TANKED
Season 12, Episode 2
“Kevin Smith’s Tor-tally Awesome Tank”
AIR DATE: April 28, 2017
GRADE: —
Welcome back to our recap of Animal Planet’s Tanked! This week sees the guys visiting the filmmaker/comic book writer, Kevin Smith. Let’s see what goes down…
LOS ANGELES, CA
Kevin Smith’s Mansion
The boys roll up to Kevin Smith’s beautiful house in the middle of L.A. and the first thing we get is Wayde plugging the Mitsubishi they rolled up in. Really, here’s the exchange between him and Brett:
BRETT: What a smooth ride, man! I slept like a baby!
WAYDE: Yeah, this car’s equipped with Blind Spot Warning and Lane-Change Assist! All I need is a co-pilot!
This isn’t the first time they’ve done that on this show and it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Wayde regrets having to be up and here by 6 AM. Brett just opens the front door and walks right the hell in. Kevin’s happy to see the duo and gives them a hug. Wayde can’t believe he’s standing in Ben Affleck’s former house, which Smith calls “Wayne Manor”, since “Ben is now Bat-ffleck”. They’ve been in the house for a little over fifteen years and they still call it “Ben Affleck’s House”. Brett says that they get to work with Smith after he got to work with some amazing stars. He calls Smith “Robin” and Wayde “Fatman”, then says they could make a comic called “Fatman and Baldman”. Smith says he already did that, so don’t compete with him.
Smith goes to show the boys his turtles but stops short to show off his collection of hockey jersey patches since Smith always has his trademark hockey jersey on, calling the jersey, “The Fat Guy’s Mumu”. Smith says that he’s been living off of “Clerks” for some time and that’s done near a dozen films. Brett says that he and Wayde should be in film, giving us another weird moment where Brett says that they should have a film called “Brett and Silent Wayde”. Smith says he’d sue the shit out of them and I’m ready to move the hell on to the tank.
Smith says that his kid got two baby turtles that grew up and became bigger. His daughter became disinterested in the turtles at that point. He went out to get a bigger tank but they got even bigger. Then she got a tortoise but he got bigger as well. Smith says that the three need more space than they’re actually being provided. He had a friend of his design him two huge tanks for these animals which he thought were great at the time since the turtles had lots of space to move around. Then he saw Tanked and he realized that the tanks he had were “low rent”. Smith admits he’s embarrassed to show off his turtle habitat.
He wants a tank that separates the turtles but makes it so they can still see one another. He says that, right now, it’s like “Romeo & Juliet” where one always wants the other but can’t have them. He goes out to the patio and shows them “Turtleopolis”.
Brett loves the turtles he sees and picks one up and you can’t help but fall in love.
Smith is beside himself and says that he had no idea you could pick up turtles like that and handle them. He was always afraid that they’d get sick or not like the smell of human hands on them but Wayde explains that the you can lightly handle turtles like this as long as you’re not passing them around to others or abusing them so they become stressed out. Wayde explains that this species is a “Red-Eared Slider” because they have red near their ears and they “slide” into the water as a defense mechanism if predators tried to pick them off.
Brett, who I swear is getting lazier the older the show gets, says he’s like a “Slider” in that he “slides right into the couch with the remote when he gets home”.
For the record, the turtles are named “Hannah” and “Montana”. Smith has no idea which I’m sure Miley Cyrus has already named her boobs, but I can’t be sure.
In the other tank is the land tortoise Smith’s daughter has named, “Snappy” which, like “Hannah” and “Montana”, Smith recalls with a verbal cringe. It looks like a “Snappy”.
Smith says that he tries to get Snappy to swim around with the turtles.but Snappy makes the water too dirty.
He says he wants the tank refurbished but Brett talks him into buying a new tank altogether, telling Smith that if he can afford Ben Affleck’s house, he can afford a tank, too. The plan is to take the turtles back to Vegas with the guys and move the old tank so that the new tank can move in.
One catch: Smith wants the tank on the top floor patio. The boys explain that it’s going to be hard to get the tank up (even though they’ve done that in about 57 other episodes but what’s continuity?) and they’re also not sure if the patio can support the weight of the tank. “No!” says Kevin. “It HAS to be up here! HAS to!”
There’s a beat…
Then Kevin laughs and says he’s kidding and that he was giving them one of those Reality Show “act-outs”. He leaves the boys to it — but with the assistance of his “House Boy”, Jason Mewes. Kevin introduces the two guys as the “Fish Tank Version of Jay and Silent Bob”. Jason: “Yeah…sexier, though.” Smith explains the plan to Mewes saying that “Turtleopolis” is about to become “Turtlemageddon”. Smith wants Mewes to show the boys the new tank location. Brett wants to be “directed” to which Smith says, “He’s using the language of our work!”
They go downstairs where Mewes, for being about seven years sober, trips fucking balls, flailing while describing weird, arbitrary features of his dream tank:
“I’m thinkin’ — I don’t know what he’s talked to you about — but I’m thinkin’ like a four-tier where there’s a little, like a slide for the turtle, the turtles to slide…can we do that? All right, so the tank, I’m thinking, will be like right here…and I’m thinkin’, like, four-tiers, slide, maybe a fireman’s pole, I’ve always — maybe a ROPE SWING because we used to have a rope swing, right, where there’s like dry land under a bridge in Jersey. We used to swing over, so the turtles, I’m thinking they can (imitates turtle swinging)–oh my god, a slingshot would work! The, the one turtle can go from wet to the dry land — oh, so, sorry, we’re gonna need, like, a DRY area…and then I was thinking, what if we had the old school Batman, like the bookcase? And like the little turtle, if he hits the right thing in the wall, I don’t if it’s like a little statue, a rock statue, the button and, then the bookshelf doors open up, it’s like a hidden room. I’m tellin’ ya’ — AND A PERISCOPE! Right, so, like the turtles, they — the little WET turtles — and, they wanna look up at the dry land, right? They have a PERISCOPE! That’s just some of my ideas!”
And the whole fucking time, Brett and Wayde just stand there, staring like this:
Brett wants to know if Smith gave Mewes free reign over the whole thing. Mewes says he did. Brett’s skeptical. Wayde says it’s not impossible to put a tank in here due to the bushes in the way (something else they’ve done a shit-ton of times before this) but they can do this.
The boys grab the turtles and head back to Vegas.
Oh wait: Wayde has to plug the back-up camera on the Mitsu-fucking-bishi. “If not for us, we have to do it for our new friends!” he explains to Brett.
LAS VEGAS, NV
Acrylic Tank Manufacturing
Back at ATM, Wayde shows Heather and Agnes Kevin Smith’s turtles. The girls “really like Smith”, then name-drop “Clerks” because who the hell saw any of the other films, right? The girls actually ask if “Wayde stole Kevin Smith’s turtles”. Did I mention that the women on this show are the worst? Because they are. Wayde wants to get an empty spare tank until Heather mentions that they could just be dropped in the man-made pond habitat instead. Holy shit, I take back what I just said. Wayde likes the idea since there’s a fence around the area so they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. Agnes asks Wayde if the turtles in the box he’s carrying are heavy. Wayde says they are and Agnes observes that they’re “big turtles” and she just knows big turtles. She’s seen them “in pictures”. Jesus…
They go out to the pond and Heather, for some reason, knows which turtle is which before we get into an absolute squeal-fest of a segment where the turtles are dropped into ATM’s “pond” out front.
Then Wayde drops this: “When we’re done with his tank, we have to give him back his turtles…which means you guys will have to go back in there and catch them.” Not surprisingly, the women are shocked (shocked!) by this! Heather and Agnes look at each other and Heather asks, “WE have to go in there?!” as if being asked to scuba-dive into a tank of sharks.
Later, Brett and Wayde had their tank artist draw up Jason Mewes’ plans for Kevin Smith’s tank. Yes, man-hours were wasted to push this ridiculous sub-plot along. After they’re done, the boys call Kevin Smith regarding these designs and Smith isn’t at all excited about the plans put forth by Mewes.
But, hey, at least they didn’t actually build the thing.
Smith says he doesn’t like any of what his friend came up with and calls his design “too creative”, saying that it “reads like pure Jason Mewes”. Smith says that this is the reason why Mewes doesn’t have creative input into his movies and that he was just supposed to show the guys the location of the tank, Since Brett and Wayde are playing this whole thing for Reality TV laughs, they show Smith the tank THEY came up with which Smith approves, wholeheartedly.
The idea is a full tank with the same shape but none of Mewes’ gimmicks. There will be a dry tortoise mini-tank in the corner but the water turtles will own most of the tank. On top of that, Koi will be added and the tank will have a river theme with a wood-grain finish and a water fall in the background to give the whole thing a relaxing feel.
Heather and Agnes join Wayde in the shop as he starts in with the tank glass. While he does all the work, they stand there and provide commentary like, “That’s a cool shape!” My god…and then Wayde explains why it’s the shape it’s in as if this is the very first tank they’ve been involved with making. So, then, Wayde gets their help trying to keep the glass flat by having them stand on either end. Wayde explains this, too. THEN, he explains how their friggin’ glass-baking oven works while the girls pretend they didn’t know how the oven worked, ever.
Then Wayde explains how heat works and how heated glass bends when it cools. The whole segment is really borderline insulting. Then Wayde physically helps both women off the board. Ugh.
Brett and Wayde go back to the main office and there’s a giant freakin’ tortoise there waiting for them for some reason, courtesy of Tyler and Sarah Stewart of “Tortoise Supply”. The turtle is an African Desert Tortoise and the whole segment is filler as Tyler stands there explaining turtle diets and then shows Wayde and Brett the Red-Eared Slider and describing the species as if we didn’t just hear this 15 minutes ago from Wayde, himself! In any case, the segment ends with Wayde feeding Daisy, who is absolutely huge.
The boys visit Redneck in the fabrication shop and describe the waterfall plans — but Redneck can only get a small trickle of water. Rednecks’ ultimate concern is that the turtles might be able to climb out of the tank.
GARDENA, CA
Poseidon Aquatics
Wayde sends the ladies to Poseidon Aquatics to go choose Koi and, OMG, they’re, like SO super-excited because it’s “a new fish place for them”. The owner mentions a Koi called “Sanke”, prompting the girls to fall all over themselves, mispronouncing the name and asking, “Sanke? Like DONKEY? Donkey with an ‘S’?!” The owner is already exasperated as fuck and just says, “It’s a tri-color! Just…call it a tri-color…” Then, we get a lecture on Koi while the women stand there, listening intently.
Apparently, Koi are worth more based on their markings. Which is why the white one with no markings whatsoever is worth, like, five grand. M-kay.
LAS VEGAS, NV
Acrylic Tank Manufacturing
The tank is almost done so the girls are assigned to turtle retrieval. They go nuts and shriek because the water is cold. Then they shriek some more because the pond Koi keep rubbing against their legs. Finally, they find their turtles and grab one. They can’t locate Montana’s sister so, by god, Heather gets a scuba mask for a fucking POND. She scopes out Hannah and, soon, both turtles are back in good hands.
LOS ANGELES, CA
Kevin Smith’s house
The ATM crew is ready for the install but the main hedge in the courtyard is blocking the first part of the tank drop. With a little elbow grease and some manpower on the house side, the first part finally gets dropped in, The second part (the actual tank) is gonna be just as hard — and things get real complicated when the L.A. Fuzz shows up, wondering why these installers are blocking the street.
With the heat on the corner and pressure to get the install done quickly, the guys hurry the tank drop and successfully get the second piece down. Wayde smooths things over with the police and we’re good for the rest of the tank install. They drop in “Nature’s Ocean Pure Water Pebbles”, name-dropping the hell out of yet another product. The tank is filled, the dry bedding is dropped in and all the props are put in place. Finally, the turtles and Koi are added and it’s time to show off the tank.
Kevin Smith walks in and he’s blown away. They explain the glass shape as a “custom bow-front” which Smith says is exactly like his body shape. Smith’s just excited to have Koi in there with his turtles. He says it’s beyond Turtlemageddon — it’s more like Turtleocalypse. He loves the trickling waterfall and says that the white noise is relaxing and that he can’t wait to sit out on the patio and relax and just stare. The tank also has a UV light fixture which is great for the turtles. The tortoise has his own personal space in the corner.
And a closer look:
Smith is incredibly touched, saying he’s gonna look at the tank the rest of his life. He makes the guys a deal: the next time he makes a movie, the guys will be in it.
Smith, Wayde and Brett part and Smith tells the camera that the tank is incredible.
LAS VEGAS, NV
Acrylic Tank Manufacturing
Brett walks in, showing off a thank-you letter from Kevin Smith. The letter comes with a patch for Wayde and Brett, a play on the Pep Boys logo.
The letter states that the tank is great and the turtles have a nice upgraded home where they’re even “friends with the Koi”. Brett is even more stoked when Smith tells them that they will, indeed, be in his next movie and the episode comes to an end.
A very by-the-book business-oriented episode that was hard to get through. Heather and Agnes are beyond annoying and should be portrayed as smart women, not airheads as Season 12 has been treating them. The tank, however, is gorgeous, one of the best the guys have created. I have a soft spot for river-themed tanks.
TANK GRADE: A
Join us next week for another episode of Tanked!
