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Smiling Friends season 3 almost tried for a Kevin Smith cameo, say creators Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel
Don't get us wrong, Smiling Friends did feature a Clerks cameo in season 3, just not the most obvious one.
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Mild spoilers for Smiling Friends season 3.
Look, I'm not going to try and describe Smiling Friends to you if you haven't seen it. There's simply no better, or frankly adequate, explanation of the Adult Swim series than can be provided by just watching the entire series yourself. I will say, though, that the largely animated workplace comedy does pull off a few great gags by working a live-action actor into the show - kind of a reverse Roger Rabbit but more stressful. And in this most recent season, one of the actors considered for the task was none other than Kevin Smith.
The reveal comes from an interview Smiling Friends creators Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel, who sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for a wide-ranging interview published November 30, 2025. In the discussion, the creators and voice actors (Cusack plays character Pim, Hadel his co-lead Charlie) spoke about their inclusion of a Clerks reference in the latest seaosn.
"Zach and I grew up as huge fans of Clerks," said Cusack, "It got me into filmmaking. [...] We’ve always had [an idea for] this joke where The Boss would say, 'Hey, do you guys want to hang out with Randal from Clerks?'"
In case you haven't seen it (here's where that spoiler warning comes in, reader), the Smiling Friends cast does indeed get to hang out with Randall from Clerks, AKA actor Brian O'Haloran. The actor appears as himself, in live-action, in the episode Shmaloogles, the seventh episode of season 3. But according to Hadel:
"I also think at some point we did consider Kevin Smith himself."
Cusack agrees with his cocreator, so why did the boys end up going with O'Haloran at the end?
"We went to Brian because we just knew he says yes to fun stuff like this," said Cusack.
Makes sense. Still, doesn't Smith also say yes to fun stuff? Might be worth bringing up anyway, guys - there's always next season, after all.
Smiling Friends is streaming now on HBO Max.
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