DUMB AND DUMBER could hardly be, uh, dummer dumber, but in spite of itself still manages to gag up a share of laughs. IF, you’re in the mood for low-denom idiocy, can bear the deadfall spaces where jokes collapse into the black hole from which they belched and can shrug off self-embarrassment over cracking a few smiles. Relax, there’s no scarlet letter (S for stupid?) over goofy giggles that’ll get you banned from cocktail parties.

Friends & roommates ‘Lloyd Christmas’ (Jim Carrey) and ‘Harry Dunne’ (Jeff Daniels) are hopeless clods, well-meaning but anti-smart. Fired from their jobs (again) they hatch a plan to drive across the country from Rhode Island to Colorado, to hand-deliver a suitcase that Lloyd saw pretty ‘Mary Swanson’ (prettier Lauren Holly) leave behind at an airport: Lloyd is gaga for Mary. The guys don’t know it (or much) but the suitcase holds ransom cash, and they’re pursued by the contract goons that want it back. En route, Harry bumblemeets pretty ‘Beth Jordan’ (prettier Victoria Rowell), trying to get away from her boyfriend, or so she says. Ski haven Aspen is in everyone’s line of fire.

Carrey, 32 when this came out, had done stand-up since 1977 when he was fifteen. By the early 90’s he was familiar to TV viewers of In Living Color, and had small movie parts—notably Peggy Sue Got Married, The Dead Pool and Earth Girls Are Easy—but the release of this bonkers buddy road flick, following The Mask and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, all 1994, made it The Year of Jim Carrey. Done for $17,000,000, the lunacy grabbed $127,755,000 in North America (#6), with another $120,000,000 elsewhere. D&D also launched the Farrelly Brothers (Peter & Bobby) as writers & directors of edgy feature comedies of varying quality. Daniels, 37, had established smart-humor chops but this one offered him a greased zipline into Wackyland. Holly, 30, (who later married Jim, for a year) and Rowell, 31, are deft good-sport straightwomen for the clowns.

A raft of outstanding song choices back up the 106 minutes, which has supporting sallies from Mike Starr (always good, as ‘Mental’), Charles Rocket, Teri Garr, Karen Duffy, Felton Perry, Lin Shaye, Connie Sawyer and Harland Williams. A brief animated TV series (23 episodes) followed a year later. A 2003 prequel, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd with different stars, director and writer, came & went, then Carrey, Daniels and the Farrelly’s put together a 2014 sequel Dumb and Dumber To. The correct-disconnect mood for that one will just have to wait.