Rewatchables Reference

• Zach's winner: Ace checks out the empty dolphin pool and does Star Trek impressions. 'If I'm not back in 5 minutes, just wait longer' – Zach says this one joke 'single-handedly changed my sense of humor.' The deleted German dolphin trainer scene ('Does he know you? Does he call you at home?') is a crime that it's not in the movie anymore.
• Bill's winner: the police station scene where Ace gets heckled – 'excuse me, I'd like to ask you a few questions' through the whole 'assholio / satanamia' bit. Start to finish.
• Craig's winner: Ronald Camp's mansion party. 'Congratulations on all your success. You smell terrific.' The Mission Impossible riff, the bathroom exit ('do not go in there'), the face he makes at the guy who's not looking.
• Other nominees: Opening credits package-kicking scene, the pets coming out of hiding (great Gordo candidate), Ace's visit to Ray Finkle's house ('Dan Marino should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell'), getting into Shady Acres with the backwards slow-motion run, the fight scene with Sean Young.

• Dan Marino doing a commercial for Isotoner gloves (they confirmed via Google Gemini that OJ Simpson did in fact wear Aris Isotoner gloves). The Dolphins having a chance to win the Super Bowl. Cannibal Corpse performing. Captain Stubing as a comedy reference.
• The band Cannibal Corpse, Tone Loc as a supporting actor, and 'Binaca' (breath spray that doesn't exist anymore).

• Courtney Cox – Bill and Craig both picked her. Craig: 'Has never looked better and ushered me into adulthood in this film.'
• Jim Carrey's commitment and physical comedy in general. Zach: 'This is my favorite Jim Carrey movie. This performance is the perfect distillation of how crazy he is as a comic superstar.'
• The double idea for the plot – pet detective AND the disgraced kicker plotting revenge on Dan Marino for years. Craig: 'The idea of a kicker going home and plotting his revenge to kidnap and kill the quarterback who held the ball wrong is a fantastic plot.'
• 'Laces out' entering the cultural lexicon – still makes people laugh 30+ years later.

• The trans-related material. Bill: 'The trans stuff in this movie is tough 30+ years later, not going to defend it. It's 1994, this is just how it was.' They were parodying The Crying Game reveal. Carrey said he 'wanted to be the biggest, most obnoxious homophobic reaction ever recorded.' Naked Gun 3 and 90210 also did similar twists in the same era.
• Zach: some of the big scripted jokes are flat out not funny – talking out of the ass, 'assholes in the mirror appear closer than they appear.' The big swings are largely whiffs; the small throwaway moments are what make the movie.
• Star Trek impressions aging out – you have to be over 45 to even get those references now.
• The entire casting what-if list for the lead role being in 'what's aged the worst' territory.

• Craig: Jim Carrey should have gotten an Oscar nomination for this role. 'Find me a role that somebody else could slot in and do.' The Best Actor nominees that year: Tom Hanks ('Forrest Gump'), Morgan Freeman (Shawshank), John Travolta ('Pulp Fiction'), Nigel Hawthorne (Madness of King George), Paul Newman (Nobody's Fool). Bill supports a 'funniest performance of the year' Oscar category.
• Bill: Dan Marino's cameo is the fourth-best athlete-playing-himself in movie history. Mount Rushmore: Kareem in Airplane, Reggie Jackson in Naked Gun, Mike Tyson in 'The Hangover', and Marino. Zach: 'Those first three are so much better than Marino.'

• Rick Moranis was approached first and declined. Whoopi Goldberg was considered. David Alan Grier turned it down. IMDb trivia claims Judd Nelson and Alan Rickman were also considered – the hosts didn't believe either one. Lauren Holly turned down the Courtney Cox role. Daniel Stern was supposed to direct.
• Bill would have recast Tone Loc with an In Living Color alum like Tommy Davidson. Going pie in the sky: Eddie Murphy for two scenes.

• Sean Young in the final warehouse scene – 'She's convulsing. What is she doing? She's having a seizure.' Every time they watch it: 'Whose choice was this?'
• Zach's candidate: the fat cop who heckles Ace – 'Homicide, Ventura, how ya gonna solve that one?' Every line delivered at maximum intensity. His IMDb is loaded with one-scene roles just like this.

• Bill: Ray Finkle's mom. 'Dan Marino should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell.' Commands the house for two minutes. She might win six categories.
• The fat cop who heckles Ace at the police station – Zach's pick. He breaks at the end of the ass-talking scene.

• Ace's landlord (played by the actor who was Sosa's hitman in Scarface and Hector Salamanca in Breaking Bad). 'I heard the animals scratching around in the Ventura.' He goes for it.
• The fat cop from the police station – has been in a million things including Seinfeld.

Unanimous Scorsese. Zach echoes his Cruise argument: 'There's a darkness and a smugness to this character that Spielberg is just not going to tap into.' Bill: 'Scorsese would make him a cocaine addict in the Miami drug scene.' Zach: 'He would have straight up murdered the guy with the chloroform. That guy would be dead.'

• Craig created a new flex category: 'the Millennial Missed Reference Power Ranking' – all the jokes that went over his head as a kid. Captain Stubing (Love Boat), Star Trek impressions, The Crying Game, Binaca, Claude Rains, the 'Poltergeist' exorcism, Tone Loc, 'Miami Vice' reference, Sean Connery impression.
• Jennifer Aniston once brought a copy of the movie to watch at Courtney Cox's house, and Cox refused to watch it – apparently embarrassed by it.
• The screenwriter Jack Bernstein came up with the pet detective idea after watching a David Letterman sketch about pet owners.
• The VHS came with an Ace Ventura business card you could put in your wallet.
• Craig watched the movie twice: spotted a banana with two apples on Einhorn's desk – a visual clue about the twist.

• Zach: 'Nobody would wear their 1984 AFC Championship ring.' The plot depends on everyone still wearing these rings 10 years later. Bill confirms: players don't wear their rings – only owners do because they love when someone asks to try it on.
• Craig: the resolution of the movie is the weak link – the climax feels like it was made by PBS.
• Zach: the blandness of the Courtney Cox character. 'She's a blank wall for him to throw jokes at, except she's a pretty blank wall.' No banter, no chemistry. Craig defends it as intentional.

• Jim Carrey: not yet here, but close. Bill: 'I think it's after 'Dumb and Dumber'.' His 1994 is in the running for best single-year comedy actor performance ever – three movies, nearly $700 million, went from 'the white guy on In Living Color' to the biggest star in comedy.
• Courtney Cox: not yet – Bill thinks it's Scream and Friends simultaneously.
• Dan Marino: no – it's the mid-80s when he led the league in passing three straight years and made the Super Bowl.
• Miami Dolphins: arguably the apex for the franchise in the last 30 years. 'This is it. We were the team in Ace Ventura. What else good is happening to them?'
• AFC Championship rings: 'The only time anyone has had this much dialogue about it.'

• How did Einhorn become Lieutenant in a few years? You start as an officer, work your way up for years.
• Ace just finds the right room with all the Lois Einhorn evidence at the mental institution. Just sitting in a closet, no security.
• Why was Ray Finkle a replacement kicker added mid-season if he holds the Division I records for most points and longest kick?
• At the end, the Eagles mascot is on the Dolphins' sideline trying to get Gatorade. Makes no sense.
• Einhorn says 'want some refreshments, Dan?' and then leaves – giving Ace the opening to rescue Marino. Why does she leave?
• The Super Bowl is going on and nobody seems particularly concerned that the starting QB was kidnapped. He shows up at halftime and the announcement is just 'Dan Marino's back, exciting second half.'

• Zach: Ray Finkle's AFC Championship ring with the missing stone – 'that's selling for the most at an auction.' Or the crocheted coasters from Grandma Finkle, or the notebook scrawled with 'laces out.'
• Bill: the Collier County 'Home of Ray Stinkle' sign. 'If you actually look at that sign, it's really cool.'
• Craig: the ring, or any of the 90s Dolphins memorabilia.
• Zach also wants the mannequin with the Marino jersey and knife in the heart.

• Laces out.
• Zach's worst life lesson: 'You can be an absolute dick to this beautiful woman and still end up with her in the end.' The rapid-fire insults – 'Have you ever heard of nagging? Yeah. And you're ugly. Why don't you cry about it, saddlebags?' followed by 'fatty' – and ten seconds later her best friend dies and she's decided she's in on this guy.

• Is this movie better with Tom Thibodeau? Bill wanted Zach to do an impression. Zach: 'Ice! Ice! What the fuck are you doing over here?' – he could be one of the henchmen at the end.
• Best hang: Zach picks Roger Podacter – good guy, no nonsense, great penthouse in Miami. Craig picks Woodstock, 'the guy who's hacking whaling fleets.' Bill picks Melissa Robinson 'just because she's cute.' Worst hang: Ace Ventura himself – 'after 10 minutes, you'd want to put a gun in your head.' Zach picks Einhorn.

• Did Einhorn and the henchmen place a bet on the Eagles? Craig: 'Make that bet five months in advance, before you capture Marino, before the line swings – make a lot of money.'
• If Dan Marino had actually been kidnapped right before the Super Bowl, Bill thinks it's the biggest sports story of all time. Do they have the game? Bill: 'They're like, is this guy dead? We have to find him.' Football stops.
• Did Einhorn learn the tuck from Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs (1991)?
• Who fed Ace's 20+ pets all day while he was out on cases?

• Bill: There's Something About Mary – stay in Miami, different kind of late-90s comedy, different actors, and 'I get both football quarterbacks' (Marino and Favre).
• Craig and Zach: 'Dumb and Dumber'. Everyone agrees it's the better 1994 Carrey movie. The ranking: 'Dumb and Dumber', Ace Ventura, The Mask.

Jim Carrey – no discussion needed.

Craig is one of the hosts this episode (producing), so no separate producer review. But he contributed the 'Millennial Missed Reference Power Ranking' flex category and was the most passionate Courtney Cox defender on the panel.