I think Big Daddy was the last purely comedy of his I ever saw, but the last film of his I ever saw was "Spanglish", a puketastic saccharine romcom/drama that no one remembers from his "I'm totally gonna move on from those silly juvenile comedies where I play the overgrown manchild and be a serious grown up actor for grown ups now!" stage.

Amazingly, now that I think about it, Spanglish had zero product placement in it, absolutely none.

I will always love Punch Drunk Love. It was a beautiful, brilliant film and he should have been nomiated for Best Actor for it. He had such potential but then he just decided to cash in.

I've heard good things about Funny People and The Cobbler, but I haven't seen either. My distrust of him is too deep now.

Big Daddy is awful, especially the climactic courtroom scene where Sandler plays the majority of it for laughs then suddenly wants it to be a tearjerker. Then characters make jokes about McDonald's and Hooters when they're not eating at McDonald's or Hooters. The bitchy girlfriend dumps Sandler and her comeuppance is becoming a Hooters waitress. The Jon Stewart character's wife gets made fun of throughout the movie for being a former Hooters girl, but seriously, audience, this really means you should eat at Hooters. And drink YooHoo and order McDonald's.

Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore are terrible as well, but my brother and I still quote it at each other. Adam Sandler is part of my childhood whether I want him there or not.

I think the kids in Big Daddy are funny.

The which now? "Cajun Man"?

re-cog-ni-SHAWN

So I had to look it up.

Was this like that episode of King of the Hill, where Bobby is trying to fathom Ray Jay Johnson? Because that's what it feels like to me.

I tried talking with my parents about Ray Jay Johnston and they said even at the time they didn't think it was funny, or knew anyone who thought it was.

Same with Charlie fucking Callas. I enjoyed this Opie & Anthony clip where they tore them apart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W8p7tCAw9U

and did Sandler ever have a character that wasn't "_____ man" ?

Well, there's always been a convention of SNL characters, good and bad, whose names are meant to set up the bit for the audience by explaining the premise: Mr. Short Term Memory, Helmethead, Samurai Marriage Counselor, Open Head Wound Man, Debbie Downer, The Church Lady, Lyle the Effemionate Heterosexuial, etc.

I think it's best to just remember that everything SNL does is terrible, and move on from there.

Regarding Ray Jay Johnson, Bobby and I are on the same page. The weird thing about Ray Jay was that he didn't have a platform of his own. He'd just walk onto whatever YTV show you were watching, repeat the exact same jopke, and for about a month in the late 70s, people thought it was the greatest thing ever. Also, and this is even weirder, it appears that Bob Dylan may have referenced RayJay in "Serve Someone", a minor hit from his Born Again Christian phase. It may be a coincidence, but it times out about right.

No, there's no doubt about it. In what (one would hope) must be the cheesiest pop culture reference of his career, Bob Dylan mentions Ray Jay Johnson in one of his songs.. It's right at the end.

https://youtu.be/jtIEYjNZgiU

I guess he was a fan?

Just long enough to identify the evil and pass judgment accordingly. This is also my MO when watching a lot of POE

He knows what he's doing selling ads for money?

You don't say.

The internet pretty much exposed him for a Ponzi scheme when it came out that Jack and Jill took 75 million dollars to make. RedLetterMedia did a great video on Jack and Jill. All of that went to him and his SNL buddies, which actually makes me respect him in a way. Most of those people like David Spade and Rob Shneider really didn't make it big like Sandler so he wanted to be loyal to them, and I admire that. Even if he made a great, stinking hunk of absolute shit that wound up being an eternal shitpile that will burn the eyes of everyone that watches it for eternity.

Mr Sandler's fine. He's not my favorite comedian and I certainly wouldn't attend any of his films, but people like him enough to pay to see his movies, he's a clever businessman who's hit on a way to profit from corporate interests in a respectful, non-Orwellian manner, and he is loyal to his friends. Every interaction is voluntary, there is little element of fraud or propaganda - his work is simple, mindless, teen-friendly entertainment, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I basically agree with Homer. It's fun to mock him, and he can afford to be mocked, but nobody should actually hate someone for something so innocuous as making bad movies. I hear Punch-Drunk Love is really good, so I suppose he's had a moment of artistic accomplishment. That's more than most accomplish.

Back in the sixties, or maybe it was the seventies, someone asked Rod Stieger, in a dismissive way, what Arthur Miller had done lately. He replied: "He wrote Death of A Salesman, and The Crucible, and for that you should kiss his ass." Or words to that effect.

I had to stop the video at Dunkacino. I was too embarrassed for him.

It's so easy to imagine Adam Sandler standing off to the side yelling "ass to ass" in that scene.

If you're actor, and you're working, you're doing all right.