Ace's distinct mannerisms and verbal tics were all of Jim Carrey's invention, many of which had originated in both his standup routines ("Alrighty then" being something he'd say if a joke didn't land) and in his character of "The Overly-Confident Gay Man" on In Living Color!. Carrey began doing the voice and mannerisms in several read throughs of the script until it was agreed that they were a huge improvement and eventually adopted as Ace's main personality traits.
Ace's very first line on screen, "How are we doing today sir? Alrighty then!" (complete with the notable lack of pause between sentences) was how Carrey opened his standup routines.
Likewise, the exaggerated head swivels were his idea. According to Carrey, they were meant to resemble that of an exotic bird.
The finger gesture with a fart noise he does when he leaves the police station was something Carrey added with the hope that it would catch on in real life. It did not.
Ace talking out of his ass came from Carrey's time on In Living Color!. He got so frustrated at Keenen Ivory Wayans rejecting his sketches that he stood up and read a sketch from his butt, in Wayans' direction. The two almost fought before Wayans walked out of the room. "Later, we sat down, talked, and everything was cool," Wayans said.
Carrey also suggested getting Cannibal Corpse to cameo, as he was a huge fan of theirs.
The "slo-mo/instant replay" gag was something Carrey used to do to amuse his family.
B-Team Sequel: Tom Shadyac was uninterested in returning to direct the second film.
Courteney Cox is clearly struggling in the mental hospital scene (and after Ace hits his head on a bench, the doctor shown from the back is starting to laugh before a cut to Ace in the front).
Tone Loc in the scene with Ace talking through his butt is also stifling laughter.
Fulton is struggling mightily to keep his composure during the shadow puppets scene.
Jim Carrey famously dislikes watching his own performances in anything, so take this with a grain of salt: He allegedly hated the sequel so much so that he swore off reprising his film characters for years. He has since retracted his vow, as he starred in the Dumb and Dumber sequel Dumb and Dumber To, as well as returning as Dr. Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
Courteney Cox's Friends co-star Jennifer Aniston once recalled a story about visiting Cox and bringing a copy of Ace Ventura to watch. Cox refused to watch it, suggesting she either doesn't like to watch her own work (like Carrey), or that she just doesn't want to be reminded of it.
In an interview, José Luis Gil — who voiced Ace in the first film for the European Spanish dub — found dubbing Jim Carrey a very exhausting task. It was the least of his worries as Luis Posada did the voice work for the sequel and TV Series, and became Carrey's main voice actor for most of his career.
Fake American: Newmarket-born Jim Carrey as the Floridian Ace Ventura.
Money, Dear Boy: The main reason Jim Carrey decided to do the sequel; He was encouraged by a friend to demand even more pay than usual to do it, and the studio complied.
Ann Cusack replaces Courteney Cox as Melissa in Ace Ventura Jr. She's apparently out of the sports business, now working with animals, married Ace and they have a son.
In the Latin American Spanish dub of When Nature Calls, José Carlos Moreno provides the voice of Ace Ventura instead of Mario Castañeda due to the latter's commitments to Dragon Ball Z.
In the Canadian French dub of the first movie, Ace was voiced by Marc Labrèche. In the sequel, he's instead voiced by Daniel Picard, who previously voiced Jim Carrey in both The Mask and Dumb and Dumber, thus becoming Carrey's official Canadian French dubbing voice actor.
Refitted for Sequel: In the scene where Ace finds Ray Finkle's projector, Jim Carrey improvised Ace doing shadow puppets, but Tom Shadyac felt it would be out of character given Ace was engrossed in solving the mystery and cut it. This idea was instead used during a slideshow in the sequel.
Saved from Development Hell: The script remained for three years in Morgan Creek's vaults, where they thought it would be "''Fletch for the 90s", until Tom Shadyac picked it up and decided to rework it, with changes in particular to the antagonist and the football elements.
Star-Making Role: Prior to this film's release, Jim Carrey was largely known to the mainstream as one of the main cast members on the sketch comedy TV series In Living Color!note He was credited on the show as "James Carrey". It was Ace Ventura that launched his career as a film actor.
The short scene during the party where Ace pulls the cellist's arm as he walks by, making him produce a false tone, was improvised by Jim Carrey.
Ace singing the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang theme song in the sequel was due to Carrey forgetting his lines in that scene and just busting into that song. The director thought it was much funnier and used that take.
Troubled Production: The first film had an overall relatively trouble-free shoot. The same, however, could not be said for the sequel, whose troublesome production ended up being a major reason why Jim Carrey became notoriously reluctant to do sequels to his films:
The first film's director, Tom Shadyac, wasn't interested in returning. Spike Jonze lobbied for the position, but was overruled by Carrey (who later described it as the biggest mistake of his entire career) leading to the job instead going to newcomer Tom DeCerchio, who had a long-standing career as a commercial director, but whose only work in fiction had been directing a short film. DeCerchio barely lasted for the first week of shooting before quitting, allegedly due to disputes with Carrey and the producers; screenwriter Steve Oedekerk, who had been flown out to the filming location to perform on-set tweaks to the script, ended up being hastily promoted to replace him, largely because he and Carrey were already long-time friends.
Despite the change in director, Carrey remained sullen throughout production due to it being a Contractual Obligation Project, and frequently clashed with co-star Simon Callow. Also, despite the change in director, Carrey and Oedekerk still argued about several aspects of production, most notably Ace's fear of bats.
Midway through production, Carrey fell ill, causing the shoot to over-run. Despite this, none of the actors' or crew-members' contracts mandated that they be paid extra in the event of such an event, causing the on-set atmosphere to grow steadily worse. Callow in particular ended up suffering from this, as he had commitments to a stage play in London, so the producers offered to fly him back to London as needed, but failed to mention that they were deducting the cost from his salary, leading him to later complain that he ended up earning less from the film than he had done from appearing in an episode of Inspector Morse several years prior.
When all was said and done, the film was a major box-office success, but the troublesome shoot and especially the handling of the filming over-run resulted in Carrey and Oedekerk vowing never to make another Ace Ventura film, or indeed work with producer James G. Robinson on any other project. Robinson nonetheless tried to get a third film off the ground for several years, but the next sequel wouldn't come along for a whole 14 years — when it arrived in the form of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Jr., which got an extremely negative reception and proved the Franchise Killer for the series.
Wag the Director: According to Jeff Daniels, Jim Carrey objected to Ace having a bat phobia, believing it undermined the character, and fought with the director about it, suggesting that Ace was merely allergic to bats. Carrey was also edgy about the second film's depiction of Africans, to the point where he was surprised the film wasn't banned.
Originally Ace wasn't written to be animal-related, but more of a generic Sherlock Holmes parody. Screenwriter Jack Bernstein came up with the pet detective idea after watching a David Letterman sketch about pet owners.
The giant hook Ace used to knock out two of Einhorn's henchmen was supposed to knock their heads off. What a hit, indeed.
Snowflake was supposed to disarm Einhorn. The dolphin was trained but froze up in the day of the shoot, so in the film instead Ace slaps the gun out of her hand.
Test audiences caused edits to both the main theme and Cannibal Corpse's appearance, deeming the music too harsh.
Spike Jonze wanted to direct the sequel, but Carrey shot him down. Jonze had no experience, and Carrey didn't know Jonze well enough to entrust his own career to a novice. Carrey says this is one of his biggest regrets.
The plot is inspired a bit by the Buffalo Bills losing their first Super Bowl appearance (Super Bowl XXV in 1990), in which then-kicker, Scott Norwood, missed the field goal that would have won them the game. Ironically, The Buffalo Bills and The Miami Dolphins have been arch-rival teams for years. Unlike the fictional Finkle, Norwood never became a mentally insane transwoman on the lam and Bills fans, while bummed, have since pretty much forgiven him (though there was some vitriol, initially). Norwood was actually a very good kicker but his reputation simply suffered due to that infamous "Wide Right" kick.
Animated Series
Channel Hop: In the U.S., the first two seasons initially aired on CBS, before Nickelodeon picked it up in 1999 for a third and final season.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: Was the case for a long time. The first season was released on VHS, three episodes were released on DVD in a package with the two movies, and the first episode was included as an extra with the Blu-ray release of the first movie. The series did appear briefly through Tubi near the end of 2021, but was removed at the start of 2022. The first season can be viewed on YouTube, with the exception of "The Reindeer Hunter". Now, the full series is currently avaliable on Amazon Prime.
Production Posse: Many of the staff from Eek! The Cat worked on the first two seasons of Ace; both were Nelvana co-productions.
Unspecified Role Credit: Aside from Michael Daingerfield (credited as Michael Hall) as Ace Ventura, the ending credits list the voice actors and not which characters they voiced.
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