Recently Jason Mewes and I had a chat about Comic Con, the fine art of podcasting, the SIR network, and a little bit about the upcoming second season of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil.
Chances are if you were born before 1990, you spent your angsty teenage years thinking that New Jersey was the funnest place on earth. Why, you ask? Well it’s because that’s where Jay and Silent Bob hail from. Imagine a world where anything could happen because two burnouts never seem to run out of good ideas. My friends, this the world I wanted to live in. Now it’s 2011 and those days are long gone and my life didn’t turn out nearly as bleak as my thirteen year old self had envisioned.
In fact things are so awesome that I recently got a chance to talk to Jason Mewes. Yes, that Jason Mewes! Now instead of slinging dope he’s slinging wisdom and love advice on Todd and the Book of Pure Evil and dolling out fat sacks of laughs on the SModcast Internet Radio Network. Recently Jay and I had a chat about Comic Con, the fine art of podcasting, the SIR network, and a little bit about the upcoming second season of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil.
CGMagazine: How did you and Kevin first get into podcasting?
Jason Mewes: Well Kevin [Smith] started to doing it first. It’s been about four years now since Kevin and Scott Mosier started doing the SModcast, they’ve got something like a hundred or so episodes.
Every once in a while Scott Mosier wouldn’t be around to do the show and Kevin will be like “Hey, I wanna put out a new one out, it’s been a couple weeks. It’s time to do a new one so, Jay do you wanna fill in, Scott’s not around?” So I filled in a couple of times with him on the SModcast and I just dug it. We sat there and we bull-shitted and all that. Then, listening to him a Scott and then listening to the one we did I thought it be fun to do one of my own.
CGMagazine: So you started your own podcast?
Jay: Yeah, I did a couple podcasts called “MewesCast”. It was just me and this guy Matt Cohen who sorta helped me put it together. Then another one I did with my buddy Nic-Nac and my wife’s cousin. Anyway, I enjoyed it but none of the other people could do it consistently so I sorta stopped doing it for a few months. Then Kevin opened the SModCastle and he was doing like all day events, he was doing SModcasts, and he started another podcast with his friend Malcolm Ingram called “Blow-Hard”.
I had been talking to Kevin before that about doing a podcast. So I said “ Hey man I’ve been wanting to do one, I’ve been trying to find someone, If I get it going, could I put it up on ViewAskew.com or SModcast.com? Then Kevin said “Hey, you’ve been wanting to do one, why don’t you and I do one called “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old” and we’ll do it live at the SModCastle on opening night.” So I said “Sure” and we did it, I had a great time and people seemed to dig it and asked if we were gonna do more. So we were like “Okay, we’ll do one next week too”.
We did one the next week and the week after that and the week after that and people were digging it at SModCastle live. So we decided to keep doing it. Then people kept coming but the SModCastle only has about 40 seats. So Kevin said “let’s try to move it to a bigger venue.” so that’s where we are now. We moved it from there to the Jon Lovitz Podcast Theater, which was the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club at the time. Kevin brought “Hollywood Babble-On” there, “Having Sex with Katie Morgan” is gonna be doing one there and then Adam Corolla has been doing his podcasts there. So there’s all these podcasts and they’re doing really well up at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club so Kevin, Jon and everyone wanted to make it something different so they re-invented the whole club and called it the Jon Lovitz Podcasting Theater. So that’s what it’s called now and it holds about 250 people. We have a show every Friday night at 10pm and there’s “Hollywood Babble-On” which is Saturdays at 8pm and there’s gonna be more shows added from there.
CGMagazine: You mentioned that you have a live audience when you do the SModcasts or Jay & Silent Bob Get Old. How important is the live audience to your shows?
Jay: I wanna put it out there while were talking about it, we also do the “Jay and Silent Bob Get Jobs” which is a live Internet radio show on SIR. Now for “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old” I feel like it’s important to have the live audience because it started with that. What we talk about and the vibe of “Jay and Bob Get Old” [sic] is really driven by the audience and when I’m telling my stories I really enjoy being able to interact with the crowd.
Each show, at the end, we either do “Let Us Fuck”, is the one game we play, or we play “Let Us Act” and with both of those games we bring people up from the audience and they participate in the game and the end of the podcast. So, I definitely think it’s important. It’s a podcast that is sort of made for a live audience. I don’t think Kevin and I would do a “Jay and Bob Get Old” that isn’t live, it just wouldn’t vibe the same.
CGMagazine: Tell me how SModcast evolved into a full blown network of podcasts?
Jay: Well Kevin came up with the actual name, SModcast Internet Radio (SIR). I wanna say that besides from our shows, “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old” or “Get Jobs” there was just so many shows. I mean Kevin was almost technically doing daily shows anyway. One day he’d be recording with Scott Mosier then Friday night he’d do the live show with me, and then Saturday night he’d do a live show with Ralph Garmin. If Malcolm Ingram’s in town he would do “Blow Hard” with Malcolm. So he started to think: “Hey man, I’m doing this every day. I wanna see if we could do it live every day ’cause that would be cool.” So we thought about it at first and started talking. We thought about doing a morning show up at the Podcast Theater and inviting people to come and watch a daily show. And then we were like “Well wait, there’s got to be a way to stream this.” So Kevin started looking into it and he found out what we can do. So the name and how to get started was pretty much all Kevin. I just participated in working though ideas and doing the shows along with him.
CGMagazine: Now, both you and Kevin will be at the San Diego Comic Con this year, this is what the 16th year for you guys?
Jay: Yeah, we started going about 1995 and yeah so it’s been that long. I mean there has a few years where I didn’t get to go but Kevin went and I think, well I can’t speak for him, but I’m pretty sure Kevin has been going steady every year because he does his Q&A on Saturday night at Hall H. There was a few years that I personally missed, ’cause I was getting myself into trouble or what have you. I started going in 1995 and went almost every year. I probably missed about 2 or 3 years in a row. Then I went again and then missed the year after that and now I’ve gone the last two years and I’ll be back this year. So, I’m very excited.
I mean I love San Diego Comic Con I really do, I always look forward to going and there’s a lot of fun stuff. Even more so now. Before when we’d go and we’d maybe have one event going on, like a panel or something like that. Last year we had the Etnies release thing and we did podcasts at the party and they released the Clerk’s sneaker and then Kevin went and did his Q&A in Hall H. Now this year we’re doing “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old” live on July 22nd at 11pm and then there’s also “Hollywood Babble-On” will be at 9pm at the House of Blues. Then Kevin will be doing his show at Hall H, we have another sneaker release party with Etnies and then there’s the Todd and the Book of Pure Evil stuff which I’ll be doing as well. We might even have another announcement we’re trying to work in there. So yeah I’m excited, it’s gonna be great.
CGMagazine: Okay, Jay one last question. So, right now you’re on set filming the second season of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil. How did it feel when the show got renewed for a second season?
Jay: I was really excited, I really was. It took months. I remember, I saw those guys at Sundance, the creators and producers of the show Andrew Rosen and Anthony Leo and they still hadn’t heard anything yet. This was after the first season had aired on Space and I think it was like the highest rated show premier on Space ever and all that. I was like “Wow, this is awesome and it’s an awesome show, it’s gotta be picked up.” and they were like “look, we don’t know yet, they haven’t said.” So they couldn’t really give me an idea.
Anyway, I kept asking and then a few months went by and they finally gave me the call said that it got green-lit and we’re gonna be doing season 2. I was very, very excited. I really do think that it’s not only a fun show to watch, it’s also fun to shoot. It’s cool to come up here and be in a closed school with all the fun stuff that goes on. Yesterday I had prosthetics [sic] on all day. I don’t wanna give away what it was but that’s just to give you an idea of how fun it is. It’s all different, wired, and crazy stuff going on.
CGMagazine: Thanks so much for talking to us Jay. I hope Comic Con is a blast, SIR kicks ass, and the new season of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil is better than the last. Are there any last words you’d like to share?
Jay: Oh! Don’t forget to check out Todd and the Book of Pure Evil making it’s US television debut on Fear Net August 2nd but you can go to FearNet.com and find out more about it. Check that out, and listen to “Jay and Silent Bob Get jobs” in the morning and “Plus 1 Per Diem” on Smodcast.com.
