The third of three Jim Carrey films turned into an
animated series, Dumber and Dumber: The
Series was based on the film Dumber
and Dumber.
When Forrest Gump uttered his
famous phrase, he
never met these two. The directorial debut of the Farrelly brothers,
the film focused on two best friends: Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd Christmas (Jim
Carrey). They were good natured guys who happened to be incredibly stupid.
Lloyd, a limo driver before he was fired, falls in love with his last client,
Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly), who leaves a
briefcase full of money behind at the airport she’s brought to for her
kidnapped husband’s ransom. Lloyd sees it and decided to return the briefcase
to her. They began a road trip to Aspen in Harry’s dogmobile from his former
dog grooming job with the kidnappers in hot pursuit, bumbling through every
situation and keeping just head of the crooks.
 |
| Harry, Lloyd and Otto the van. |
The film was released on December
16, 1994. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success and
developed a cult following. It launched the careers of the Farrelly brothers
and solidified Carrey’s bankability in Hollywood. Looking to cash in on the
success, New Line
Television partnered with Hanna-Barbera, a sister
company also owned by Turner
Broadcasting System, to produce an animated series based on the movie.
 |
| A beaver named Kitty. |
The show followed the continuing
misadventures of Harry (Bill Fagerbakke) and Lloyd (Matt Frewer) as they
traveled across the country in their dogmobile (now named “Otto”), taking odd
jobs that they can’t seem to keep down and stupidly stumbling through events.
In true Hanna-Barbera fashion, the pair was given a new pet: Kitty, a female
beaver that was much smarter than her owners. Bennett Yellin, one of the
writers on the film, served as a writer for the series, which, naturally,
featured comedy that was greatly toned-down for the Saturday morning audience. While
Harry and Lloyd had a passing resemblance to their movie counterparts, the designs
by C. Miles Thompson and Craig McCracken looked just
different enough to avoid likeness rights issues.
 |
| Series title card from video streaming sources. |
Dumb and Dumber: The Series debuted
on ABC on October 28, 1995. It was one of the
last non-Disney productions to air on the
network before the studio
acquired it and jettisoned anything not from their catalog. It would also
become Hanna-Barbera’s final network television offering as Turner shifted the
studio’s focus into producing content exclusively for their own networks;
namely, Cartoon Network. The series was comprised of episodes split into two
story segments written by Sib
Ventress, Ben Hurst, Michael Ryan, Philip Murphy, Brent Aspland, Steve Bluestein, Billy Kimball, David Reynolds, Len Janson, Ken Koonce, Glenn Leopold, Michael Merton, Chris Parrish, Jason Butler Rote, and John Jacobs, with
Patrick Moran serving as
story editor. David Feiss
designed the intro, with a theme and music composed by Mark Mothersbaugh. Animation
duties were handled by Sunwoo Animation.
 |
| The DVD cover. |
At 13 episodes, it was the
shortest-running series based on Carrey’s films, and the only one to not go
beyond a single season. Several episodes saw VHS
releases in markets outside of the United States, with the only places to
see it within was streaming on the iTunes
Store and Amazon
Prime Video. In time for the show’s 20th anniversary, Warner Archive
released the complete
series to DVD.
In 2003, New Line produced a prequel
called Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met
Lloyd. The film had no involvement by either the Farrelly brothers or the
original actors. The film was released on June 13th and received
generally negative reviews; however its relatively low budget allowed it to
become a financial success at the box office. In 2014, after many promises and
speculation, the Farrelly brothers, Carrey and Daniels reunited to make the
sequel to the original: Dumb and Dumber To. This
movie officially ended Carrey’s 20-year no-sequel policy he initiated after
finding no acting challenge in making 1995’s Ace Ventura: When
Nature Calls.
1 comment:
I actually love this cartoon, its cheesy but charming. Mccracken's designs are super cool and the voice acting is top notch
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