Adam Sandler: America's Comedian

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Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Page

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To everyone who likes to eat paste

acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my agent, Jim Hornfisher; my editor, Joe Veltre at St. Martin’s Press; and all the millions of Adam Sandler fans around the world. Hope you like the book.

introduction

Look! Up on the screen! It’s a stand-up comic! It’s a rock star! It’s a movie star! No, it’s Adam Sandler, the new superman of American entertainment. He pees! He barfs! He can hang a loogie down to the ground! And he earns more than $30 million for every movie he makes.

Not since Eddie Murphy has a talent so raw burst from the comedy pack to storm the American box office. Adam Sandler makes audiences laugh until they puke and then laugh even harder. His comedy is 100 percent Sandlerific—broad, brash, and completely out of control. Who else but Adam Sandler would cut the song The Longest Pee, or star in gay beer ads? And who but the Sandman would have the balls to print the following warning on his first CD, They’re All Gonna Laugh at You: Anyone disturbed by the severe beating segments on this album should be informed that those who received the beatings were beaten not because they were teachers or public servants, but due to the fact that they were mass-murderers and/or necrophiliacs. Especially the Spanish teacher.

This book tells Adam’s story and the story of the people, the characters, and the entertainment business that have helped make Adam Sandler the superstar he is today. The book covers Adam’s childhood and his early nightclub career, his years on Saturday Night Live, his first appearances in the movies, and his astoundingly successful stint as Hollywood’s funniest gibberish-spouting movie star.

I hope this book will make you laugh so hard you’ll want to pee on yourself—or at least against a convenient wall. And if you have a hard time understanding any of the big words in the book, MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO BACK AND REPEAT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Hey, Billy Madison did it. It can’t be that bad.

chapter one

the boy who grew up to be a boy

Have you ever wondered about the real Adam Sandler? Is he truly obsessed by mass murderers, necrophiliacs, and psychotics who cut off their own hands? After minutes of research, we can honestly report that beneath the retarded, slow-talking, poop-burning, wall-peeing, giggling hyperactive Adam Sandler exterior lies a kind, gentle, brilliant, and caring human being. Adam Sandler is one of the most successful guys in Hollywood. And one of the nicest guys anywhere.

Not only is he nice, but he’s one of the world’s greatest geniuses. He’s a theoretical physicist who often spends his mornings contemplating the quark. At lunch, you can find him meeting with ambassadors and heads of state, pondering the most recent developments in Kyrgyzstan before he heads to the lab to conduct Nobel Prize–winning cancer research. In the evening, Adam enjoys nothing more than cooking Tuscan cuisine for his wife, listening to Verdi’s operas, patting his golden retriever, and playing Yahtzee with his two adorable children, Felicity and Edward.

Fooled ya! With Adam Sandler, what you see on the screen is pretty much what you get in real life. He is a fun-loving jokester, a guy who likes to fool around with his buddies, make out with beautiful women, party, play the guitar, sing songs, fart, pee, and create silly movies.

Adam makes being funny look easy. But it takes hours of work, months of preparation, and years of training to come up with the right punch line at the right time delivered just right. Adam’s dedication to nuttiness has paid off to the tune of $30 million plus per movie—and as long as audiences keep laughing at him, Adam Sandler gets to laugh all the way to the bank, the bar, the Jacuzzi, the Lear jet, or wherever else he wants to go. Adam Sandler is the smartest dumb comedian in this or any other universe.

Whence did this fountain of humorous creativity spring? Was Adam Sandler bioengineered in a top-secret government installation dedicated to the creation of a super race of idiotic buffoons? I don’t think so.

Adam was born September 9, 1966, his sun in Virgo and his moon in Cancer. His parents, Stan and Judy Sandler, were two ordinary everyday people making their home in Brooklyn, New York. Stan was an electrical engineer, Judy a homemaker. Adam grew up with three older siblings: a brother, Scott, and two sisters, Elizabeth and Valerie.

As a young kid, Adam was close to his immediate family and his grandparents, who always seemed to hang around. Brooklyn was a place where a nice Jewish boy like Adam could explore the spiritual heritage of his people, get into a fight, or just sit around, suck his toes, and imitate his dad’s sneeze. "He goes ‘Ayeestra!’ Adam later explained. It sounds like a Hebrew word."

Adam looks back fondly on childhood, especially on his mother’s home cooking. My mom made the best lasagna, with a lot of meat in there, Adam confessed. As Adam grew into manhood he became increasingly fond of Tombstone pizza with green peppers and onions.

Adam was just getting used to his Brooklyn ‘hood when his parents moved the family to Manchester, New Hampshire. Why Manchester? Most likely, Adam’s folks made the move because they wanted to enjoy the quality of life in picturesque New England. I worship New England, Adam once gushed. Everytime I drive in New England, I’m happy. The only problem is the amount of doughnuts I eat at Dunkin’ Donuts there. Cream-filled Bavarian. Honey-glazed raised. Rich, chocolate-covered cake. All the best varieties of deep-fried dough are available at the Dunkin’ Donuts in Manchester, along the banks of the Merrimack River.

The Sandlers arrived in the city of Manchester, New Hampshire (current population 103,330, excluding lobsters), just in time for Adam to join Mrs. Chris Kendall’s first-grade class at Manchester’s Webster Elementary. The school was named for Daniel Webster, the great New Hampshire nineteenth-century orator, who ended many a memorable speech by passing out dead drunk.

As they say in New England: Boss. Wicked. Or at least Adam thought the school was wicked. When recess came on his first day of school, Adam picked up his lunch box, ran home, and explained to his mother that he wasn’t cut out for first grade. That story wasn’t good enough for Judy Sandler, and Adam’s mom took him back to school.

But Adam was a determined young man who firmly believed in following his own path. On the second day of first grade, he followed his own path away from school and back home again. Only this time, he didn’t go straight to his mom. Mrs. Kendall called Mrs. Sandler and asked, Is Adam there? Adam’s mom checked around the house and discovered her youngest child hiding in the shrubbery. Years later, Mrs. Kendall recalled, His first couple of days were real teary-eyed.

Adam’s mother dried Adam’s tears, convinced him to make it through first grade, and even organized a bridal shower for Mrs. Kendall. All the kids in Adam’s class brought safe, nonthreatening kitchen implements to school and presented them to the teacher. Young Adam went even further. After he had a close encounter with Mrs. Kendall’s boyfriend at a Service Merchandise store, Adam composed an essay for Mrs. Kendall. He’s funny, Adam wrote, describing his first-grade teacher’s love object. He looks like Sonny. Sonny who? Sonny Bono, of course, the late comedian turned congressman.

Like most American youth, Adam spent much of his most formative years staring at a television set. His real education came from shows like The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (1971–74). Television in the early 1970s not only showcased the elbow-breaking humor of the couple who sang The Beat Goes On and wore fur vests, it also offered Happy Days; Welcome Back, Kotter; and The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. I grew up in a nice home where it was important to make each other laugh, Adam recalled. I have a brother, two sisters, and my parents and grandparents were always around. We used to watch a lot of movies with Jerry Lewis, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello.

Adam enjoyed watching the boob tube with his dad, who appreciated the great, schlocky horror films in addition to black-and-white comedies. Adam recalled, My dad just—all he did was let me do my thing. He like—my dad was watching creature double feature every Saturday, just ’cause I wanted to, and he didn’t even bat an eye. He was just like, ‘All right, Godzilla versus Rodan, let’s do it.’ Even if Godzilla crushed buildings or Groucho Marx flicked his cigar way into the night, Stan Sandler still allowed young Adam to watch the goofy stuff with him, and Adam was thrilled when his father yelled from the TV room, Get in here.

Images from Marx Brothers movies such as Animal Crackers (1930), Monkey Business (1931), and A Night at the Opera (1935), soaked into Adam’s brain along with Jerry Lewis screaming, falling, and sticking out his teeth in movies like The Geisha Boy (1958), Cinderfella (1960), The Nutty Professor (1963), and The Disorderly Orderly (1964). Years later, Adam talked about his early influences, and when asked if he would ever put Jerry Lewis in one of his movies, said, Yeah, someday that’d be excellent. Adam continued, Comedians owe him a lot—every part of show biz does. He was a major force and still is a major force. I respect the man greatly and would love to work with him.

In the early 1970s, the Sandlers went on holiday to the Catskill Mountains in New York. There, in the resort area known as the borscht belt because of its popularity with families descended from Eastern European Jews, Adam experienced stand-up comedy for the first time. This guy was missing a finger, Adam recalled. My dad was laughing his butt off. My brother loved the guy. I was just staring. Adam’s dad also loved to listen to comedy albums by Rodney Dangerfield. I couldn’t believe how hard my dad laughed.…

When he wasn’t watching or hanging around with his father, Adam did what other kids did. He played ball. He went to school. He dressed up on Halloween. Dracula was fun because of the fake teeth. My dad made me a cape. It was red on the inside and zebra on the outside. It was kind of a Lenny Kravitz Dracula.

At age eight Adam entered a neighborhood Punt, Pass, and Kick competition and won, I was the only kid in my age bracket. I wanted to pretend that I was the champion but it really was because I was the only kid there. For a while, Adam dreamed of being a professional athlete. I wanted to be a baseball player, he confessed. But, uh, I was very slow running to that first base. I was the only kid in Little League who could hit one to the wall and get thrown out at first base.

Although he wasn’t a standout, Adam always liked sports, especially basketball. He liked to knock around with his buddies, shooting hoops. Most of the fun was just hanging out, being goofy, and cracking up his gang. Adam started to loosen up. Until sixth grade, I did really well in school. All of a sudden, I said, ‘I can’t read and be so serious in class anymore.’ I don’t know why, but I just started to have fun.

Adam loved being funny in class. But he claimed that his funniest moments came when he was in elementary school and went to the movies. He didn’t really like to watch the movies. What he really liked was yelling jokes at the screen and making the whole theater laugh. I’d always say five jokes, and there would be four power laughs. And then the fifth one I would say, ‘Hey, nice hair!’ or something like that, and somebody would go, ‘Hey, shut up,’ and then it would just take away the other four jokes I killed on—everyone turned on me. But that was definitely the place where I was funny.

Sometimes, Adam performed for his family, especially his mom. He’d sing songs for her like The Candy Man, which was a big hit for Sammy Davis, Jr., and Maria, a song from the musical West Side Story. I used to sing in the car for my mom, Adam recalled. My mom liked Barbra Streisand a lot.

When Adam’s mom scolded him, he used a show biz technique to change her mood. He’d record her voice and played the tape back to her. If Adam could get his mom to laugh, she’d forget about punishing him. According to Adam’s brother, Scott, He’d keep her happy most of the time.

Even as a kid, Adam performed in public. My first public performance was singing ‘House of the Rising Sun,’ Adam recalled. It was in a seventh-grade talent show. I remember my mother driving me home afterward, and she said, ‘You kept cracking your voice.’ So she thought I didn’t nail it. But I thought I was pretty good.

Adam got interested in girls pretty early. He got particularly interested in making out with girls like the twins Patty and Pam Mulroy. When Adam first kissed Patty, he didn’t close his eyes. I was young.… I guess I like watching—just seeing things while kissing, you know?

When Adam was in the sixth grade, eating dinner with his family, he remembers, My mom said, ‘Adam, Kim’s on the phone.’ And I said to my dad, ‘See that? The girls are calling.’ I got on the phone and said hello. And then I hear, ‘This is Kim.’ And she tells me the girl I was dating wants to break up with me. I said, ‘Okay.’ I walked back to the table, and my dad says, ‘How’d that go?’ I said, ‘Good.’ He said, ‘What’d she say?’ I told him, ‘She said she was excited to see me tomorrow.’ He said, ‘All right. Good job.’ And then I stared at my plate and tried not to cry the whole dinner.

(Adam