I just watched the pilot for the animated tv series version of the Kevin Smith movie Clerks. I hate to say it for fear of sparking unwarranted interest in the show, but this may be the worst tv comedy I have ever seen.

Having spent a great deal of time working in convenience stores, I should be a good market for this. The original movie was at least moderately amusing to me when I saw it in the theater, but even that was marginal.

This television show from 2000 was truly totally crappy and ill-conceived. It had one marginally decent joke: at the start they invoked the standard "previously on..." opening- then went to a test pattern, as this was the first show. This was by far the best joke.

Other than that, I couldn't even tell what were SUPPOSED to be the joke lines. Purely on the basis that it was repeated a couple of times, a customer asking "Can you vulcanize my tires while I wait?" was apparently considered their prime joke. But what was even supposed to be funny about that?

The story involved an evil-doer opening up a competing convenience store. The story was not developed really at all; he was simply thwarted and standing in handcuffs at the end- with no police or explanation before he got in his limo and rode off.

Kevin Smith's work in general, and this tv show in particular show starkly the limits of pop culture references as a basis of humor. Apparently it was supposed to be hilarious simply that they invoked the obscure UPN sitcom "The Secret Diaries of Desmond Pfeiffer". There was no discernible satire or parody of the show. They were apparently supposed to get special cool points just for knowing of it.

I swear I've gotten better entertainment out of Full House. How did this crapfest last on tv for two episodes? And why did they need TWO DVDs to compile the mere six produced 22 minute episodes? Puh-lease.