The Cable Guy (1996) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A lonely and disturbed cable guy raised on television just wants a new friend, but his target, a designer, rejects him, with bad consequences. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON TV a list of 41 titles created 18 Jun 2011 a list of 22 titles created 06 Nov 2011 a list of 24 images created 02 Mar 2013 a list of 35 titles created 07 Dec 2013 a list of 24 titles created 04 Feb 2015 Title: The Cable Guy (1996) 6/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 3 wins & 1 nomination.

See more awards » Videos A nice-guy cop with dissociative identity disorder must protect a woman on the run from a corrupt ex-boyfriend and his associates. Directors: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly Stars: Jim Carrey, Renée Zellweger, Anthony Anderson A fast-track lawyer can't lie for 24 hours due to his son's birthday wish after he turns his son down for the last time. Director: Tom Shadyac Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, returns from a spiritual quest to investigate the disappearance of a rare white bat, the sacred animal of a tribe in Africa. Director: Steve Oedekerk A goofy detective specializing in animals goes in search of a missing dolphin mascot of a football team. Director: Tom Shadyac When an affluent couple lose all their money following a series of blunders, they turn to a life of crime to make ends meet. Director: Dean Parisot Bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss is transformed into a manic superhero when he wears a mysterious mask. Director: Chuck Russell The cross-country adventures of two good-hearted but incredibly stupid friends.

Directors: Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly Stars: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Lauren Holly A guy who complains about God too often is given almighty powers to teach him how difficult it is to run the world. Director: Tom Shadyac A guy challenges himself to say "yes" to everything for an entire year. Director: Peyton Reed Male nurse Greg Focker meets his girlfriend's parents before proposing, but her suspicious father is every date's worst nightmare. Director: Jay Roach All hell breaks loose when the Byrnes family meets the Focker family for the first time. Director: Jay Roach The life and career of a legendary comedian, Andy Kaufman . Director: Milos Forman Edit Storyline Steven Kovak has been kicked out of his apartment by his girlfriend. Steven has a new apartment, and decides to slip the cable guy (Chip) $50 for free cable. Steven then fakes an interest in Chip's line of work. However Chip takes this to heart trying to become Steven's best bud. When Steven no longer wants to be Chips friend the man who can do it all goes on an all out assault to ruin Steven's life.

In the backdrop is the delicate sub-plot of the trial of a former kid star for murdering his brother. Written by Wayne Jamieson <jamtin@OntheNet.com.au> There's No Such Thing as Free Cable See more » Genres: Rated PG-13 for dark thematic elements and crude humor | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 14 June 1996 (USA) See more » Also Known As: $19,806,226 (USA) (14 June 1996) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia Chris Farley was originally up for the part of Chip Doulas. Farley had a two picture deal with Paramount. After Tommy Boy (1995), he was obligated to make another movie and was offered this role for $3 million which was a huge amount for him. He also had the chance to make another movie with David Spade , for nowhere near the amount he was going to get for this film. They both decided they may have a chance to make another Tommy Boy (1995). Chris turned down the film and Jim Carrey got it for $20 million.

See more » Goofs At the karaoke party, Chip sings "Somebody to Love" by Jefferson Airplane , which he says was featured in Gimme Shelter , the documentary about The Rolling Stones concert at Altamont. Jefferson Airplane plays "The Other Side of This Life" in the movie, not "Somebody to Love." See more » Quotes The Cable Guy : Women are a labyrinth, my friend. Can I be frank? I don't think you listen to her. I think you tell her what she wants to hear. She wants you to thirst for knowledge about who she is, all the complicated splendor that is women. When your love is truly giving, it will come back to you ten fold. Steven Kovacs : You're right. That's incredibly insightful. The Cable Guy : I know. It was Jerry Springer's final thought on Friday's show. See more » Crazy Credits The Columbia logo at the beginning of the movie segues into static from Steven's cable TV. See more » Connections Performed by Lesley Rankine (as Ruby) Courtesy of Creation Records/The WORK Group/The Licensed Repertoire Division of Sony Music User Reviews Daring tragi-comedy which satirises the effect of TV on the modern world.

Carrey's song in the famous karaoke scene is NOT TO BE MISSED! (Australia) – See all my reviews Matthew Broderick asked his girl to marry him and she asked him to move out. The eccentric guy who shows up to install cable in his new pad arrives just at the right time to become his friend. Only The Cable Guy (Jim Carrey) wants to be a little closer than Broderick is comfortable with... The Cable Guy is a brave and daring tragi-comedy, a rare sort of movie where you're laughing one minute and scared the next. I'm not sure if we'll ever get another chance to see Jim Carrey go this far out on a limb: director Ben Stiller has seemingly given him total carte blanche, resulting in a seemingly completely over-the-top characterisation, yet not so over the top that we can't get involved in the plot and take what his character does as really happening. Notice the way that the cable guy often mimics moments from his favourite movies and works them into his controlling of the plot of this movie - or how he starts humming movie-music along to certain scenes, while the actual music of the movie mirrors the music the cable guy is creating.

This will clue you into the other subtle elements which add towards this movie's satire of the effect TV has had on the modern psyche. Its worth the price of rental alone to see Carrey's rendition of "Don't You Want Somebody to Love" in the famous karaoke scene. After repeated viewings since its initial release, its one of the most memorable Carrey comedies, and one of the most memorable flicks of the 90's. 4/5. 47 of 62 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes ‎The Cable Guy (1996) directed by Ben Stiller • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd 2 When this film was first released, I went to see it in the theater. I remember really disliking it when I saw it originally. My reaction was probably similar to that of many people. I'd enjoyed Jim Carrey's brand of silly, rubber-faced mugging in previous films such as Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber, and I was expecting more of the same here. I was neither expecting nor prepared for the pitch black, sociopathic bent of Carrey's new character Chip, the titular cable guy.

In the intervening years since, I've seen it a few times, and I've grown to like it more each time. In fact, I believe this is one of Carrey's most underappreciated films. For those… Free cable is the ultimate aphrodisiac. -Chip Douglas Even though I like Jim Carrey , I have to say that more often then not I don't enjoy his comedies that much. Some of his most popular ones for example like The Mask , Bruce Almighty and Liar Liar do very little for me, while a film like The Cable Guy, which the majority of people hate, I think is bloody brilliant. It's probably the simple fact that the other films are standard Hollywood comedies while this one starts out normal, but eases it's way into a black comedy. Ben Stiller on the other hand is mostly miss all the time for me, unless he's directing (looking forward to The Secret Life of… 2 Ben Stiller's "The Cable Guy" is a mixed bag of missed opportunities. A dark comedy with an over-the-top villain that clashes with the film's subtler sensibilities, the piece could easily have made a competent thriller or a more thoughtful comedy.

Instead of playing up the peril or downplaying Jim Carrey's histrionics however, the filmmakers have other plans. They assemble a deftly directed comic look at particular obsessions, though its enjoyment may rest upon its audience's tolerance for the film's antagonist. The story is straightforward. When Matthew Broderick's leading man moves into a new place, Jim Carrey's cable guy shows up to install the coax-transmitted entertainment. He then makes his customer's life miserable as he tries to stalk the put-upon cable… 19 Here's the thing with The Cable Guy: your enjoyment of the whole thing will fundamentally come down to whether or not you find Jim Carrey funny in this kind of zany, intense, sociopathic role. Ben Stiller's movie relies so heavily on Carrey's gurning, lispy schtick as the eponymous deliverer of cable that it forgets to develop in any other area, with the rest of the characters and indeed the narrative going nowhere unless Carrey drags them through with the sheer force of his comic will.

A movie that relies so strongly on one gimmick will rise and fall depending on preference, and the fact is that if you took Big Jim out of the picture then The Cable Guy wouldn't… Review by David Jenkins ★★★ I really wanted to love 'The Cable Guy'. I loved practically all of Jim Carrey's work from the 90s. Films like 'Ace Ventura', 'Dumb and Dumber' and 'Liar Liar'. His filmography from that decade contains some of my favourite comedies and I could watch a handful of them over and over and they would always cheer me up. I can understand why some people wouldn't get the appeal but his shtick always seemed to hit the spot with me. He has lost his way since but his track record in the 90s was for me near flawless. It was full of hits and devoid of any films that I didn't connect with. It therefore pains me to say that 'The… EightThirty . Super Reviewer A big hit and miss, yet it's a pretty good cult film. Confusing and not amazing during the first watch. However the second time, it was funnier and certain lines became more recognised.

Lets face it, this is for Jim Carrey fans. 'The Cable Guy' is not as iconic as 'Ace Ventura'. It isn't as touching as 'The Truman Show', but you either watch it or you don't, you love it or hate it. Samuel Riley Super Reviewer ½ The Cable Guy is a decent comedy with lots of flaws. Though it's interesting to see Jim Carrey act in a more darker comedic role, at times the film tries far too hard at delivering something that for most of the time, is unfunny. The film has some good moments, but throughout the entire film, there's always something that lingers that makes this film awkward. The film is decent enough to watch, but is never anything memorable. Ben Stiller directs this film, and delivers a film that delivers decent enough laughs. Overall, The Cable Guy is one of the weaker films in Jim Carrey's career, but compared to recent comedies that he's made, this film isn't too bad. There's a good idea at work here, but I felt that the film could have been much better than this. I thought it was a decent time waster of a film, but it wasn't great or memorable by any means.

The Cable Guy is an interesting idea that is more stale than anything. It's decent enough to watch, but you realize that there is something missing to really make it a good comedy. Jim Carrey's performance is over the top and wacky, and it's what saves this film from being a total disaster. Despite this, The Cable Guy could have used a script rewrite or two, as there's some good material here, but there are elements that simply don't fit. The Cable Guy could have been a memorable comedy, unfortunately the film doesn't stand out among Carrey's other comedic gems such as The Mask, Ace Ventura and Dumb & Dumber. Alex roy "The Ben Stiller Show": Before he directed "The Cable Guy... - tribunedigital-chicagotribune "The Ben Stiller Show": Before he directed "The Cable Guy... June 22, 1996|By Steve Johnson, Tribune Television Critic.

"The Ben Stiller Show": Before he directed "The Cable Guy" and "Reality Bites" (for what those are worth), before he starred in "Flirting with Disaster," before he did a devastating Bruce Springsteen on the recent "MTV Movie Awards," the son of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara ran this strong sketch comedy half hour for Fox--which, in its infinite wisdom, cancelled it after just half a year, in January, 1993. Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick ("NewsRadio"), Bob Odenkirk, and John F. O'Donohue joined Stiller in a fine cast and a show that concentrates on movie, TV and show-business send-ups, such as Al Pacino auditioning for "Beethoven," Sandra Bernhard auditioning for "The Mighty Ducks," a sketch in which Stiller plays a pig-latin lover, and "Manson," a version of "Lassie" with Charles Manson playing the pooch. Cable's Comedy Central shows reruns each Saturday at 10 p.m.

On free TV today, this afternoon's White Sox-Mariners game will give you a chance to check out Fox's claims to innovation in its new Major League Baseball telecasts (pregame starts at 2:30 p.m., WFLD-Ch. 32). MORE: The Cable Guy The Cable Guy You are here: Home > Movies > The Cable Guy The Cable Guy » Soundtrack Production Notes It's a time-honored urban ritual: Slip the cable guy fifty bucks and you'll get all the movie channels for free. But when Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) moves into a new apartment, his Cable Guy (Jim Carrey) is not like the others. He doesn't want your fifty bucks; all he wants is a friend ... and he won't take "no" for an answer. Steven is about to learn that there's no such thing as free cable. Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick star in the Columbia Pictures comedy The Cable Guy, directed by Ben Stiller and written by Lou Holtz, Jr. Andrew Licht, Jeffrey Mueller and Judd Apatow are the producers. Brad Grey, Bernie Brillstein and Marc Gurvitz are the executive producers.

Leslie Mann, George Segal, Diane Baker and Jack Black head a strong supporting cast that also features appearances by Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick and Charles Napier. Steven Weisberg is the editor. Sharon Seymour is the production designer. Robert Brinkmann served as director of photography. John Ottman composed the score. Matthew Broderick, Tony Award winner for "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" as well as star of such films as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, stars as Steven Kovacs, the young architect whose furtive attempt at getting free cable is misinterpreted as an open invitation into his life. "Basically, Steven's open to psychos because he can't say 'no'," explains Jim Carrey, who stars as the strange yet charismatic Cable Guy. "And that's a problem that so many people have, not being able to tell someone when they're invading your space.

And even when he tries to say 'no', the Cable Guy knows how to manipulate him and get around that 'no.' He will keep banging at the door until he finds a way." "The Cable Guy sees an opening in Steven's life because this guy has just broken up with his girlfriend and is on his own," adds director Ben Stiller, who directs his second feature film after the critically-acclaimed Reality Bites, in which he also starred opposite Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke. "The Cable Guy has obtained this information from the cable billing. And when Steven gets up the guts to ask him for free cable, which his friend told him to do, and subtly offers him the fifty bucks, the Cable Guy gets right up in his face and scares him a little bit." � Columbia Pictures Leslie Mann, who appears in the upcoming Last Man Standing, plays Steven's girlfriend Robin, who misinterprets the Cable Guy's gestures toward Steven as the caring acts of a friend. George Segal (Flirting With Disaster) and Diane Baker (The Silence of the Lambs) play Steven's parents, who are won over by the Cable Guy's antics much to the dismay of their victimized son.

Jack Black (Dead Man Walking) plays Steven's dispossessed best friend Rick, whose anger over the Cable Guy's interference in Steven's life leads to his investigation into his true identity. "This movie has two distinct aesthetics crashing into each other," explains Carrey, whose complex interpretation of the Cable Guy is at once disturbing and comical. "There is something about it that is very strange and disquieting, yet is fall-off-the-chair funny. Let's call it Hitchcock meets Jerry Lewis. Or, as I prefer it, Rosemary's Baby meets The Odd Couple." Carrey, whose has created some of today's most memorable screen characters in such hit films as Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber, sees The Cable Guy as a chance to play both sides of the sanity fence. "I love the danger of him," says the actor. "You can never really figure this guy out. He has this fantasy about what life should be from his being raised exclusively by television. His idea of a perfect family unit is My Three Sons.

He is a master manipulator who sets his sights on Steven for friendship." Director Ben Stiller feels that no matter how strange the Cable Guy becomes, the fact that he's played by Carrey makes him oddly likeable. "I think Jim has something that people respond to on a lot of different levels," Stiller notes. "He's incredibly broad, but he's also really subtle at the same time. The subtle stuff makes me laugh the most, but children just love him being crazy. They buy him as a bad guy and still root for him because there's also something that's incredibly good-hearted about Jim. I think inherently people relate to him as a nice, funny guy who will do anything he possibly can to make you laugh." � Columbia Pictures The Straight(?) Man A veteran of Broadway, television and motion pictures since childhood, Matthew Broderick relished the opportunity of playing opposite one of the screen's most unpredictable comic whirlwinds. "I was curious to see if his style of performance and mine would blend easily," says Broderick. "But it was a natural pairing, at least from my end. He's very inventive and he brought me out a bit. I think we had really good chemistry.

I've worked with Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman and other powerful actors, and they all do one thing: they all make you better, which makes acting easier." The combination of Carrey and Broderick was a dream for the filmmakers. Once Carrey was signed aboard, Broderick was seen as the perfect foil as well as the first choice by the producers and director to play Steven Kovacs. Producer Judd Apatow notes, "Every day in dailies we would find ourselves laughing really hard at very subtle choices Matthew made in his scenes, many of which we didn't recognize until we had a chance to see them on the big screen." Stiller adds: "Matthew was really the only choice for the part and I think we were really, really lucky that he did it because he elevates the movie to another level. Matthew has incredible comic timing and and it's great to see Jim and Matthew play off each other." � Columbia Pictures Stiller's way with performers is free and generous, perhaps owing to his background in front of the camera. He began his acting career while still a teenager, in films such as Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun.

Stiller subsequently moved into starring roles in films, most recently in Flirting With Disaster. "I want to build a statue to him," says Carrey. "I need a lot of room when I do a scene. Ben realizes this and knows just where to put the camera. He is truly amazing. When I first met with Judd and Ben about this film, I was happy because we had always wanted to work together. Then Ben mentioned Roman Polanski as a style source for the movie and that was it; I said to myself, 'This guy's all right!'" The project was initiated by producers Andrew Licht and Jeffrey Mueller, whose many film productions include the international boxoffice hit Waterworld. The duo have been a moviemaking team since meeting in USC film school. "After Waterworld we wanted to do a small picture with a small budget," explains Jeffrey Mueller. "We at first thought this film could be done for two or three million dollars, but that all changed when the script attracted some of the top actors in the film business." Jim Carrey and Judd Apatow had been friends for several years dating back to their stand-up comedy days.

Apatow wrote some material for Carrey's act and eventually supplied some ideas for Carrey's characters on the long-running Fox Network series In Living Color. Apatow had also had a long-standing friendship with Ben Stiller, with whom he had co-created TV's The Ben Stiller Show. The chance to work with both men was a challenge as well as a delight for Apatow. "When Jim and I had signed on to the project, we loved the core idea, which was a Cable Guy who wants to be a customer's friend and insinuates himself into his life for a moment," Apatow notes. "And once the guy realizes that he doesn't want to be the Cable Guy's friend, the Cable Guy starts dismantling and destroying his life. Jim's first impulse was 'I want to turn this into an orgy of destruction.' So, when we discussed it with Ben, the two of us decided that we wanted the core psychology of the Cable Guy to be real.

We wanted him to be this horrible, co-dependent person who needs approval so badly that he'll trample over everyone's emotional borders to get it." � Columbia Pictures Though the story plumbs the darker elements of the Cable Guy's obsession with his new friend, it's still primarily comedy. Notes Jim Carrey: "I don't know if I would even call it dark. It's dark in the sense that this is a disturbed, needy person and we take that to the maximum level. We pump up the volume on that. But he's not really as disturbed as I am, normally. I had to bring it down for this." The challenge for the filmmakers was to take the character that Carrey was going to play and find a tone to match it. "I didn't want to make a film where he was in a different movie than everybody else," Stiller notes. "So, that's where we worked very hard to shape the story. How far could we go' You want to be able to take a chance but also not to disappoint Jim's core audience who expect a precise brand of humor from him. I wanted to make a movie for all the people who really didn't think that they were into Jim.

I wanted it to be a movie where people come out of it saying, 'I never thought Jim Carrey was my cup of tea, but in this movie he's doing something totally different.' In this movie he plays a crazy, psychotic guy but in a really funny way." "The Cable Guy is certainly as odd a character as any Jim has played," says Apatow. "The difference this time is that we get a real sense of who he is down deep and why he behaves this way. Even as he loses control, he remains sympathetic because we know that all he really wants is a friend." The Killing Fields The Cable Guy contains number of set pieces which complement Carrey's unique brand of performance madness. Among them is a tour de force battle between Steven and the Cable Guy in the most unlikely location: Southern California's Medieval Times Restaurant. Set near amusement parks Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm in the Orange County city of Buena Park, the restaurant features a medieval dining experience with all the trimmings. A hearty meal of whole roasted chicken washed down with ale is embellished by a full jousting tournament wherein audience members root for their favorite knight. This, thought Carrey, was a backdrop begging to be utilized.

"I couldn't believe that someone hadn't seen the potential of this place as a set piece for a comedy," says Carrey. "These guys are great horsemen and they do an incredible show, but it's so weird. It's from another planet." � Columbia Pictures Prior to shooting, the filmmakers took a trip down to Medieval Times. "It was incredible," Stiller remembers. "We had a night of feasting and jousting, the likes of which ye will never forget! It's really actually fun. They give you chicken and Mead, and you watch these jousting matches and all these knights fighting with each other. Kids love it and it's packed; there are like seven hundred people there. We thought it was so ripe for comedy." The extremely physical scenes at Medieval Times demanded that Carrey and Matthew Broderick fight hand to hand with sword, battle axe and mace, plus a full-speed joust on horseback. Filming had to be precise as the movie company was allotted a finite number of days in which to finish the sequence. The Medieval Times Restaurant had never closed its doors before. Stunt Coordinator Freddie Hice planned the fight and riding sequences so that each actor would do the majority of his stunts to insure realism.

"We rehearsed the hand-to-hand stuff for two days," says Hice. "Jim is so wild you can't double him. No one can mimic his moves, so he had to do most of the fight himself. But it was exhausting for Matthew and Jim. The real swordsmen and riders do five shows a day, but if we did that we'd drop in our tracks. As it was, we still kept some very long hours." Aside from the rigorous ride, Broderick had an additional challenge to overcome: "I'm allergic to horses," he says. "So I had to really concentrate not to sneeze all the time. I like fight scenes and physical comedy. But we were doing it in a string of sixteen hour days and that can be quite draining." "This sequence defines several aspects of the Cable Guy's personality," explains Apatow. "On the surface, the Cable Guy and Steven are battling to the death. But in the Cable Guy's mind, he is simply roughhousing with the brother he always wished he had. As the battle continues, the Cable Guy starts to believe that he is part of the Star Trek episode where Spock and Kirk are forced to do battle.

We see that the Cable Guy is beginning to have a hard time telling the difference between TV and reality." � Columbia Pictures The fight also provides the audience with another clue to the Cable Guy's impending madness. "We see another dark side of Jim coming out, another hint that his character might be just a little bit psychotic," Stiller says. "It was quite an intense shooting experience." Production Designer Sharon Seymour and Costume Designer Erica Edell Phillips also had unique challenges at the medieval restaurant. Seymour, who had previously worked on such films as Don Juan de Marco and The Truth About Cats and Dogs, had to contend with the existing design of the restaurant and its limited choices for change. "We had to fit our color palette within theirs," says Seymour. "They usually have such bright colors -- oranges and yellows and reds -- that we had avoided within our muted palette of greens, browns and blues. So we covered up much of their design with faux stone wallpaper. The place already had a fine sense of an anachronistic theatrical humor.

We just embellished it." Costume Designer Erica Edell Phillips was faced with the problem of replacing potentially immobile and heavy metal jousting costumes for Steven's ongoing fight with the Cable Guy in the sawdust of Medieval Times' main ring. Not only must the new costumes be lightweight and flexible, but also reflect light to resemble metal for the camera. "The way we solved it was almost too easy," says Phillips, who most recently designed costumes for Outbreak. I found that if we made the jousting costumes out of leather, we could paint them to act and look like metal. Plus it was easier for Matthew's headdress to swivel around, which it must do to obscure his vision during the fight. It worked wonderfully." � Columbia Pictures Also during the Medieval Times sequence, two veterans of Ben Stiller's television troupe make guest appearances: Janeane Garofalo and Andy Dick. The two comic actors played a 'Gen X' waitress (pierced, tattooed and wearing clumsy Doc Martens boots) and the effete master of ceremonies, respectively.

Several other performers make cameo appearances throughout the film, including actor Eric Roberts (playing himself in a TV movie sendup) as well as news talent Tabitha Soren (of MTV) and Barry Nolan (of "Hard Copy") and late night host Conan O'Brien among others. Let's Party! Another favorite scene to shoot was Carrey's outlandish karaoke version of Jefferson Airplane's '60s anthem "Somebody to Love." "I think it's one of the most incredible things I've ever seen," Stiller remembers. "He sings with this weird Grace Slick vibrato the whole time. Shooting it was kind of scary, like he got possessed with some strange psychedelic energy. I'm not exaggerating. He did stuff that tapped into some weird energy that's inside of him. I don't know where that comes from.

All I can say is I'm glad that he has an outlet for it." Other bizarre moments in the film include an embarrassing Kovacs family gathering (highlighted by the Cable Guy's insistence on playing 'Porno Password'), a friendly gym basketball game (marred by the Cable Guy's violent competitive style) and, finally, a dangerous and complex finale set between a mountaintop cable tower and mammoth satellite dish. "The satellite dish represents everything that the Cable Guy is about in terms of entertainment and information and the future," Stiller notes. "Also it represents the lack of personal contact between people. So, that's where the climax of the movie plays out. It's this very angular steel structure that has a really retro, '50s feel to it, which the Cable Guy mirrors in his own way." The biggest concern for each location used in the "tower/satellite dish" sequence was that rain was called for in much of the footage. This would not only make things difficult for the camera, but the actors' comfort as well. The scenes had to be played out, sometimes at great heights, with water and wind swirling around the performers. One invention helped Matthew Broderick through the interior scenes: a cozy portable hot tub.

"I was very cold in those scenes. There is no getting around that," recalls Broderick. "But Jim and I would retire to our little hot tub in Long Beach. We had our wet suits on, so it became very comfortable in a hurry." � Columbia Pictures Carrey's endurance was a galvanizing element for the cast and crew. He did most of his own stunts, dropping from moving cars, climbing telephone poles, destroying a men's room and dangling from a 100 foot high cable tower among many more activities. He never injured himself or others, even when exploding a basketball backboard or sliding down a flooded satellite dish into several feet of murky water time and again. "Jim really enjoys working," says Apatow. "He is the dominant presence on the set because he is always in such a great mood. He worked very long hours, often in horrendous conditions. But it never seemed to bother him. He appreciates the fact that his dream has come true, and it's incredibly infectious." Both the satellite dish and radio tower were constructed to scale on a mountain location set high in the hills of the Angeles National Forest above the San Fernando Valley.

Made by a real dish company in Texas, the dishes are 61 feet across and covered in a rough layer of spray plastic to enhance footing. According to production designer Sharon Seymour: "The dish is the real thing. We were lucky to get them because the large dishes are rapidly going out of style. Only two manufacturers still make them. We modified ours to fit the film's needs. Ours has a small reflector in the middle, plus it had to be able to fill with water and move." Smaller versions of the dish and tower were created inside the Spruce Goose Dome Hangar in Long Beach, California. Originally constructed by the city of Long Beach to house aviator Howard Hughes's cargo plane named the Spruce Goose, the hangar has most recently been used for film production, including such large-scale projects as Batman Forever and Stargate. Its spacious confines (the dome itself is 130 feet high, 415 feet in diameter and 138,000 square feet in area) lends itself well to the demands of large sets. The tower which accompanies the dish is a radio tower that is over 130 feet high.

The tower built on the mountaintop exterior set was full size to accommodate a dangerous stunt: a high fall from 120 feet by stuntman Bobby Brown. � Columbia Pictures Brown, one of the world's most accomplished high fall artists, did the fall correctly on his first take. The jump was done late at night at the mercy of the mountain winds. A large airbag was carefully positioned beneath him, but a sway caused by wind shear could have altered the stunt with deadly results. "We had Bobby practice with jumps from 55 feet at first," says stunt coordinator Freddie Hice. "But when you do a 120 foot high fall, you only do it once. This is Bobby's forte; he's the best in the world." As the film moved into post-production, a final key player was added to the mix: composer John Ottman. The composer most recently completed the acclaimed score for the critically-acclaimed The Usual Suspects, which he also edited. Not since the days of Charles Chaplin had an editor also composed for a film. For Ottman, his collaboration with Ben Stiller was a joy.

"It is always better to work with a director who has a knowledge of films past and present, as Ben does," says Ottman. "He knows his movie references, which makes my job easier so I can have a shorthand with him. When I say that I want a North By Northwest or Vertigo feel to a cue, he immediately recognizes what I am saying." The film finished three months of production on the soundstages of the Sony Pictures lot after shooting exteriors in Los Angeles area communities such as Hancock Park, Pasadena and Culver City. Apatow considers the film to be "a thrill ride. It's a wild ride that picks up a faster and faster pace until it explodes at the end. We're walking a fine line in this movie between comedy and dark comedy. As Jim says, we've created an orgy of destruction." � Columbia Pictures "The Cable Guy orchestrates a very complex manipulation of Steven's life," Stiller comments. "He creates all of these events to ingratiate himself to Steven, which end up going bad in a serious way when he is rejected. It gets very dark and funny. The challenge on this film the whole time was finding the tone of it. How dark is it? How crazy does he go?

How much can we stretch reality while still making it really, really funny? And beyond what we planned with the script, there are a few laughs in this film that came from Jim's on-set improvisations. I didn't know how the were going to play at the time, but they ended being some of the biggest laughs in the film. I have an enormous respect for Jim in terms of what comes spontaneously out of his head and how funny he can be on the spot." "There's something about this movie that's very strange and disquieting," Carrey concludes. "And at the same time, I've just fallen off my chair laughing. We're taking our premise to the maximum level. We've got this disturbed, needy person, and you never really know if he's just messing with people or if he really does just need a friend. I think there is a little of the Cable Guy in all of us. I think we've all been in a friendship where we were just trying too hard, to the point that we weren't ourselves anymore. And that's what he does ...

he just goes a little too far." Ben Stiller Ben Stiller Nationality: United States Executive summary: There's Something About Mary Ben Stiller is the son of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara , a bickering comedy team famous from the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. In addition to their work as a duo, his father was also a regular on Seinfeld and King of Queens; and his mother was on All My Children and Archie Bunker's Place for years. Family friends included Francis Ford Coppola , Rodney Dangerfield , and Peter Max . Andy Kaufman once came over for Thanksgiving dinner, but wouldn't eat the turkey (he had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead). When Stiller was 10, he had a small role on his mother's CBS lawyer drama, Kate McShane, and when his parents played Vegas, they stayed in the same hotel as Gladys Knight -- and young Stiller played in the pool with the Pips. He was largely raised by the family's Jamaican housekeeper, Hazel, and her seven kids were almost like siblings to Stiller and his sister Amy.

At school, though, he was teased and bullied by other kids, and he's said he was a total misfit throughout his adolescence. As an adult, Stiller started in show business as a serious actor, appearing on stage in The House of Blue Leaves, but behind the scenes, Stiller was making parody short films. The films got him into the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1989, but it was frustrating for Stiller, as his short films rarely made it on the air. After leaving SNL, Stiller had two Ben Stiller Shows. The first was a weekly MTV show in 1990, a behind-the-scenes parody of a comedy show � la The Larry Sanders Show. It had a very short run, but is not to be confused with the next Ben Stiller Show, a sketch show on Fox in 1992, that also had a very short run. The cast of the latter show included Andy Dick , Janeane Garofalo , and Bob Odenkirk , but the ratings were dismal, and Fox cancelled it without even airing its 13th and final episode. The show subsequently won an Emmy for best writing, beating SNL and In Living Color.

Early reviews sometimes dismissed Stiller as "a well-connected Hollywood brat", but his directing and co-starring in Reality Bites reversed that. He has also directed The Cable Guy and Zoolander, and starred in There's Something About Mary, Mystery Men, Meet the Parents, and Dodgeball. Stiller co-wrote Feel This Book with Garofalo. It's a parody of self-help books, with insights such as, "Being popular and well-liked is not in your best interest, taking into account the public's regrettable lack of taste; it is incumbent upon you not to fit in." Stiller says he has "bi-polar manic depression", and it runs in his family. He's said he dropped acid in high school, and immediately phoned his parents to let them know. But in interviews, he usually has nothing to say about his private life. "You separate your own experience from what people think or write about," he says. "Because even if somebody writes about something that happened in your life, 95 percent of the time they get it wrong. I'm not leading a life people should care about. It's not like I've made a sex tape or anything.

Not that I think anybody would want to watch a Ben Stiller sex tape." Father: Jerry Stiller (actor, b. 8-Jun-1927) Mother: Anne Meara (actress, b. 20-Sep-1929, d. 23-May-2015)

Question: Who directed The Cable Guy?
Answer: Ben Stiller