Awesome / The Mask

Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?!

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Live-Action Film

• Stanley's alter ego The Mask is a walking incarnate of awesome as well as funny, being nigh invulnerable and able to do anything based on Stanley's creative imagination. This is most prevalent in the climax of the film, where the Mask shrugs off all the bullets from Dorian's guns, scares them off with giant, over-the-top Bang Flag Guns, literally eats a giant bomb to make it harmlessly explode inside of him, and flushes Dorian down with an improvised toilet via artist skills.
• Stanley telling off his boss after once again arriving late for work.
  Mr. Dickey: Ipkiss! We have a crisis on our hands here, and you stroll in over an hour late? If I have to put up with your slovenly behavior—
  Stanley: BACK OFF, monkey boy! Before I tell your daddy you're running this place like it's your own personal piggy bank. Or maybe we should call the IRS and see if we can arrange a little vacation for you at Club FED!!
  Mr. Dickey: [visibly shaken] That'll be all, Ipkiss. (walks away)
• Stanley fighting Dorian without the power of the Mask.
  Dorian: I'm gonna take you apart!
  Stanley: Well, I hope you can enjoy the victory with ONE FRIGGIN' EYE! (pokes Dorian in the eye)
  • The workprint version of that bit is arguably even better, since we get a massive Precision F-Strike courtesy of Stanley.
  • Stanley punching him so much. Later, he gives Dorian a punch that knocks him right into a slot machine on the other side of the room for grabbing his hair.
    Stanley: (out of breath) I'm winning.
    [Dorian punches him back.]
• Milo manages to put on the Mask and of course, Hilarity Ensues. Even better, the pre-release marketing and trailers didn't go out of their way to spoil it, so the gag usually got a great reaction from the audience during its theatrical run.
  • And before that, Milo manages to unlock and open a car door so he could get inside the Coco Bongo and help Stanley.
    Kellaway: Smart dog…
  • This led to a Focus Group Ending reshoot — originally only Charlie went after the mask in the closing scene, but test audiences wanted Milo to have it!
• Tina demonstrates that she's more than your typical Dumb Blonde Femme Fatale by tricking Dorian into taking off the mask and kicking it out of his grasp.
• "Did you miss me? I guess not!"
• "You were good, kid, real good. But as long as I'm around, you'll always be second best, see?"
  • Followed shortly by Stanley finally asserting his own will over that of The Mask by willingly taking it off.
• Stanley breaking out of jail. He holds Kellaway at gunpoint, who says that Ipkiss won't be able to pull it off with the police station full of cops. What does Stanley do? Pretend to be Kellaway’s captive (while still holding the latter hostage) and get escorted out. Bonafide smarts right there.
• The Coco Bongo dance scene. Jim Carrey's dance skills are straight-up SMOKIN'!
  • Not only that, Jim Carrey's talent for exaggerated expressions saved the special effects team a whole lotta money when it came to animating him.
• Dorian wearing the mask. While he lacks Stanley's imagination^note though he does absorb the bullets into his body and spits them at Niko like a gun, he makes up for it with shear frightfulness and monstrosity. Special mention goes to his transformation sequence, where unlike Stanley, he's fixed completely to the spot while clouds descend on him.
  • The original director's commentary track explains that Dorian's transformation plays the way it does because the mask itself is frightened of him but helpless to prevent its being used for evil.

Animated Series

• Stanley and The Mask are both of the cutest people on the planet but Stanley will put on the mask to turn himself into a wild madman and The Mask is a superhero who will save and protect the people in Edge City so making them both Badass Adorable.
• In “Sister Mask”, after Pretorius had been controlling The Mask for a good majority of the episode, Stanley gets to have a little payback when using the controller on a now masked Pretorius.
  Stanley: This is for making me kick my dog!
• The ending of "Double Reverse". While Stanley manages to make himself repressed enough to become the Mask again and stop Kablamus, it unfortunately results in all the good things that have happened to him recently to go down the drain. But rather than let it get him down, it strengthens his resolve that he'll get to where he wants to be in life someday, and on his own terms. But until then, he gets to ride on the high knowing that he saved the whole city.
  Stanley: Well, I'll get the promotion and the date someday, and I'll do it as plain old me; Stanley. But, in the meantime, (singsong voice) I know something they don't know… (chuckles) Yep, yep, yep, I am a hero. Uh-huh. That’s me!
• You know how in the movie, The Mask saved Tina and the Coco Bongo from being blown sky high by just eating the bomb? Well, the episode "Shrink Rap" turned it up to eleven by having him save the entire city by eating a goddamn NUKE!
• Peggy is at her best in "Goin' for the Green". Not only does she figure out Colonel Klaxon's illegal toxic waste dumping scheme (and that he's indirectly responsible for the mutated swamp monster) all by herself, she also secretly broadcasts his Evil Gloating to the whole stadium, exposing him and his plan to pin the blame on the stadium's inevitable collapse due to unstable ground on the Mask.
• The Mask taking down Cookie BaBoom (the mayor's psycho stripper ex who crashed his bill-signing ceremony) by dressing as a bartender and yanking the dynamite belts that were covering Cookie's body, then using her nudity to distract Kellaway and Doyle in "Flight as a Feather". It's not only awesome because The Mask actually did something heroic (even though he only did it to get his fedora feather back), but it stands out as a testament to how wild kids' cartoon content can get (back then, this episode ran with a TV-Y7 rating with that part intact).
• Skillit reveals that the Mask had been used by both evil and good individuals. The latter includes Abraham Lincoln who is implied to have the same Heroic Willpower as Stanley.
• Stanley and Evelyn are the only ones who actually bother to keep their minds in balance when they have the mask on them. This is shown by their masked alter egos, who tend to be harmless and also save the people they care about, and any occasions where they do lose control are only temporary, as each of them know that they have to stay focused when people need their help.
• The Mask is very much a Magnificent Ego breaker by using his trolling ways to make his enemies think that he is dead or defeated but shows up at the last second to defeat them in the end. Even with Walter, who is the only one who scares him, the Mask eventually does defeat him by sending him somewhere else. Ultimately the Mask always shows himself to be effective at being a superhero despite his quirks by saving and protecting people who are in danger and makes sure to take his battles with his enemies somewhere else so that no one gets hurt.
• The Mask beating the Devil himself in a dance competition in “Boogie with The Man”.
• In “Convention of Evil”, The Mask not only has his Rogues Gallery (and the audience) completely fooled for a good majority of the episode by posing as Dr. Neuman^note The truth only comes out after the real Dr. Neuman calls Pretorius to let him know that he’s stuck in traffic and is going to be late, but takes on and defeats them all with little to no effort in less than two minutes!
  • It also shows The Mask is genuinely smart and a brilliant actor as he can use Stanley's memories into posing as Dr Neuman with complete success. Later on in another episode he tricks Peggy by also posing as Stanley and done a brilliant job of acting like him completely only revealing himself to Peggy by taking the disguise off to troll her.
• In "Fantaschtick Voyage", Milo gets sick and Stanley thinks The Mask has something to do with it, so he leaves a tape to explain what is happening. Knowing what The Mask will do, Stanley decided to make sure he will listen by taking the batteries out of the TV remote, then telling him not to touch that dial which The Mask obliges, clearly seeing that Stanley is not in the mood for him to try and avoid the matter at hand. Stanley tells him to fix this by curing Milo, or he will put him in a museum where he will be lifeless forever. The Mask decides to go over there right away, showing just how serious Stanley can be with him, along with the fact that they both care about Milo, so clearly showing The Mask is a Papa Wolf to anyone who tries to hurt Milo.
• The forms of The Mask look seemingly comically useless but they still manage to outsmart and fight his enemies. For example, his talk show persona wins the villain's trusts before leading them into traps of his design, his plumber form is a short, frail and overweight slob who has the honor of landing the final blow on most of his enemies, his child form is very powerful despite his size, his scuba form can swim underwater easily, his knight form fights brilliantly and his karate form finishes some of his enemies off. This shows how The Mask is a Lethal Joke Character, a strategic genius and The Smart Guy as he uses what most people would say useless into brilliant pieces of craziness as he uses his creative mind and his insanity to utilise the skills of these identities in outlandish and bizarre ways to defeat the supervillains which works with success.

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