1. Darren Aronofsky
   Richard Linklater
2. Kevin Smith
   Alan Smithee

Smith went to great efforts to fund his first film. This included selling off his extensive comic book collection and using the proceeds of an insurance settlement from a car destroyed in a flood.

1. language
   nudity
2. sexual content
   violence

It's very rare for a movie to earn an NC-17 for language alone, but if you've seen "Clerks," you'll probably understand. Even so, the movie was released without cuts thanks to an appeal.

1. Alan Dershowitz
   Gloria Allred
2. Martin Scorsese
   Quentin Tarantino

Dershowitz made the case for releasing "Clerks" as-is with a R rating, presumably on free-speech grounds. This might be somewhat ironic, given the role that X-rated movies play in the film.

1. California
   Michigan
2. New Jersey
   New York

Kevin Smith is a proud Jersey resident. Most of his interconnected films are set there.

1. bed
   his car
2. his closet
   the shower

Dante is awoken by the phone ringing and falls out of his closet. Why he was in there is never explained -- perhaps too much partying the night before.

1. the Gas-N-Sip
   the 6-10
2. the Quick Stop
   the Come-N-Go

The Quick Stop was a real store in Leonardo, New Jersey. For this reason, Smith was only allowed to film at night, when the place was closed.

1. basketball
   baseball
2. hockey
   rugby

Dante tells his boss that he has a hockey game at 2 p.m., so needs to be off by then. Will he be? Of course not.

1. 11 a.m.
   noon
2. 2 p.m.
   he doesn't promise

Dante doesn't want to go in, since it's his day off. He makes the owner "swear" that he'll be at the Quick Stop by noon.

1. Utica, for a convention
   Niagara Falls, to get married
2. New York City, to watch baseball
   Vermont, for unknown reasons

Dante is irate after learning that the store owner has gone to Vermont. This means he never had any intention of relieving Dante at work.

1. the window underneath is broken
   he doesn't have the key to the locks
2. someone jammed gum in the locks
   it's an insurance risk

"Bunch of savages in this state, I tell you," is Dante's conclusion. His solution is to hang a sheet over the shutters reading "I assure you, we're open."

1. a black cat
   a Chihuahua
2. a profane parrot
   a tame rat

We can't think how Smith missed out on having a foul-mouthed parrot be a part of the action. Maybe a trained bird was too hard to acquire on a tight budget and shooting schedule.

1. a gas station
   a bar
2. a video store
   he is unemployed

Randal works at the video store right across from the Quick Stop. He treats the customers badly, and at least once pretends to "blackball" a customer who's sworn never to shop there again.

1. Amy
   Stacey
2. Tara
   Veronica

Veronica Loughran is a devoted girlfriend who brings Dante lunch and encourages him to go back to school. This doesn't stop him from pining for his old girlfriend, though.

1. Ann
   Caitlin
2. Marie
   Jenna

Dante is completely hung up on Caitlin Bree. She's at college, but they've been having late-night phone calls that make Dante believe a reconciliation is possible.

1. business
   design
2. psychology
   computer science

Throughout the movie, people refer to Caitlin's upcoming marriage to "an Asian design major." So it's possible he's majoring in Asian design, not just design. He is Chinese-American -- his name is Sang -- but being Asian doesn't preclude him from majoring in "Asian design." As these characters will say once Facebook comes along ... it's complicated.

1. Chewlie's Gum
   a smoking-cessation counselor
2. a local personal-injury lawyer
   the World Health Organization

After buying a cup of coffee, the man hangs around to dissuade people from buying cigarettes. He encourages them to try Chewlie's Gum instead. To help him in his work, he carries around a model of a diseased lung and a "trach ring," or an implant that smokers get when cancer destroys their voice box. Gross!

1. spraying them with the fire extinguisher
   spraying them with diet cola
2. threatening to call the police
   yelling at them

The Chewlie's Gum representative gets the shoppers so riled up that they start pelting Dante with cigarettes. Then Veronica, Dante's devoted and practical girlfriend, breaks things up and outs the anti-smoking guy as a chewing-gum salesman.

1. a burger and fries
   lasagna
2. peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches
   pizza

Veronica kids that she brought him "peanut-butter and jelly with the crusts cut off," but it's actually lasagna. She's a keeper!

1. the day's stock of newspapers never arrived
   he wants a job delivering papers
2. the store hours are wrong in their ad
   he wants to believe Caitlin's engagement announcement is a "misprint"

Dante wants to believe that a "typographical mistake" has led to the listing. That failing, he suggests that maybe a typesetter planted the item as revenge, say, for Caitlin refusing to go out with him. The person at the Asbury Park Press eventually hangs up on Dante.

1. the cuddly Ewoks
   Mark Hamill's haircut
2. not enough banter between Han Solo and Chewbacca
   his assumption that innocent construction workers were killed on the Death Star

Randal's reasoning goes like this: The new Death Star was still under construction when the rebels destroyed it. Therefore, the people who were on board were just hired contractors and workers who didn't fundamentally support the Empire's goals nor deserve to die.

1. at a city rink
   in the parking lot
2. on the roof of the Quick Stop
   inside the Quick Stop

Dante closes up the Quick Stop and plays with his friends on the roof. This annoys a customer, who climbs up to the roof to yell at him and then insults his hockey skills.

1. ten minutes
   12 minutes
2. 30 minutes
   45 minutes

The customer who climbed up to the roof joins the game, and he hits the ball off into the distance and down a sewer grate. This was the only ball the teams had, thus ending the game.

1. she asks Randal out
   she graduates college
2. she joins the Peace Corps
   she dies

Julie was one of Dante's ex-girlfriends. She died of a sudden brain event while swimming at the YMCA. "In mid-backstroke," Randal says.

1. insults the funeral-home director
   hits on Julie's mother
2. knocks over the casket
   steals flowers

Randal outrages everyone by leaning on Julie's casket and tipping it over. He defends himself by saying it's not like she can get injured at this point.

1. using obscene language in front of minors
   playing sports on a rooftop
2. illegal parking outside the funeral home
   selling cigarettes to a child

It was Randal, covering for Dante, who did this. Which raises the question: Why is a 4-year-old buying cigarettes anyway? The tobacco industry tries to start 'em early, sure, but THAT early?

1. "cat scratchers"
   "chatty Cathys"
2. "milkmaids"
   "exact change freaks"

"Milkmaids" are his term for women who inspect every gallon of milk, trying to find an expiration date later than the rest. Hey, it's better than the guys who try to find the "perfect dozen" eggs.

1. Caitlin's mother
   Sang
2. Randal
   a disgruntled printer Caitlin wouldn't date

Caitlin never agreed to marry Sang, just to think about it. But Sang insisted that Caitlin wear his ring while she considered the proposal, and then Caitlin's mother jumped the gun.

1. she trips and breaks her wrist
   she puts on her lipstick really askew
2. she has sex with Randal
   she has sex with a corpse

Caitlin comes out quite happy, thinking it was Dante in the bathroom and he let her "do everything." In fact, it was an old man who'd asked to use the bathroom earlier and had taken a pornographic magazine in with him.

1. Caitlin
   Dante
2. Jay
   Randal

Randal thought that he was doing Dante a favor. More specifically, he thought that Dante would never have the courage to tell Veronica himself. Unfortunately, Dante had already decided that going back to Caitlin is a mistake.

1. Caitlin and Veronica
   Dante and Randal
2. Dante and the store owner
   Jay and Silent Bob

Dante gets fed up with Randal criticizing him and pushing him to change his life -- and most of all, for Randal telling Veronica that Dante was about to cheat on her. They have a brawl that wrecks part of the Quick Stop, but their friendship remains intact.

1. Veronica forgives Dante
   Dante and Caitlin run away together
2. Randal wins the lottery
   Dante is shot and killed

Kevin Smith has said that the shocking ending came about because he didn't know how to end the film. He took the advice of several friends/mentors and went with the low-key goodbyes between Dante and Randal instead.

1. dance
   drive
2. smoke
   talk

Despite his name, Silent Bob *does* talk in "Clerks." Toward the end, he advises Dante that most women don't bring their men lasagna at work. "Most just cheat on you."

1. Bryan Cranston
   Walt Flanagan
2. Walter Mosier
   no one

Walt Flanagan, a childhood friend of Smith's, played several minor roles in "Clerks." But no one stepped into the shoes of the Quick Stop owner, who never appears in the film.

1. zero
   one
2. two
   three

Dante closes up briefly to play hockey on the roof. The second closure comes when he decides to go to Julie Dwyer's wake and Randal won't cover for him. (If it were us, we would have closed up for the day at noon when the boss didn't show up, but that's just us.)

1. Caitlin in the unlighted bathroom
   Dante being killed by a robber
2. Randal knocking over Julie Dwyer's casket
   Randal dancing with Jay and Silent Bob

This scene proved too prohibitive to shoot on a $27,000 budget. An animated version of it is included in the tenth anniversary DVD.