Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



Clerks (1994)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

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Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
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Clerks (1994)

In this low-budget foul-mouthed comedy by writer/director Kevin Smith:

  • a foul-mouthed comedy with some outrageous laughs about two clerks in Asbury Park, NJ stores: convenience store clerk Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and his grungy anti-social video-store clerk friend Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson)
  • the anti-smoking diatribe of a Chewlies Gum Representative (Scott Schiaffo) speaking to a convenience store customer, arguing that for his health's sake, he should buy gum instead of cigarettes and save his money: ("This is where you're heading. Cruddy lung, smoking through a hole in your throat. Do you really want that?"), and then his more general rant against the cancer-causing smoking industry: ("You're spending what? Twenty, maybe thirty dollars a week on your cigarettes?...Fifty-three dollars a week on cigarettes! Come on! Would you give somebody that much money each week to kill you? 'Cause that's what you're doing now, by paying for this so-called privilege to smoke... It's that kinda mentality that allows the cancer-producing industry to thrive. 'Course we're all gonna die some day. But do we have to pay for it? Do we have to actually throw hard-earned dollars down on the counter and say, 'Please Mr. Merchant-of-Death, sir, please, sell me something that'll stink up my breath and my clothes and fry my lungs'? ...Yeah. Yeah, and now here comes the speech about how he's just doing his job by following orders. Friends, let me tell you about another group of hate mongers that were just following orders. They were called Nazis!...Yeah, and they practically wiped an entire nation of people off the Earth just like your cigarettes are doing now")
  • the "I'm 37!?" scene when Dante's girlfriend Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti) told her shocked boyfriend the honest truth about her sexual history, that she delivered 37 instances of fellatio: (Dante: "...I understood that you had sex with three different guys and that's all you said!...How many?...How many d--ks have you sucked?" and Veronica's reply: "Something like - 36..." and including him, it was 37)
  • the appalling scene in which clerk Randal phone-ordered X-rated stock (with really filthy titles like "Cum Clean," "All Tit-F--king, Volume 8," "I Need Your C--k," "Ass-Worshipping Rim-Jobbers," "My C--t Needs Shafts," etc.) from his distributor in front of a customer at the counter - a Mom (Connie O'Connor) and her young daughter who wished to purchase "Happy Scrappy Hero Pup"
  • Randal's ludicrous Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983) dialogue with Dante about the ethics of the destruction of the second Death Star when innocent independent contractors lost their lives - the ending of the film: ("Something just never sat right with me that second time around. I could never put my finger on it, but something just wasn't right....The first Death Star was manned by the lmperial Army. The only people on board were Storm Troopers, dignitaries, lmperialists....So when they blew it up, no problem. Evil's punished....") - the second time around, when independent contractors were working on the uncompleted Death Star, they became innocent victims: ("...the second time around, it wasn't even done being built yet. It was still under construction....all those innocent contractors brought in to do the job are killed, casualties of a war they had nothin' to do with....Look, you're a roofer. Some juicy government contract comes your way. You got a wife and kids, the two-story in suburbia. This is a government contract which means all sorts of benefits. Along come these left-wing militants who blast everything within a three-mile radius with their lasers. You didn't ask for that. You had no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living")
  • the "We're So Advanced" diatribe delivered by Randal to Dante about working in a low-level convenience store job: ("Jesus, nobody twisted your arm to be here. You're here of your own volition. You like to think the weight of the world rests on your shoulder, like this place would fall apart if Dante wasn't here. Jesus, you over-compensate for havin' what's basically a monkey's job. You push f--kin' buttons! Anybody could waltz in here and do our jobs. You, you're so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic, so much more important than it really is. Christ, you work in a convenience store, Dante, and badly I might add. I work in a s--tty video store, badly as well. You know, that guy Jay's got it right, man, he has no delusions about what he does. Us - we like to make ourselves seem so much more important than the people that come in here to buy a paper or God forbid, cigarettes. We look down on them as if we're so advanced. Well, if we're so f--kin' advanced, what are we doin' working here?")

Rant Against Cigarettes

Dante's Girlfriend Veronica

X-Rated Porn Video Phone Order

Star Wars Death Star Contractors Dialogue

"We're So Advanced"

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