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Dumb and Dumber is a comedy film starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, released in 1994. It was directed by the Farrelly Brothers and written by the Farrelly Brothers and Bennett Yellin. It is a modern example of a classic "road movie" and includes slapstick comedy and gross-out humor. Dumb and Dumber contributed to the launch to stardom of Jim Carrey and set the foundation for many Farrelly Brothers films to come. It has a devoted cult following.

Plot summary

Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) are two well-meaning, yet extremely stupid men who live together in their apartment in Providence, Rhode Island, and are recently out of work. Prior to his firing, Lloyd drives Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly) to the airport by limousine. Along the way, he falls hopelessly in love with her and crashes into a parked Pontiac Grand Am. After entering the airport, Mary leaves a briefcase in the middle of a terminal area, before her departure to Aspen, Colorado. Upon seeing this, Lloyd rushes in to return it to Mary, thinking she has forgotten it; what he does not know is that the briefcase is intentionally left behind because it contains ransom money for the man who had kidnapped Mary's husband.

Lloyd - after being fired from his job - returns to his apartment at the same time as the also-fired and equally dimwitted Harry. The two leave briefly to search for new jobs, but to no avail (unless they want to work "40 hours a week."). After returning, Harry discovers his pet parakeet Petey has died due to his head 'falling off'; unknown to him, the bird was actually murdered by Mary's husband's kidnappers, who tracked Lloyd back to his place. Having suffered the loss of both their jobs and their pet in one day, in addition to constantly running from creditors, Lloyd suggests that they leave Providence behind and head off to Aspen,("A place where the beer flows like wine, and the women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrono") where they can return the briefcase to Mary, and become a part of the town's social scene. After an emotional scene where they embrace, they head out, but not before Lloyd sells the dead bird to a blind kid (along with a couple of baseball cards and a sack of marbles).

Harry and Lloyd trek westward across the country in hopes of finding Mary, encountering several misfortunes and adversaries along the way. Joe 'Mental' Mentalino (Mike Starr), one of the people hired by Mary's husband's kidnapper, tries to foil Lloyd and Harry's plans by hitching a ride with them to a nearby restaurant. But his plans fail when Lloyd and Harry accidentally feed him rat poison, after an unsuccessful prank involving "atomic peppers" (which backfired because they didn't know he had stomach ulcers).

Harry dozes off and lets Lloyd drive, resulting in a wrong turn which takes them back in the wrong direction and wastes their gas. However, Lloyd makes up for his mistake and "totally redeems himself" by trading the van for a mini scooter and the pair continue to Colorado. Once they arrive in Aspen, they realize that they are strapped for cash and have no place to stay. During a quarrel, they accidentally break the case open to discover for the first time that the briefcase is filled with cash. Upon discovering this, they start spending the money very elaborately, with the intention of paying it back with paper IOUs. Later in the visit, the two find Mary at a wildlife preservation benefit. Being too nervous to do it himself, Lloyd sends Harry in to talk to Mary and tell her that they have got her briefcase. Harry, however, uses the opportunity to organize himself a date with Mary, without telling his friend about it. When Lloyd discovers Harry's two-timing ways, he sabotages his date with Mary by putting 'Turbo Lax' into Harry's tea, and while Harry is trapped inside Mary's broken bathroom dealing with bowel movements, Lloyd goes to her house and tells her that he has the briefcase at his hotel room. Mary leaves Harry at home and rushes off with Lloyd to his hotel room, where Mary's kidnapper awaits them. He turns out to be Nicholas Andre (Charles Rocket), a close friend of the Swanson family. When Harry returns to the hotel room as well, after his disastrous date, Nicholas tells his three victims to choose who gets to be shot first, and Harry volunteers. Nicholas shoots him, but apparently can't kill Harry. At that moment, FBI agents storm in, and arrest Andre and his other accomplice J.P. Shay. (It turns out the FBI got hold of Harry in the hotel's lobby and gave him a bullet-proof vest.) Mary's husband has returned to her, and Lloyd become jealous suddenly daydream of shooting Mary's husband. Afterwards, Lloyd and Harry are left to find a way home for themselves.

Along the way home, they inadvertently turn down a chance to be oil boys for Hawaiian Tropic bikini models, instead walking off together, playing a game of tag on a lonely desert highway, heading home.

Prequel

A prequel, Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd was released in 2003 to largely negative reviews from the popular media and a low box office income; because Carrey and Daniels neither approved of nor contributed to any part of the filming/production, neither of them appeared in this film.

Animated Series

In 1995, a Hanna-Barbera-produced animated spin-off aired on ABC television, as part of its Saturday morning cartoon lineup; Matt Frewer provided the voice of Lloyd, while Bill Fagerbakke voiced the character of Harry. One of the biggest things noticed in the cartoon is that Harry and Lloyd have reaccquired their van. The cartoon also features a new character, a pet female purple beaver who was the brain of the three. The animated series was written by Bennett Yellin, co-writer of the original film.

Characters

Main characters

• Lloyd Christmas is an illiterate, good-hearted (though at times mischievous) man who has apparently been fired from several jobs due to his lack of intelligence and his unwillingness to work "40 hours a week", the most recent of which is working for a limo company. He melodramatically falls in love with Mary while driving her to the airport, and becomes convinced he is destined to track her down, return her misplaced briefcase, and spend his future with her. He and Harry are the main characters.

• Harry Dunne is a dog groomer, and best friend to Lloyd. What he lacks in common sense, he makes up for by being a superior linguist to Lloyd. He, along with Lloyd, plans to open up his own pet store to specialize in selling worm farms; the store is tentatively named 'I Got Worms'.

• Mary Swanson is an attractive lady whose husband, Bobby, has been kidnapped by a family friend. She is the object of Lloyd's longing.

• Nicholas Andre is the main antagonist of the movie. He is the kidnapper of Mary Swanson's husband, as well as a long-time confidante of the Swanson family. His plot is foiled by Harry and Lloyd after they spend the ransom money and draw the attention of the FBI to the situation.

• Joe 'Mental' Mentalino, also known as 'Gas-Man', is a cold-hearted criminal who works as a henchman for Nicholas Andre, the kidnapper. He suffers from severe digestive problems, including ulcers and gas. He attempts to kill Lloyd and Harry, as well as retrieve the briefcase, but is accidentally killed for his troubles. Although he is a man of below-average intelligence, he is still angered by the idiocy of Lloyd and Harry.

• J.P. Shay is the female accomplice of Mental. She appears as Andre's date at the wildlife benefit.

• Beth Jordan is an FBI special agent. She befriends Lloyd in a bar as he expects to meet with Mary, having previously met Harry as they both filled up at a gas station. Neither Lloyd nor Harry know, as they meet Beth, that she works for the FBI.

• Sea Bass is a very large, tough man, and is apparently a trucker and expert fisherman. He spits on Harry's hamburger after Harry accidentally hit him with a salt shaker at a roadside diner, and is later accidentally foiled by Harry again, when he attempts to kill and sexually molest Lloyd in a truck stop bathroom. Sea Bass was portrayed by hockey player Cam Neely, who also acted in one of Jim Carrey's later films, Me, Myself and Irene, again playing the character Sea Bass.

Cast

• Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas
• Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunn
• Lauren Holly as Mary Swanson
• Mike Starr as Joe Mentalino
• Charles Rocket as Nicholas Andre
• Karen Duffy as J.P. Shay
• Cam Neely as Sea Bass
• Harland Williams as Pennsylvania State Trooper
• Victoria Rowell as Beth Jordan
• Teri Garr as Helen Swanson
• Hank Brandt as Karl Swanson
• Brady Bluhm as Billy the Blind Kid
• Chris O'Donnell is an extra
• Rob Moran as The Bartender
• Lisa Stotard as Austrian Bus Stop Babe
• Connie Sawyer as "Elderly Woman"

Reception

The film was very successful at the box office, grossing $127,175,374 in the United States, and $246,400,000 worldwide.

Although the film did not come away with any major American motion picture awards, it was very successful at the MTV Movie Awards. Jim Carrey won for Best Comedic Performance, Carrey and Lauren Holly (a couple who would later endure a short-lived marriage) won for Best Kiss, and Jim Carrey & Jeff Daniels were nominated for Best On-Screen Duo.

Miscellanea

This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections or articles. (June 2007)

• Jim Carrey chipped his tooth years earlier, but had the cap removed for the film to make his character look more deranged.
• Jim Carrey refused to shoot the original scripted ending of Harry and Lloyd getting on the bus with the girls, claiming that his character is too dumb to do so.
• The lines 'the most annoying sound in the world' and 'we've landed on the moon!' were ad-libbed by Carrey.
• In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Dumb and Dumber the 15th greatest comedy film of all time.
• Jim Carrey was offered Jeff Daniels' role as it had more dialogue; he chose the role he played because it had more physical comedy.
• Scenes taking place in Aspen were actually filmed in Breckenridge, Colorado and Park City, Utah.
• After the guys pull the bill-paying stunt on Sea Bass, Harry asks Lloyd where he got that idea. Lloyd tells him that he saw it in a movie. This is a reference to the movie Something Wild in which Jeff Daniels does the same thing to Ray Liotta.
• The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO was transformed into the "Danbury Hotel" for the filming of the movie.
• The Stanley Hotel was also used as The Overlook Hotel in the television remake of The Shining.
• Mary Swanson and Lloyd Christmas were objects of each other's affections, and if they became married, Mary would take Lloyd's last name and become Mary Christmas (Lloyd even points this out in the unrated edition).
• In the novel, the part when Lloyd falls asleep at the wheel and dreams about Mary, instead of headlights (of the oncoming truck) being in her breasts, they are in her eyes.

The Unrated Version

Differences:

• In the PG-13 version, when Mental crushes Petey's (Harry's parakeet) head off, it cuts to the next scene after he says "I Tawt I Taw a Putty Tat!". In the unrated version, it shows him violently squeezing Petey's head with his fists.

• In the PG-13 version, Seabass is about to spit on Harry's burger, but the camera cuts to Lloyd, while the spitting sound is still heard. In the unrated version, it shows the spit coming out of his mouth onto the burger.

• In the unrated version, when Joe Mental and the girl are waiting by the side of the road for Harry and Lloyd to drive by, the girl says to Joe, "turn around, I gotta squeeze a lemon" before proceeding to crouch down.

• In the unrated version, when Seabass finds Lloyd in the bathroom, Lloyd keeps repeating 'find a happy place' to which Seabass replies, 'I'll show you a happy place!' before dropping his own pants and grabbing his crotch.

• In the original PG-13 version, "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" by Crash Test Dummies plays during the scene where Harry, Lloyd, and Mental are in the restaurant. This song is absent in the unrated version, possibly due to copyright issues.

Soundtrack

Dumb and Dumber: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the original soundtrack to the film.

1. "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" by Crash Test Dummies feat. Ellen Reid, actually a cover of a XTC song
2. "New Age Girl" by Deadeye Dick
3. "Insomniac" by Echobelly
4. "If You Don't Love Me (I'll Kill Myself)" by Pete Droge
5. "Crash (95 Mix)" by The Primitives
6. "Whiney, Whiney (What Really Drives Me Crazy)" by Willi One Blood
7. "Where I Find My Heaven" by Gigolo Aunts
8. "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Butthole Surfers
9. "Too Much of a Good Thing" by Bret Reilly
10. "The Bear Song" by Green Jelly
11. "Take" by The Lupins
12. "You Sexy Thing" by Deee-Lite
13. "Get Ready" by The Proclaimers

The song "The Rain, The Park, and Other Things" by The Cowsills was not in the soundtrack, although it was played quite prominently in the film when Lloyd fantasized about Mary. Also missing were, the songs "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies, and "Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, "Can We Still Be Friends" by Todd Rundgren (who also wrote the original soundtrack) and "boomshackalack" by Apache Indian.

Notes

1. http://imdb.com/title/tt0109686/trivia

External links

• Dumb & Dumber at IMDb
• Dumb & Dumber Movie Script

• Articles with trivia sections from June 2007
• 1994 films
• Buddy films
• American films
• Road movies
• English-language films
• Teen films
• Fictional characters from Rhode Island
• Films set in Rhode Island