“Got a package”

RORY: Got a package.

LANE: What’s that?

RORY: Oh, Jim Carrey says that in Ace Ventura.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, a 1994 comedy directed by Tom Shadyac and starring Jim Carrey in the title role. Ace Ventura is an eccentric animal detective who must find the abducted dolphin mascot of the Miami Dolphins football team.

In the opening scene, Ace Ventura is disguised as a mail delivery man, wearing the brown UPS uniform, but the logo actually says HDS. As the credits roll, he throws and kicks a box marked “FRAGILE” around until it is rattling with what sounds like broken glass. When the man opens his door, Ventura says cheerily, “Got a package for you”.

In fact, the whole set-up has been a ruse to gain access to a dog in the man’s apartment, which comes to the front door, allowing Ventura to nab it while the man is filling out some paperwork Ventura has provided. The man abducted the dog, and Ventura has rescued it on behalf of its owner.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was made on a shoestring budget and became an unexpected commercial success, proving a hit with males aged 10 to 20. It received mixed reviews, and has been criticised for being homophobic and transphobic (and that was when it first came out, so I can’t even say it didn’t age well or that times changed). It did well enough to have a 1995 sequel, an animated TV series from 1995 to 2000, and a made-for-TV reboot in 2018.