The 1990s were the golden age of comedy films, churning out one classic, genre-defining masterpiece after another. It was also the moment of Jim Carrey’s rise to comedy superstardom.
For a kid in the 1990s, Jim Carrey was a demigod. His films were hilarious, cartoonish, madcap, irreverent, ribald, raunchy—and all must-sees. Jim Carrey could do no wrong.
Then, in 1996—when yours portly was at the ripe old age of eleven—Jim Carrey made his first career misstep with The Cable Guy. It still had all the great Carrey-esque antics we’d come to love, but the film’s dark comedy threw audiences and critics alike a curveball, and they weren’t quite sure what to make of it. The flick was panned at the time, and the consensus is that it was a potential career-killer for Carrey. Even The Simpsons decried the film as the one that “nearly ruined Jim Carrey’s career”:
But as is often the case—like with wearing masks in elementary schools and forcing toddlers to take experimental gene therapy injections—the general consensus was deadly wrong. The Cable Guy (1996) was the best film of Jim Carrey’s 1990s output, and it’s my pick for my #4 best film.
The Portly Politico 