While filming of the scene in which The Cable Guy plays basketball, it became obvious that Jim Carrey could barely dribble a basketball, let alone throw a basket. Ben Stiller had Carrey mime the action, and the basketball was added in post-production.
The scene at Medieval Times where The Cable Guy asks for Steven's chicken skin and then performs his The Silence of the Lambs (1991) impression was not scripted. During one take, Jim Carrey asked for the skin out of nowhere. Director Ben Stiller loved that moment and decided to keep it in the film. Matthew Broderick's reaction, and his laugh as Carrey was doing the impression, are genuine.
While the movie's final gross of just over $60 million domestically and $102 million worldwide was much less than the other Jim Carrey movies released in 1994 and late 1995 (which had all passed the $100 million mark), the movie cost $47 million to make and didn't use a major marketing campaign. The idea that the movie had been a disaster was widely circulated by rival studios and production companies because they were angry that Columbia set a higher market for star salaries by giving Carrey $20 million to star.
Lou Holtz Jr. had the idea for the film while working as a prosecutor in Los Angeles, declaring that he once saw a cable company employee in the hallway of his mother's apartment building and started thinking, "What's he doing here so late?"
When Jim Carrey was negotiating his $20 million salary for the film, he insisted that his attorney and two managers all wear Ace Ventura dressing gowns so as not to lose their sense of perspective.
David Bowe: Helicopter pilot at the end of the movie is played by one of the stars of UHF (1989), which is set in a television station and features parodies of several television shows.
Eric Roberts: as himself, playing Sam and Stan Sweet in a movie about them called, "Brother Sweet Brother".
Ben Stiller: brothers Sam and Stan Sweet, the former of whom is accused of murdering the latter. The characters appear to be based on Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1994 of murdering their parents.