Line #2 Trivia/TheCableGuy


1	* ActingForTwo: Creator/BenStiller plays twin brothers Sam & Stan Sweet. Eric Roberts plays them as well in a ShowWithinAShow "based on a true story" movie-of-the-week advertisement.
2	* ActorInspiredElement: Creator/JimCarrey came up with the idea of having his character push his chest up against the glass like in ''Film/MidnightExpress''.
3	* BeamMeUpScotty: Done by Chip (and possibly the writers of the film too). He exclaims "Dry land is not a myth! I've seen it!" and then cites the quote as "Creator/KevinCostner, ''Film/{{Waterworld}}''." This line is never actually spoken in ''Film/{{Waterworld}}'' at any point, and Costner's character even says the exact ''opposite'' thing.
4	* CastTheRunnerUp: Creator/BenStiller planned to play the title role, but decided that acting and directing was too much work. He took the smaller part of the Sweet Brothers.
5	* TheCastShowOff: Chip's intimidating kata with his battle weapon at Medieval Times was thanks to the cane-twirling practice he had to do while playing The Riddler in ''Film/BatmanForever''.
6	* DeletedScene:
7	** Creator/JuddApatow gave The Los Angeles Times a list of excised scenes, including one where Chip shoots Steven with a staple gun and stitches his butt in the shape of a television, another where Chip pretends to be a volunteer firefighter and hurls a fireman's ax at Steven, and one scene shot in 40-degree rain in Griffith Park, where Chip rides up on a horse resembling the headless horseman and leaps at Steven, who puts a rock to Chip's head and threatens him until Chip implores him to "go to the dark side of the force!" The latter was cut because "the evil in Jim Carrey's eyes looked too realistic." Another scene that was cut out because it didn't get big laughs and scared test audiences had Chip on top of Steven's car acting like The Terminator.
8	** A scene was filmed, but cut which at the prison, Steven's dad mentions that Steven stole an ''Comicbook/XMen'' comic book when he was 8 years old which he had lied about and Steven's dad found it in his underpants drawer.
9	* InspirationForTheWork: First time screenwriter Lou Holtz, Jr. had the idea while working as a prosecutor in Los Angeles, declaring that he once saw a cable company employee in the hallway of his mother's apartment building and started thinking, "What's he doing here so late?"
10	* IronyAsSheIsCast: Chip is supposed to be decent at basketball. Creator/JimCarrey could barely dribble the ball and any shot of him doing anything more complicated that holding the ball in his hands utilized a CG ball added in post production.
11	* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: For a film that came out (in the grand scheme of things) rather recently and a "late night movie" staple on cable, finding a widescreen version of this film is remarkably difficult. It was one of Sony's first films to come to DVD in the late 90s, as a VanillaEdition two-sided disc with a widescreen version on one side and pan-and-scan on the other. Several years later, Sony it into a single-sided disc which used the pan-and-scan side that overrode the flipper disc almost everywhere. After being the sole digital release of the film for years, in 2011, Sony put out a more comprehensive Blu-ray release of the film with a widescreen transfer. That release randomly went out of print in 2015 and goes for high prices on auction sites, putting a release of the film in proper aspect ratio in limbo yet again.
12	* MissingTrailerScene: Several scenes appear in the trailer that do not appear in the film. Among these scenes are:
13	** Chip and Robin are having lunch outdoors. Chip tells Robin that Steven is "gonna need some tough love."
14	** Steven and Robin leaving his parent's house after hitting Chip with Robin looking upset and Steven telling her that Chip leaves him messages night and day and never leaves him alone.
15	** Chip walking up to Steven during the evening at his parent's and telling him to not mess with him.
16	** Another shot of Chip through the eye hole in the door after knocking excessively and yelling "Cable Guy!".
17	** Additional footage of Chip calling through the telephone wires trying to call Steven.
18	** Chip holding two beans in his upper lip to make it look like a mustache.
19	** Chip and someone else popping up from behind a couch and surprising Steven.
20	** A very brief slow motion shot of Steven staring at something off-camera with an uncomfortable face during dinner (presumably Chip).
21	* PlayingAgainstType: A retroactive example in Creator/JackBlack playing a straight man, before he became famous as a comic actor.
22	* PlayingWithCharacterType: Creator/JimCarrey is just as zany and over-the-top as always, but in the context of a creepy StalkerWithoutACrush rather than a living cartoon character like in ''Film/AceVentura'' and ''Film/TheMask''. This famously alienated audiences at the time and caused the film to underperform at the box office.
23	* RealLifeRelative: Creator/BenStiller's sister Amy is the secretary.
24	* RomanceOnTheSet: Creator/JuddApatow, a producer on the film, met his future wife Creator/LeslieMann when she auditioned for this film.
25	* TechnologyMarchesOn: In [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece/TheNineties The Nineties,]] the number of households with cable television was increasing. Since the 2010s, streaming video services have led to cable's decline.
26	* ThrowItIn: The scene at Medieval Times where Chip asks for Steven's chicken skin and then performs his [[Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] impression was all improvised. During one take, Creator/JimCarrey asked for the chicken skin out of nowhere. After doing the bit, Creator/BenStiller loved it and wanted to keep it in the film even though it wasn't in the script. If you look at Creator/MatthewBroderick's face during this scene, you can tell he is genuinely cracking up.
27	* VindicatedByCable: The film did not do well at the box office in spite of Creator/JimCarrey's peaking fame and popularity, but the film's dark tone and social commentary have allowed it to find an audience on cable and video.
28	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
29	** The role of Chip was originally written with Creator/ChrisFarley in mind, but he was forced to decline due to being contracted to make ''Film/BlackSheep1996''. Creator/AdamSandler was also considered.
30	** In one Creator/JuddApatow script, Chip gets impaled on a cable dish. Apatow later admitted, "Jim was very intent on dying at the end of the movie. That was something we couldn't get past everybody. He thought he should sacrifice and die at the end."
31	** This could have been Apatow's directorial debut, but the studio rebuffed his interest.
32	** The original screenplay by Lou Holtz, Jr. was a lighter comedy, described by Apatow as "a ''Film/WhatAboutBob'' annoying friend movie" where the Cable Guy was a likeable loser who intrudes upon the cable subscriber's life, but never in a physically threatening way.

Context Trivia / TheCableGuy