Whether or not it was to your taste, 1994’s Clerks should be recognized and honored for helping to kickstart a huge indie movie scene during the rest of the decade. It was an unlikely success story that overcame a lack of budget, professional actors, and an experienced director to become one of the seminal Gen X flicks. The movie also launched an entire franchise, including two direct sequels (Clerks II and III), a slew of “ViewAskewniverse” flicks, and even a short-lived animated TV series in 2000.

And then there was this horrible abomination that happened in 1995 and was effectively buried for decades afterward until the decade dug it up. I speak, of course, of the failed pilot for a Clerks live-action TV series that had nothing to do with the movie other than the title, the names of a few of the characters, and the general theme of slackers working menial retail jobs. Kevin Smith and the rest of the original Clerks crew had nothing to do with this Miramax-led effort to capitalize on Clerks’ popularity.

As the familiar Clerks. (with a period) title card drops and some alt-rock plays, there might be a second or two of hope that this is a worthy successor. That hope is cruelly dashed by the first look at our setting, which is now a strip mall featuring Rose Market and Movies & More. To help compensate for a lack of a Quick Stop, it’s filmed at an edgy Dutch angle.

If you’re not already muttering “no no no no no” behind closed fingers, you might recognize ’90s staple Keri Russell as a health conscious tanner named Sandra who denies that tanning machines create cancer. Next to her, we meet our Dante for the day, played by Andrew Lowery, and Randal, handled by SNL’s Jim Breuer. She says that it’s lotion that causes cancer, which sends Randal into a fit of pretending like he’s melting from it. No, none of the jokes are funny, but I’m duty-bound to recording them for you anyway.

They have a third friend who’s a skeezy ice cream parlor guy named Todd, who’s played by Rick Gomez. Gomez went on to do much better stuff than this, including Band of Brothers and Sin City.

The boys goof off by playing football with a bag of chips (huh?) until Dante’s girlfriend Veronica (Noelle Parker) comes in to visit. Dante tells her that he’s promoted himself to “Zordak, God of All Things Convenient.” Truly, the script just wrote itself at this point. She’s a little miffed that he’s not making plans for his future or even got the night off to hang out with her. It’s nothing more than one of those all-to-frequent pilot moments where the characters have to awkwardly cram a lot of backstory exposition into scenes.

But every guy loves to be emasculated by his girlfriend in public in front of his pals!

That evening, despite working at the Rose Mart, Dante is hanging out with Veronica at the video rental. I like these convenient movie seats plopped right in the middle of the floor so that customers could mooch some free entertainment. Meanwhile, Randal spoils the endings to the movies that a lady is checking out, which does seem like a Randal thing to do.

So I guess a question that a Clerks fan might have at this point is, how raunchy is this sitcom? Not at all, would be the answer. It’s as toned down for network television as could be, with a wall of “adult” movies the only hint of a sordid nature.

Veronica clearly hates Dante’s friends, so the second he leaves, they crowd her in this wonderfully awkward setup and then start trash-talking Little Women, which they’re watching. “This part sucks AND blows,” Todd says as the laugh track tries to summon up a couple of chuckles from the deceased audience.

Dante, on the other hand, gets a lecture from his father about not living up to potential. Dude, have you meet Gen X? We invented “not living up to potential.” Apparently Dante has been consistently turning down his father’s help to find an actual job-job because of… reasons. It kind of makes him look like a jerk when his dad is going out on a limb repeatedly for this.

At this point, you may be wondering where Jay and Silent Bob are. After all, aren’t they a Clerks staple? Well, apparently Kevin Smith owns the full rights to those two characters, so the sitcom had to do without. Instead, we get “Ray,” a solo stoner who’s introduced shoplifting a six-pack. Well, this is just a parade of sadness, isn’t it?

The gang comes in and Veronica asks for a key to the bathroom. “Don’t worry about it, the door was stolen,” Dante says. As she does a number one or two in full view of anyone walking by, a previous high school associate comes in and lightly heckles Dante for not having a real job as he is off to work at a law-type-place. The guy tries to hit on Veronica and Dante shows him out, complaining that the guy is a “phony” and a “narc.” Veronica comes back with the burn, “At least he’s an adult!”

You know what’s a good idea to shove into the middle of your pilot sitcom? A lengthy stretch where the main character is fighting with his girlfriend and there are no jokes, laughs, or comfortable silences whatsoever. It’s long enough that I noticed the outdoor set features a corner angle between the stores that isn’t there in the establishing shots. Whoops.

Dante decides to call the insurance company for the interview that his dad set up, which sends Randal into a spiral. I’ll give this episode a bit of credit: Jim Breuer is pretty funny when he cuts loose to pantomime hanging himself in suicide.

Randal’s really upset that Dante might be leaving, so he decides to throw a party the night before the insurance interview. I’m honestly not sure if this show was trying to get the audience to side with the slacker who didn’t want his friend to get a well-paying job with security and benefits, but it does seem so.

The raging party is pretty much an excuse for Todd to hit on Sandra some more while Dante languishes next door and fends off another shoplifting attempt by Ray. Ray tells Dante that Cliff’s hosting a party and that Veronica’s there with him. Dante dashes out and leaves Ray in charge, which seems like a good business decision. Dante enlists Randal’s help with his plan, seeing as it’s “senseless and stupid.” There’s another mildly funny moment when the two drag Todd away as he shouts out “NOOOOOO!” in horror.

The three crash Cliff’s party, make fun of Vanilla Ice for a bit (why not), and then rope Cliff into a scheme to vandalize the same tower that he narc’d on them in high school.

As they spraypaint the tower, Dante reminds Cliff of when he ratted them out back in the day. “Oh, you remember that?” “You ever have a mental tattoo, Cliff?” Dante shoots back. The cops show up, Cliff tries once again to pin the blame, and Dante feels justified that Cliff’s weasel nature is revealed. I like that when he tosses over the spray cans, you hear them hitting the cops and then, “That’s ASSAULT, buddy!”

Veronica and Dante get hauled away by the cops, but they don’t break up. Veronica also doesn’t want Dante to take the job, and the cop lets them go because he’s a big softie.

Over the end credits, security camera footage shows Ray stealing everything from the Rose Mart, which is pretty clever. And that’s a wrap on the first, only, and last Clerks episode!

It’s pretty generic ’90s sitcom ham that’s not going to be viewed kindly by Kevin Smith fans, I get that. But I was expecting a whole lot worse than this. If it was retooled a bit more to lean into the disaffected culture of Gen X’s youth at that time, punched up the jokes, and had more fun with the setting, I could see this actually being a decent show.