Hot on the heels of Teabagging in the UK, another dose of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes infused mayhem hits shelves in the form of Teabagging in Ireland. Taking four filmed episodes of the ‘Jay & Silent Bob Get Old’ podcast (two from Dublin, one for Vegas and another from San Diego), the set is exactly what you’d expect – five hours of anecdotes centred around fucking and getting high. Sure, to the uninitiated it sounds mindless, puerile, lowest common denominator drivel, but that’s about as far off the mark as you can get. Smith has made an artform out of telling dick and fart jokes and, over the course of his 19-year career in moviemaking, has proven that said gags can be (dare I say) clever, acerbic and oddly classy. Dick and fart jokes they may be, dumb they ain’t. This stuff may make your mother shrink away in disgust, but at least it’s quality smut.
Like Teabagging in the UK before it, Smith’s penchant for storytelling shines in a slice of anecdotal brilliance. So good is he in fact that the disc would most likely be compulsive viewing even if they dropped the subjects of stonerism and nailing their wives and started gabbing about fine art or Tolstoy. It’s riveting stuff and you’ll be hooked from the get-go.
Still, as great as Smith is in his own right, Silent Bob pretty much takes a back seat for the Jason Mewes Show – instead feeding Mewes (aka Jay) setups to unabashedly talk about the stuff he does on a daily basis…with his wife…in the sack. Again, crude and shameless it may be, but Jason Mewes somehow manages to bring childlike innocence and charm to proceedings – not easy considering he’s a former junkie who takes pretty much any opportunity he can to fellate a microphone.
What ultimately, and perhaps bizarrely, commands respect though is that, no matter how graphic they get, no matter how potty-mouthed they become, no matter how many times they mime their wives giving them handjobs, the pair continues to put it all out there for everyone to see. Their foibles, their idiosyncrasies, everything is dished out brazenly – warts and all – giving everyone an insight into their wacky, awesomely hilarious world. Love their humour or hate it, that takes balls.
Nevertheless, as great as the set is, it’s probably not suitable viewing for grandmothers and small kids. In fact, to stomach five hours of their pair talking bollocks (nine if you’re chasing the last release), it’s best if you’re already a fan of Smith’s back catalogue. Even if you’re not though and you’re not sensitive to a couple of fortysomethings banging on about ‘pussy’ and ‘weed’, there’s a ton of laughs to be had.
As with the last disc (and all of Kevin Smith’s stage shows, in fact) extras are a little thin on the ground here – all you get is a jaw-dropping deleted scene. However, with five hours of content to get to teeth into anyway, nobody should be feeling short changed on the features front.
Overall verdict: More of the same from Smith and Mewes – and that’s no bad thing. Teabagging in Ireland should ably satiate fans’ desire for Jay and Silent Bob action until Clerks 3. I assure you, it’s awesome.
Special Features:
‘Extreme’ deleted scene
Reviewer: Jordan Brown