The Entire Jay And Silent Bob Story Finally Explained

Film fans have loved the antics of these two characters since they were first spotted loitering outside a New Jersey strip mall in Kevin Smith's 1994 classic Clerks — evidenced by the way they've resurfaced repeatedly over the years, from sequels and spinoffs to assorted multimedia tie-ins. They've long since cemented themselves as beloved pop culture icons — but what do we know, really know, about Jay and his longtime compatriot, Silent Bob?

Through intensive research, we have compiled here an exhaustive list of the lives, loves, trials and good fortunes of this foulmouthed dynamic duo, ending in the present day with everything currently known about their appearance in Jay and SIlent Bob Reboot. And where does the story start, you might ask? For the answer to that, we need to look way, way back, before malls and convenience stores and berserkers. This is the entire Jay and Silent Bob story, finally explained.

Flash forward to 1970s America. The place? The unincorporated community of Leonardo, New Jersey. The more specific place? Outside the Quick Stop at 58 Leonard Avenue, at this point in history neighbored by a music shop called the Record Rack, which will one day grow up to be a familiar video store. What is about to occur is nothing short of destiny.

Two young mothers approach the store in turn, each transporting a cherubic bundle of joy. The first leaves her son, sweet Bobby Boy, in his stroller out front so she can run inside and "pick up free cheese." With saccharine sweetness in her heart and affection on her face, she lends the tyke her baseball cap so that the sun won't get in his eyes, admittedly placing it the wrong way round. Perhaps this act is indicative of what taught young Robert to love in the face of good-hearted idiocy.

The second of the two mothers approaches and parks her child next to the one already present. Her words to her progeny are less quotable by several orders of magnitude, but when asked by a passerby "who's watching these babies," she speaks truer words than perhaps have ever since been said: "The fat one's watching the skinny one." In a flurry of infant profanity, Jay and Silent Bob were united.

Also, did you know Kevin Smith's daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, played Silent Bob in that scene? That's adorable.

That's right, savages, the second movie in the Askewniverse takes place before the first. Here's how you can tell:

Most of Mallrats revolves around a dating game show, run by Michael Rooker's machiavellian Jared Svenning. The protagonist's girlfriend, Svenning's daughter, is forced to appear on the game show after tragedy strikes the original contestant at the last minute. Said contestant, according to her friend, was told that the camera adds ten pounds, and Julie, apparently concerned with how she'd appear on film, went on an exercise binge at the YMCA pool, leading to her dying of a brain embolism. 

The entire catastrophe would lead to Jay and Silent Bob's engagement in hardcore chicanery at the mall that day, when they'd embark on Roadrunner/Coyote-style shenanigans in the pursuit of stopping the establishment's security guard. The two would develop a wingsuit, employ the use of a grappling gun, and generally do all of the stuff that, frankly, Kevin Smith probably promised himself he'd do if he ever got a budget.

At the end of the film, the hero gets the girl, Ben Affleck goes to jail, and we're promised that Jay and SIlent Bob will get a orangutang someday. And they will. Just not yet.

Like ghosts whose existence is felt but never proven, Jay and Bob's presence in the first two acts of Chasing Amy lingers, difficult to define if you don't know what you're looking for. At first blush, the movie doesn't feel like a Jay and Silent Bob story. Jay and Silent Bob stories tend to be about subjects such as snoochies or, on rare occasions, boochies. Chasing Amy, on the other hand, is about love, physical affection, sexuality, and societal expectations.  

In the film, Ben Affleck and Jason Lee play creative partners on a comic book series titled Bluntman and Chronic, which details the lives and adventures of two vigilante stoners, one lithe, loud, and obnoxious, the other portly and less verbal. They are, of course, based on Jay and Silent Bob, who Ben Affleck's character, Holden, goes to meet at a diner late in the story to pay them their royalties for their likeness rights.

Need more backstory? Before they went to meet Holden, Jay and Bob were crashing in the living room of Mallrats character (and sister to Alyson from Chasing Amy) Trish Jones. And you'd know all of that if you'd read...

Theologically speaking, everything sort of comes to a head for New Jersey's favorite unlicensed herbal peddlers in 1999, when, while cruising a women's health clinic for ladies, they meet Bethany Sloane, the last in the genetic line shared by Jesus. In the context of the movie, Jay and Bob are revealed to be prophets sent by God. 

Jay and Bob escort Bethany on an interstate journey of self-discovery and heavy religious introspection. Along the way, they befriend Rufus, the 13th apostle, left out of the Bible because he was black, and Serendipity, the muse responsible for most of history's most financially successful box office performances. Bob proves to be a remarkably effective demon slayer, stopping an excrement demon with a spritzer of air freshener and dispatching another with a holy golf club. Jay has less success, and his attempts to kill a fallen angel with an Uzi mostly make things worse. Still, through offhand remarks, he takes a potential end of the world scenario off the burner and helps to save God from a comatose state incurred during one of the Almighty's skeeball sojourns. Bethany immaculately conceives a holy child, and according to Kevin Smith, that's all we'll be hearing on the matter.

Jay and Silent Bob's first appearance of the new millennium took place in 2001's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the pair's first film outing as primary protagonists. After an expedient exodus from the front of the Quick Stop due to a run in with Randal, the duo learns two important things: one; a big Hollywood movie studio is adapting Bluntman and Chronic into a blockbuster motion picture; two, the internet exists, and people are mean there.

Bob and Jay head to Hollywood to try and shut down the movie. Along the way, they befriend a quartet of female jewel thieves masquerading as animal rights activists, and are conned into stealing an orangutan from an animal testing facility as part of an elaborate coverup. Bob and the ape become dear friends. Jay falls in love with one of the criminals. Will Ferrell appears as a Will Ferrell character.

The jewel thieves are arrested after Justice, the member of the group who's garnered Jay's affections, turns them in to save Jay and Bob from going down for a crime they didn't commit. She asks Jay to wait for her while she's incarcerated. Jay and Bob confront Banky Edwards, the co-creator of Bluntman and Chronic, and walk away with a cherry cut of the proceeds from the forthcoming feature film, leaving them financially solvent for the foreseeable future. At the end, God closes the book on the Askewniverse... temporarily, anyway.

Shockingly, in the years between Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and the main events of Clerks 2, the beloved Quick Stop burned to the ground. Even more shockingly, Jay wasn't to blame since, significantly less shockingly, he and Silent Bob were probably in court-ordered rehab at the time.

As chronicled by Jay during his first day back at work, they bought a car, but were pulled over for suspicion of mischief (read: driving with their airbag deployed.) In an unforeseeable twist of fate, the police found marijuana in their vehicle and the dynamic duo was sentenced to six months of hard rehabilitation. 

Back on the outside, they continued dealing, seemingly picking their business venue based solely on where Dante and Randal were working at the time. Setting up shop in front of a Mooby's fast food restaurant, they existed largely in the background until being arrested again during a confusingly advertised donkey show and offering to finance Dante and Randal's reclamation of the Quick Stop in exchange for a permanent residency. 

Also, did you know Kevin Smith's kid, Harley Quinn Smith, played the little girl in the restaurant window? That's adorable. 

As the credits roll, a line of text reads "Jay and Silent Bob might return someday. Until then, they're taking it easy." Fans speculated as to whether or not they'd ever see their heroes again.