48 Fun Facts About Dumb and Dumber

Which sibling filmmakers made Dumb and Dumber as their first feature?

Peter directed and co-wrote it with Bobby and Bennett Yellin; the hit launched their careers.

What are the full names of the two main characters?

Jim Carrey plays Lloyd Christmas and Jeff Daniels plays Harry Dunne; Carrey and Daniels reprised both roles twenty years later in the 2014 sequel.

In which city do Lloyd and Harry live at the start of the film?

Lloyd and Harry share an apartment in Providence, Rhode Island; early scenes were shot in the city, including the Big Blue Bug termite sign beside Interstate 95.

Where are they driving to return the briefcase?

They set out for Aspen, Colorado, where Mary has flown, to return the briefcase she left at the airport; the snowy mountain scenes were shot largely in Breckenridge.

What is Lloyd's job at the start of the film?

Lloyd is a limousine driver; he drives Mary Swanson to the airport, falls for her on the ride, and abandons the limo to chase her through the terminal, where he tumbles off a jet bridge.

What is Harry's job at the start of the film?

Harry is a dog groomer running the Mutt Cutts mobile service; he loses the job after arriving late to a dog show with his clients' pets smeared in food.

Who plays Mary Swanson?

Lauren Holly, then known for the TV series Picket Fences, plays Mary Swanson; she and Carrey married in 1996 and divorced the following year.

What is in the briefcase Mary leaves at the airport?

Lloyd thinks it is a lost bag; the crooks Mental and Shay were meant to collect it.

What happens to Harry's parakeet?

Petey the parakeet is decapitated by one of the kidnappers searching the apartment; Lloyd then sells the headless bird, its head taped back on, to blind Billy in apartment 4C.

What is distinctive about the van Harry drives?

Harry's Mutt Cutts van is shaped like a dog: a Ford Econoline dressed as a shaggy sheepdog, complete with floppy ears, a tongue and a tail, which he later drives on the road trip.

What do Harry and Lloyd put in the hitchhiking crook's burger?

They load the hitchhiker's burger with chili peppers, the diner's 'Atomic Peppers', as a prank; he had been planning to slip them rat poison, and in the panic Lloyd feeds him the poison pills thinking they are his medication.

Which state do the boys drive through all night after Lloyd's wrong turn?

Lloyd takes a wrong turn while Harry sleeps and drives all night into Nebraska; Harry wakes to find they have travelled about a sixth of the way across the country in the wrong direction.

What do they trade the van for?

Lloyd secretly trades the van for a minibike barely big enough for both of them, and they ride it the rest of the way into the Rockies, arriving with frozen faces.

What does Lloyd put in Harry's coffee in revenge for the ski date?

Lloyd doses Harry's coffee with Turbo Lax laxatives after learning Harry took Mary skiing; the result unfolds in the Swansons' broken toilet, one of the film's most notorious scenes.

Who turns out to be the mastermind behind Bobby Swanson's kidnapping?

Nicholas Andre, a Swanson family friend played by Charles Rocket, engineered Bobby's kidnapping and is furious to open the briefcase and find the money replaced with Lloyd's IOUs.

Beth, the woman Harry flirts with at the gas station, is revealed to be what?

Beth Jordan, whom Harry chats up at a gas station, is an undercover FBI agent tailing the kidnappers; the bureau fits Harry with a bulletproof vest, which saves him when Lloyd shoots him.

Which real NHL star plays the trucker Sea Bass?

Cam Neely, the Boston Bruins' Hall of Fame winger and a friend of the directors, plays the trucker Sea Bass and returned for a cameo in the 2014 sequel.

How much was Jim Carrey paid for the film?

Jim Carrey was paid $7 million, a fee the studio agreed to after Ace Ventura: Pet Detective became a surprise hit in February 1994.

Roughly how much was Jeff Daniels paid?

Jeff Daniels accepted about $50,000, the studio's lowball offer made in the hope the dramatic actor would refuse; his agent warned that the role would end his career.

How did Carrey achieve Lloyd's distinctive front teeth?

He chipped it in a childhood fight and had it capped; the crown came off for filming.

The directors had only heard of Jim Carrey as 'the white guy' on which sketch show?

The directors knew Carrey only as 'the white guy on In Living Color', the Fox sketch show; a screening of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective shortly before it opened convinced them.

Under what working title was the Dumb and Dumber screenplay first written?

The writers' early draft carried the title A Power Tool Is Not a Toy; the studio renamed it Dumb and Dumber before its 1994 release.

Which famous Colorado landmark stood in for the 'Danbury'?

The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park played the film's 'Hotel Danbury'; the same hotel inspired Stephen King's The Shining after he stayed there in 1974.

Where was the airport scene filmed?

The airport scenes were shot at Salt Lake City International; most of the film was made in Utah, whose mountain towns doubled for the Rockies.

Who composed the film's score?

Todd Rundgren, the rock musician behind 'Hello It's Me' and 'Bang the Drum All Day' and producer of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, composed the film's score.

Which band's video for 'The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead' featured Jeff Daniels as Harry?

Crash Test Dummies covered XTC's 'The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead' for the soundtrack, and the video cuts between the band and Jeff Daniels in character as Harry.

What was the film's budget?

Made for $17 million, the film returned many times its cost and became one of the top-grossing comedies of 1994.

How much did Dumb and Dumber gross worldwide?

Dumb and Dumber grossed about $247 million worldwide, roughly $127 million of it from North America, placing it among the ten highest-grossing films of 1994.

Which studio released the film in December 1994?

The 2014 sequel went to Universal instead, since Warner Bros. by then owned New Line.

Which MTV Movie Award did Carrey and his on-screen love interest win?

Carrey and his co-star took Best Kiss at the 1995 MTV Movie Awards; Carrey also won Best Comedic Performance, and he and Daniels were nominated as Best On-Screen Duo.

Who voiced Lloyd in the 1995 animated series?

Matt Frewer, best known as Max Headroom, voiced Lloyd, with Bill Fagerbakke as Harry; Hanna-Barbera made the cartoon for ABC's Saturday morning block and it lasted one season.

What was the 2003 prequel called?

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003) cast Eric Christian Olsen and Derek Richardson as the teenage pair; the original directors had no involvement and it scored 10% on Rotten Tomatoes.

What is the title of the 2014 sequel?

Dumb and Dumber To, released in November 2014, is set twenty years on and follows the pair's search for Harry's long-lost daughter.

In the sequel, what is the name Harry's daughter goes by?

Adopted as a baby and renamed Penny Pinchelow, she was born Fanny to Harry's old flame Fraida Felcher; the boys track her to a KEN Convention in El Paso.

How much did Dumb and Dumber To gross worldwide?

The 2014 sequel grossed about $169 million worldwide, opening at number one in North America with $36.1 million despite poor reviews.

Which studio released Dumb and Dumber To?

Universal Pictures released the 2014 sequel that November after Warner Bros. passed on it; Red Granite Pictures financed the production.

How does Harry end 'Just when I think you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this...'?

Harry finishes with '...and totally redeem yourself!' after Lloyd, who had just traded away their van, rides up on the replacement he got for it.

Told his chances with Mary are one in a million, how does Lloyd reply?

Mary puts it at 'more like one out of a million', and Lloyd pauses before beaming 'So you're telling me there's a chance!'; the exchange comes when he finally confesses his feelings.

What does Lloyd offer to demonstrate to the hitchhiker in the van?

Lloyd asks the hitchhiker 'Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?' and then produces it, a long grating wail, with Harry joining in.

Who plays Mary's stepmother, Helen Swanson?

Teri Garr, an Oscar nominee for Tootsie (1982), plays Mary's stepmother Helen Swanson; Lin Shaye, a regular in the directors' films, plays one of Harry's elderly clients.

Which crook, played by Mike Starr, suffers from a stomach ulcer?

Joe 'Mental' Mentalino, played by Mike Starr, carries pills for his ulcer; the boys' prank on his burger inflames it, and the pills Lloyd then hands him are the rat poison he had meant for them.

What do the boys do at the very end of the film as they walk home?

Walking home broke after turning down a bus of bikini models looking for 'oil boys', Lloyd tags Harry and the two run off playing tag as the film ends.

What car does Lloyd buy with the money from the briefcase?

Lloyd blows the briefcase cash on a red Lamborghini Diablo, and the pair hit a charity gala in orange and powder-blue tuxedos, leaving IOUs in place of the money.

The Aspen scenes of Dumb and Dumber were actually filmed in Breckenridge, Colorado, and which Utah town?

Park City, Utah, stood in for the resort town, with Breckenridge supplying other mountain footage; the production was based in Utah for most of the shoot.

Which Deadeye Dick single from the soundtrack reached number 27 on the US chart?

'New Age Girl', with its 'Mary Moon' chorus, was Deadeye Dick's only hit, climbing to number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 after featuring in the film.

How much did Dumb and Dumber earn in its number-one opening weekend?

Dumb and Dumber opened at number one with $16.4 million over the weekend of December 16-18, 1994, and went on to about $127 million domestically.

In 2000, readers of Total Film voted Dumb and Dumber where among the greatest comedies of all time?

Total Film's readers ranked Dumb and Dumber fifth among the greatest comedies ever in their 2000 poll; Empire later placed it 445th on its 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies.

Which actor returned in the 2014 sequel as Billy, the blind boy from Apartment 4C?

Brady Bluhm, the blind Billy of Apartment 4C, returned as an adult for the 2014 sequel; original co-writer Bennett Yellin also came back, and the film was shot in the autumn of 2013.