More TV Memories – Dumb And Dumber.

Dumb And Dumber (ABC, 1995-1996)

This is a review of yet another 90s cartoon. In the mid-90s, Jim Carrey became a big success as a comic actor, and not one or two but three of his films were turned into cartoons. They were Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb And Dumber. All of these launched in 1995, and it was odd seeing three different versions of Carrey’s characters, put together by three different teams, and voiced by three different people.

I do remember watching all three of them to some extent, but I thought that I would pick out just one to review, and it may not be that much of a surprise to realise that it was the silliest of them. Dumb And Dumber was a cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera that continued the adventures of Lloyd (played in the film by Carrey) and Harry (Jeff Daniels), and it picked up where the film left off as they travelled around the country in their dog-shaped van.

The only other regular was their pet beaver Kitty, who seemed to be smarter than the pair of them. Not too surprisingly, most episodes consisted of Lloyd and Harry doing some rather dumb things, often leading to them saying “well I’ll be a gorilla’s nephew”. How will they get out of this one! Some episodes featured one story, and some had two or even three. When watching a few episodes again recently, it did remind me a little of the cartoon Two Stupid Dogs (that I reviewed recently), but if it was with people… instead of dogs.

There were also a lot of rather silly sound effects (all the usual ones, but they never get old), and among the cast providing voices were Tom Kenny and Jeff Bennett, before they went off to further success with SpongeBob SquarePants and Johnny Bravo among many others. This all amounted to a rather silly show, but it might’ve been a little too silly for some viewers, as it only lasted for one series and 13 episodes.

Ace Ventura and The Mask fared a little better though, both lasting for three series. They were both shown on CBBC, but Dumb And Dumber was another one that was shown as part of Channel 4’s weekend morning strand, I remember that I set the video as it was shown rather early, and I felt that it was a good decision because I was rather rewarded as some of the stories made me laugh.

As far as I know, there hasn’t been a DVD release, but the story didn’t end with the cartoon. About a decade after, there was the prequel Dumb And Dumberer (great title), which showed how the young Lloyd and Harry met each other, and this was followed about another decade later by the sequel Dumb And Dumber To, where Carrey and Daniels reunited and got back in their van for even more silly adventures.