Alrighty then!
A mechanical rhino featured in a gnarly and memorable “butt birth” scene in the 1995 flick “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” will go up for auction in late March.
The rhino, originally reduced to its neck and legs after filming, was restored to its former glory in 2019 when the current owners tracked down the missing parts, according to the PropStore Auction listing.
The hulking prop, which is more than 10 feet long, was the centerpiece of the iconic “butt birth” scene in the sequel to “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.”
In it, Ace Ventura, played by Jim Carrey, is spying on a villain purportedly linked to the disappearance of a white bat.
The zany Ventura, never known for his bright ideas, staked out in the middle of a desert while tucked inside a mechanical rhino.
Seconds after parking a short distance from the targets, the lone fan inside of the rhino short-circuits, leaving Ventura to bake in the sun.
Still, the dedicated pet detective refuses to budge until the clandestine meeting is over. The moment it is, Ventura lunges to open the hatch door — but the wheel snaps off.
By that point, Ventura is stark naked and slick with sweat from head to toe. In a moment of desperation, he homes in on the only other opening in the rhino.
Ventura trusts his arm out of the rhino’s faux butthole right as a safari group stops to observe what they believe is a rhino giving birth.
Ventura starts to grunt and gasp until he flops right out of the mechanism’s mangled bottom, much to the horror of the touring safari.
The butthole was restored ahead of the auction. Now, it “features a removable latex sheet backside,” according to the listing.
The door hatch and inside fan are also operational when powered on, the auction house assured.
The rhino doesn’t move like it did in the movie, since the latex “had dried out since production” and were replaced with “rigid, sculpted hard-coated styrofoam.”
The offbeat prop is expected to sell for up to $8,000 during the March 25 auction.
“Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” was a box office hit when it first released in 1995, just one year after “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.” It raked in more than $212 million worldwide off of a modest $30 million budget.
Critically, though, the sequel was a certified flop. It was the only sequel Carrey ever agreed to before embarking on “Dumb and Dumber To” in 2014.
The acclaimed comedian was always candid about his reluctance to do sequels, but changed his tune when he entered the “Sonic” franchise as its mainstay villain, Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik, in 2020.