View Askew Productions

Background: View Askew Productions is the independent production company of Kevin Smith.

1st Logo

(October 19, 1994)

Warning: Due to the logo's disturbing sexual content and nudity, photos and videos of this logo will not be allowed on this site.

Nicknames: "Clown from Hell", "That Dirty Clown!", "Perverted Clown", "Vulgar the Clown", "Creepy Clown", "Pennywise's Little Brother".

Logo: On a grayish-white background, we see a crudely drawn, very fat, and very ugly clown walk across the screen in a cheap manner, encounter a small, chubby boy mindlessly playing with a ball throughout the animation, pats him on his head, and then enters a changing booth. After a few seconds in there, as the music builds up, he steps out—clad in only stockings, platform shoes and a black thong with his back turned. His body, of course, is not a good sight to behold. He turns around (still has the clown hat and makeup on), and is holding a clapperboard, and is standing next to the boy with his hands covering his private area, perhaps a little too close with a very smug smile. The changing booth abruptly falls downward to reveal "View Askew Productions" in the Ad-Lib font, arranged quite weirdly on a filmstrip, like this—

View

Askew

Pro•

duc•

tions

The boy had continued to play with the ball in the exact same way throughout the logo.

Trivia: The clown in the logo (Vulgar) was used as a trademark for Kevin Smith's business at viewaskew.com for several years. He even had his own movie in 2000.

FX/SFX: The (horrible) 2D cartoon animation in the logo.

Cheesy Factor: Really bad animation; the whole thing is black and white (like the movie it's in front of), animated crudely (especially the boy, whose only animation is tossing the ball back and forth), and the music is low-to-no-budget. There's low accuracy in this logo, but perhaps this was intentional to showcase the company's trademark adult humor. The subject matter is also very inappropriate. It's just like the Red Tape and the Park Avenue logo's.

Music/Sounds: Low-budget music that ranges from a weird happy-go-lucky calliope when the clown is walking to the weird looking boy. Then, a few pizzacato bass violin notes (while the clown's still behind the changing booth) to vaguely sexy Dixieland-style jazz (when we see thong-clad clown), to this rather weird 5-note brass fanfare with a tympani roll and a cymbal clash at the end (which may remind you of the Worldvision fanfare, without the WHOOSH).

Music/Sounds Variant: On the original first cut of Clerks, the logo is silent.

Availability: It's only on one film: Clerks. Later films up to 2004 favor an in-credit "A View Askew Production". Despite its subject matter, it was still kept (surprisingly) on FX's print of Clerks, after the 1987 Miramax Films logo.

Scare Factor: Low (bordering on medium) to nightmare, due to many factors. Usually it depends on your point of view, but the horrible low-budget animation, scratchy film, weird music (especially the "happy-go-lucky" calliope at the beginning), the butt-ugly clown, and generally bizarre and very, very weird subject matter may very well make this one of the scariest recent logos, and will cement it at nightmare if you have coulrophobia—fear of clowns. It's not as bad as the the "S From Hell" or the "V of Doom", or the "Mask of Doom", or even the "Neon Mickey" and the "Super Scary Face", but it will definitely scare quite a few people; if not, it will still turn off many people due to its rather weird and disgusting subject matter. What the clown is doing to the boy is similar to child molestation. Some people may also find it a bit funny instead of scary. But this logo is very perverted, and will cause nightmares in some.

2nd Logo

(March 26, 2004- )

Nicknames: "CGI Jay and Silent Bob", "Snooch to the Nooch!"

Logo: On a light gray background, a hole made of filmstrip is shown with the words "VIEW ASKEW PRODUCTIONS" arranged to fit the circle. All of a sudden, a CGI version of Silent Bob appears from the bottom of the circle with an old handheld camera, while Jay jumps out from the left, with a beret on his head and holding a clapperboard with the camera scope hanging from it. Both are in their forms from the short-lived "Clerks" TV series. Silent Bob leans over and looks into the scope on the camera, while Jay prepares to clap the clapperboard and yells "Snooch to the nooch!" Unfortunately, Jay winds up accidentally catching Silent Bob's necklace in the clapperboard, and after he claps the clapboard, he pulls it back, flashing the "devil horns" sign with his hand. Since the necklace is caught on the clapperboard, he accidentally strangles Silent Bob, causing him to fall out of the circle, either dead or unconscious, and hit the floor. Jay looks down, sees what's happened, and steps out of the circle, a camera scope slips out and falls off the clapperboard as he does so. He then starts to walk away, whistling nonchalantly, but then zooms off-screen cartoon-style, leaving the clapperboard, which falls to the ground as we fade out.

Variant: On Jersey Girl, the text "TEN YEARS OF MAKE BELIEVE 1994-2004" appears below. In the closing credits the print logo appears, depicting the still sequence shot in changed colors. The letters and background are red there.

FX/SFX: Incredible CGI all the way. In fact, this animation is way better than the 1st logo!

Music/Sounds: Music consisting of two stings for when Bob and Jay show up, along with a funky little tune as the rest of the logo goes on. Also, all of the expected sound effects are there. And yes, Jason Mewes does Jay's voice.

Availability: Seen on Jersey Girl and Clerks II.

Scare Factor: Low. The subject matter may be bizarre to some, but it is very funny and way more appealing compared to the 1st logo.