If anything, Kevin Smith’s happy hour and Smodcast was a thankful reassurance that he, Jason Mewes and Scott Mosier are really just replicants of their on-screen counterparts — so if you’re easily offended by any dialogue or language from his movies, stop here. Then again, one might ask: why the f**k would you be reading this?

But I actually didn’t even find out about the live podcast until the last minute — getting into it was a bit cloak-and-dagger, but made it seem more worth it just because it was a bit of a challenge.  To get your ticket you had to:

1)check the Smodcast Facebook page at certain times of the day,
2)get to a certain divulged location within 5 minutes, and
3)say a password to one of Kevin’s pals at ETNIES who were sponsoring the project. It was being held at the SE Hotel downtown, a mile or two from the convention center — so after getting the password (“Silent Bob”) I grabbed my sh*t and hauled ass down to the SE.

The party was being held on the rooftop of the 4th floor, around a pool and a really nice bar. Unfortunately, our photographer couldn’t get in just because there were limited tickets and the sponsor insisted they’d be providing their own. And I couldn’t have asked for more:  free beer, and Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier and Jason Mewes all talking candidly about their experiences during the filming of Mallrats — a big deal for them since it was their first big studio film, and filled with plenty of revelations.

“In ’95 it was my first Comic-Con, and we got invited to screen Mallrats there,” recalled Smith. “The audience just fucking loved it, we got a huge ovation, so we just walked out of there thinking we had fucking re-invented cinema. They’d given us maybe $10 k to go shoot at this mall, so they were happy.” The studio was so proud of Smith and co. that they even forked over a shitload of advertising $$$ to promote the film. “Then the movie opened and they found out that, yeah, that had been pretty much our entire audience — and they’d already seen it for free at the convention.”

To occupy their down time, the boys embarked on a quest to find out whether their friend Malcolm Ingram was gay — a long, painful process which took place during the making of Mallrats and involved Mewes continually goofing on Ingram. Mr. Mewes wasn’t any easier on the studio: reportedly his off-screen behavior was already catching the attention of some of the execs.  “Who was it they said they were gonna replace him with?” asked Smith about Mewes. “Seth Green.” Mewes added, “I think Breckin Meyer was another guy.” Yeah, it’s pretty weird to think about either of those guys playing the part of Jay. Meanwhile, Scott Mosier spent most of his spare time hitting on actress Claire Forlani. “Claire invited Scott to work out with her one morning, and Scott began to think that Claire was hitting on him,” recalled Smith, though it ended up that it was just her sort of ‘British’ way of being nice. ” She was married to Vincent D’Onofrio at the time, so I don’t know how that would’ve worked,” added Mosier. Finally he got turned down. Scott looked a little wistful at the memory.

So yeah, between “adult cum bubbles”, “schmoo”, and Malcolm Ingram buying sausages at the supermarket, it was thankfully similar to a Kevin Smith film. We’re trying to get the podcast up soon so you can hear all the dirty details, including their take on comic book films, and some pondering over what Thor will be like.  In the mean time, Kevin Smith begins shooting Red State next month, and promises that “it’s an original script. Yeah, it’s not Cop-Out.”

Words by Jeff Nau, Photos provided by Etnies.com. Special thanks to Megan Easley for hooking us up.