Just under 25 years ago, Dumb and Dumber hit the big screen and changed the comedy world forever. Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) embarked on a quest with his best friend Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) in search of true love. Audiences loved director Peter Farrelly’s celebration of two guys lacking in brain matter, while embracing the spirit of adventure. It also gave rise to a ton of timeless quotes that inspired an endless eternity of memes.
We can’t pick them all, but we can try to squeeze in as many as we can! Five more have been added to our list as we expand on the most hilarious Dumb and Dumber quotes of all time. Check your I.O.U.’s at the door!
Updated by Derek Draven, May 10, 2020: As mentioned in the updated intro, we’ve added a few quotes from Dumb and Dumber to our list that definitely deserve top billing. If this article whets your appetite for some good old fashioned 90’s comedy, maybe it’s time you revisited this comedy classic all over again!
“Hey, you wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?”
While Joe Mentalino (Mike Starr) hitches a ride with Harry and Lloyd, he knows he’s in for a ride with a pair of dummies. Though, he may have underestimated just how dumb these two are. For example, at one point Lloyd asks Joe, “Hey, you wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?”
Umm, no? Now, thanks to Lloyd, you can still hear to this day the occasional “EEEEEEEEEEE!” screech. If nothing else, this is incentive to vet the people you go on long road trips with.
“According to the map, we’ve only gone 4 inches!”
No one uses a hard copy map these days, right? A GPS is essentially the same thing, but interactive. What’s more surprising about Harry’s ridiculous comment isn’t the fact he has no clue the map’s measurements are scaled down, it’s more that he has any semblance of an idea about how to use a map.
Anyone born in 2000 or later doesn’t have a clue how to use a map. A lot of people born earlier still don’t know how. Hard to imagine, but Harry may know how to use a map better than the average American.
“I’m going to hang by the bar. Put out the vibe!”
When you think of heartthrobs from the ’90s, you think of Brad Pitt, John Stamos, or George Clooney, but there’s one who stands above the rest: Lloyd Christmas. The man knew how to let the ladies know he was single and ready to mingle.
He knew well and good you can’t come across as desperate. And his best move? “I’m going to hang by the bar. Put out the vibe.” Sheer genius.
“Why are you going to the airport? Flying somewhere?”
This can be a nice ice breaker for Uber drivers. Although, if you get the wrong person in your car, who hasn’t seen Dumb and Dumber and they realize how dumb you sound, this could make for an awkward ride.
In the movie itself, the scene just gets dumber when Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly) asked Lloyd how he figured it out. “Well, I saw your luggage. Then when I noticed the airline ticket I put two and two together.”
“Austria! Well then..‘G’day, Mate! Let’s Put Another Shrimp On The Barbie!’”
There are definitely times as a kid where you got Austria and Australia mixed up. Now, a man in his early 30s is a completely different story. Especially when you run into someone from either country. Austrians sound similar to Germans, if anyone, and Australians are closer to the English, for obvious reasons.
Could you imagine someone mistaking Arnold Schwarzenegger’s accent for Hugh Jackman’s? That’s basically what Lloyd did.
“Nice set of hooters you got there.”
Can you imagine saying this to a complete stranger? Some people probably do, but there’s a good chance that’s followed by a slap across the face. Stick to Lloyd’s approach and hang by the bar to “put out the vibe.”
Even if someone has a pair of owls by them, it’s probably best to call them owls. Or maybe just avoid people who have owls on their person in general. Who owns owls? It even seems like a weird pet for obscenely rich people to have. What message are you trying to get across by having an owl as a pet? And if you hang out with someone who does own an owl, never mind two, you may want to take a good look in the mirror and ask yourself, “who am I trying to impress?”
“Kick his ass, Sea Bass!”
To the people of Boston, Cam Neely will always be a hockey legend, finishing with such a historic hockey career. For everyone else outside of Massachusetts and the hockey world, he’s simply known as Sea Bass. It’s a cameo a select group can fully appreciate, but anyone who’s seen Dumb and Dumber knows Sea Bass for spitting in Harry’s burger after getting hit in the head with a salt shaker. (That and the bathroom scene.)
As Sea Bass approach Harry and Lloyd’s table, one of his friends hollered the famous line. And it still holds up today in pretty much any setting.
“Just when I think you couldn’t possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this… and totally redeem yourself!”
Most memorable quotes are quick. A few seconds at most. This one lasts about 12 seconds, yet still remains one of the greats from Dumb and Dumber. Jeff Daniels has been in some impressive roles through the years, branching well outside of comedy. However, this could be his greatest moment as an actor, ever.
In all seriousness, the first time you see this moment, it actually feels like Harry is about to lose it on Lloyd. Nine seconds into what feels like a father scolding his son, we’re all reminded exactly how dumb Harry is.
“So you’re tellin’ me there’s a chance!”
(Before getting into the line itself, it’s worth mentioning this scene also gave us Lloyd’s line, “What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me… ending up together.") This movie came out in 1994, yet you still see GIFs and memes of Jim Carrey and his ridiculous bowl cut pop up on social media from the moment he famously said to Mary, “So you’re tellin’ me there’s a chance” regarding them developing an intimate relationship, after she essentially told him there wasn’t a chance.
Well, 1 in a million is still a chance, technically.
“If I know her as well as I think I do, she’ll invite us right in for tea and strumpets!”
Harry and Lloyd routinely got the wrong end of the stick, especially when it came to cultural references. When deciding on a plan for meeting Mary Swanson, Lloyd relies an overabundance of confidence, even if it leaves him looking dumber than ever before.
A strumpet is a female prostitute. A far cry from his intended cultural reference regarding the inviting of guests in for tea and crumpets, where the original saying came from.
“We got no food! We got no jobs! Our pet’s heads are fallin’ off!!”
Already down on their luck and out of work, Harry and Lloyd reached their breaking point when two thugs spied them in a case of mistaken identity. Before exiting their home, they left a little parting gift in the favor of a dead bird whose head they twisted off.
The dumb duo return home to find the dead bird in the cage; the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s the final excuse they needed to do a cross country tour to Aspen in search of greener pastures!
“Excuse me, Flo?”
Plenty of younger viewers didn’t understand the meaning of this quip, even back in 1994. Practically none of the new generation understands it, either. Lloyd trolls the diner waitress with this question, causing Harry to fly into a fit of hysterical laughter.
The quotes references the 1976 sitcom Alice, starring Polly Holliday as Florence Jean “Flo” Castleberry, the foul-tempered owner of the local greasy spoon restaurant.
“I just thought she was a raging alcoholic!”
When Lloyd catches Harry going on dates with Mary Swanson after promising to set the two up on a date, his world shatters. Rather than confront Harry about his two-timing, Lloyd decides to wait it out and see how his former best friend will react.
After asking Lloyd why Mary would want to meet him at a bar at 9AM instead of 9PM, Lloyd offers up a pitch-perfect response that betrays his own shallowness and empty-headed views on life.
“No way! We landed on the moon!”
Drowning his sorrows at the bar after thinking Mary Swanson stood him up, Lloyd waits throughout the day, but to no avail. Finally, the bartender gives him advice, and tells him the address where Mary is staying so that he can go meet her there.
Excited beyond belief, Lloyd prepares to rush out of the bar before spotting a framed picture of the Apollo moon landing. Evidently not one to keep up on current events (which is putting it mildly), Lloyd yells out America’s greatest triumph to a confused crowd.
“You sold my dead bird to a blind kid?”
Carefully budgeting for their cross country adventure to Aspen, Harry and Lloyd stop off to pick up a few items for the trip. Harry notices Lloyd eating some snacks which he believes were not part of the budget. When Lloyd mentions that he raised $25 bucks by selling a few things to a blind kid named Billy, Harry becomes suspicious.
Eventually, Lloyd spills the beans, admitting that he sold Harry’s dead bird Petey to Billy before fleeing the city. When Harry reminds Lloyd that Petey no longer has a head, the former assures him that he took care of it…in the most awful manner imaginable!
