, from both @ComicsOnline and myself, @SJBsMama, were seen multiple times on the big screen!  As it’s hard to see in the photo, I went ahead and outlined our pictures for you.  Even with my perfect eyesight, it’s somewhat difficult to make out.  (Curse you, low-res iPhone camera!)

ComicsOnline on the Big Screen!

It’s rather difficult to detail the entire three-hour event without writing seven pages of content, so I’ve decided to run you through some of my favorites (and not-so-favorites) of the evening.  There was so much awesome (and not-so-awesome), but I’ll keep it to three things each so you can go listen to the podcast on your own to come up with your favorites.  Being that this is Jay and Silent Bob we’re talking about, I’m sure you all know that a majority of what was said is NSFW.  I’ll keep it PG.  13.  ish.

Favorite Podcast Topics

• Kevin’s love for the animal kingdom – that is now located in his home office – and his personal campaign against tortoise-on-tortoise rape.  Also of note is the fact that he has two dogs named ‘Mulder’ and ‘Scully’.  I’m a huge X-Phile, so I especially enjoyed that.  What I didn’t enjoy so much was the news that Scully is nearing death.  Poor girl.
• Jason’s love for creating a soundtrack to his life (namely his sex life… with men that aren’t his wife).  Cue the Imperial March!
• The bromance/bear-cub moment from Kevin and Jason as they discussed the latter’s sobriety success – 675 days!  Smith credited the Jay and Silent Bob Get Old podcast for helping to save Mewes’s life, after which he delved into some father-like sentiment about watching Jay throughout the years make stride after stride towards the dream he’s had as long as Kevin’s known him – to get married, have kids, and buy a house (the latter of which Jason and his lovely wife were just recently able to do).  It was a surprisingly touching moment on the podcast, which I loved.

Favorite Quotes

• “Speaking of balls, I had a teddy bear hamster when I was younger.” – Jason Mewes, following a conversation about the aforementioned tortoise rape, on a hamster he had as a kid with “big pink eyes to match his big pink balls.”
• “Is Toronto under attack!?” – Kevin Smith, during a power outage that caused all audio to cut out momentarily.  (“Now you know it’s live!”)
• “Don’t surround yourself with ‘why’ people.  Surround yourself with ‘why not?’ people.” – Kevin Smith, on following your dreams.  You say you want to write a novel or make a movie, or build a time machine?  Don’t find people that ask “Why?  Why would you do that?  That’ll never work,” but rather find people that respond with, “Eh, why not?”

Favorite Q&A Moments

• Seeing Kevin’s love for people.  There were a lot of people in that audience that I wanted to slam my head against a wall while/after listening to, but Smith listened, intently and engaged, and responded appropriately and thoroughly.  Not one person, no matter how “WTF!?” they made everybody else go, was made to feel unloved, unappreciated, ignored, or brushed off by either Kevin or Jason.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for them (Kevin especially) for this, more so than I had before.  If you weren’t a fan before, you would have been after seeing this genuine affection for humanity from the both of them, even if you hate their work.  Even people who brought gifts for them were asked to come up and present them on stage (rather than give them to event staff like you would normally see), and got handshakes and sometimes awkward hugs as thanks.  Except that one girl Kevin missed.  Whoops.
• “Let Us F*ck” made an appearance!  (If you’ve seen Zach and Miri Make a Porno, you’ll get this Smith & Mewes reference.)  This semi-regular feature on the podcast is admittedly boring if you only listen to the podcast rather than watch the taping, but seeing it was pretty hilarious.  Even when the audience member playing the game with Jason is an 18ish-year-old girl wearing a t-shirt that’s about three sizes too big.
• Jason’s dramatic readings of the questions from Twitter.  Especially when he enunciated typos (or, in my case, autocorrect fail).  And because I promised only three things for each, I’ll just cheat a little and insert this one here – Kevin detailed his original idea for the ending of Red State (which is currently streaming on Netflix, or you can buy it on Blu-ray or DVD), rather than the ending that made it into the movie.  And it was AWESOME.

Biggest “WTF?!” Moments

• Jason reminiscing on his first pseudo-sexual conquests… when he was 11 or 12… with his 17-year-old babysitter/friend of his brother who slept in his bed with him with no pants on.  As a mother of a little boy, this made me 1) never want to get a babysitter EVER unless it’s a trusted family member or best friends, and 2) go back in time and wring that teenage girl’s neck.
• Some of the in-house audience members.  Did they know they were going to be on camera?  Notables included:  a Buzz Lightyear hoodie under a black velvet jacket (both of which would’ve been okay sans the other) and very thin decorative scarf; lots of unwashed hair or way too much hair product; William Hung’s Batman-educated twin (who Kevin hugged to cure nervousness, which was lovely).
• An audience member who gave a Save-The-Date card to Kevin and Jason.  This woman’s ex-husband and new fiancé (both of whom were there with her) are apparently very close friends, she’s still best friends with her ex-husband and loves him “to death”, calls her ex-husband her “Puss” (pronounced “pooce” by her, and “puss” by everybody else), and to top it all off, her ex-husband is a groomsman in her upcoming take-two nuptials.  She asked Kevin to be the Master of Ceremonies at her wedding, and then added, “My ex-husband is also an MC, so you’d be co-hosting with my Puss.”  (I bet your face right now looks like mine did when I heard all that.)

I really wish I could include everything from the evening, as it was highly enjoyable and I’m frequently long-winded, but where’s the fun in that?  It’s all so much more hilarious if you hear it yourself!  Go now and subscribe to the Jay and Silent Bob Get Old podcast, free on iTunes, or download the podcast from their SModcast channel.  Like the podcast page, Kevin’s page, and Jason’s page on Facebook and follow @thatkevinsmith and @JayMewes on Twitter.  If you want to see some of the questions, quotes, reactions, and other tweets from me, ComicsOnline, and others who were watching, search the hashtag #LIVEfrombehind.  Doing so will give you even more insight into the event itself and details thereof.

There was a lot of talk of Kevin and Jason wanting to do more events like this in the future, and the more interest in what they’re doing, the more likely that is to happen.  So, if you want to see America’s favorite convenience store corner bums back on the big screen again as much as they do, click those links I have so kindly provided for you and spend an evening laughing until you may or may not pee yourself.

Stop your kids from playing on the escalator and redirect to ComicsOnline.com for more aging Jay and Silent Bob and everything geek pop culture.