Jay and Silent Bob first appeared in the 1994 grunge film Clerks as eccentric weed dealers. Jay was the sweary, loquacious, long haired slacker, and Silent Bob was the silent, ruminative long haired slacker. They were cult figures in the '90s. Most of my teenage friends thought they were very funny, and Clerks is still a fun time capsule of the early '90s.
But like a lot of '90s phenomena, Jay and Silent Bob quickly contorted into parody. They've spawned at least three standalone films, each more silly than the last. They also reliably feature in every one of Kevin Smith's View Asknewiverse films, from Clerks all the way through to Clerks 3, but also taking in Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma, just to name a handful.
