The movie that made Jeff Daniels’ father ashamed: “No, Jeffrey…”
Jeff Daniels has played some truly great characters across his career.
His role as Will McAvoy in The Newsroom landed him an Emmy, while he’s also a three-time nominee for ‘Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy’ at the Golden Globes. He has a remarkable range, able to go between a hard-nosed cop in Speed and a living movie character in The Purple Rose of Cairo with ease.
However, despite all his acclaimed work over the years, the performance he’s probably best known for is that of a man with the IQ of a child and a haircut that resembles fried spaghetti.
Dumb and Dumber, which recently celebrated its 30th birthday (bet you feel old now), offered Daniels a chance to prove his comedic chops. As Harry Dunne, the equally dim-witted companion of Jim Carrey’s Lloyd Christmas, he created one of the greatest comedy characters of a certified golden age of funny films.
Harry continues to play a major role in Daniels’ legacy, with one scene in particular standing out. However, not everyone was a fan upon first viewing. As the actor told The Guardian, some very close to him strongly disapproved of the direction his career was going in with the release of the Farrelly brothers’ breakout film.
“I have a theatre company in Michigan so I put on a preview,” he said. “I was sat next to my parents and when we got to the toilet scene, my father hung his head in his hands and said: ‘No, Jeffrey…’ Meanwhile 5,000 people fell out of their chairs laughing.”
Mr Daniels Sr wasn’t the only person who despaired at Dumb and Dumber, as his son revealed that most of the initial reviews of the movie were scorching. “I still have a scrapbook of 200 newspapers panning the movie and wishing it never existed,” he continued. “Then we were the box office No 1 for six straight weeks. That’s when it hit me that we’d done the impossible.”
The scene in question is one of the most famous – or infamous – in the entire movie. After he learns that Harry deceived him in order to spend more time with their shared love interest, Lloyd gets back at his friend by spiking his coffee with laxatives. This results in the hapless lover boy desperately searching for a lavatory, only to find one that is out of order. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures, and… well, you can probably figure out the rest.
Even Daniels himself feared that such a grotesque display would negatively impact his stock. There had been gross-out comedy in movies before, but rarely on this level and featuring a star of his calibre. Luckily for him, this was 1994.
Audiences were far more accepting of literal toilet humour than they would have been a decade prior or even today. Dumb and Dumber both rode the wave of and helped shape the subversive, highly juvenile sense of humour that the decade thrived on. If anything, Daniels’ father should be proud that his son was part of such a legendary moment. Although something tells me he would have had a hard time buying that explanation.
