They’re All Gonna Laugh At You!

I seldom forget a good paroxysm of laughter. For example, one of the best memories of my time working at the mall record store involves an album played after closing, one night in 1993. Myself and two other employees were doubled over, purple-faced, unable to breathe from laughing so hard. It felt like the skin at the base of my skull was going to split.

The album was They’re All Gonna Laugh At You!, and the man responsible was Adam Sandler.

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At 21, I was smack-dab in the target age range for this record. Sandler was coming off of the last great run of Saturday Night Live, and was a force of comedy momentum in the early 1990s. He was fully tapped into his inner pinhead, and wasn’t yet afflicted by dramatic yearnings. SNL‘s G.E. Smith was the musical director, and Sandler brought in a crew of fellow writers that would become his personal frat; Robert (Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) Smigel, Allen (Grandma’s Boy) Covert, even a little-known dude name o’ Conan O’Brien. David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Tim Meadows added considerable vocal talent.

This might sound like the height of lunacy, but there was a time when we loved- maybe even adored Rob Schneider. He used to kill as the “makin’ copies guy” on SNL. He was quoted without irony. He co-starred with Ron Eldard on a sitcom called Men Behaving Badly, and it was hilarious. It had Justine Bateman. One time Schneider ran out of coffee filters, and used his underpants instead. 1996, ladies and gentlemen.

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But over the years that followed, Sandler and company would systemically destroy every ounce of goodwill they had built, to the point where YouTube personalities gain fame by attacking him. This year he made Pixels, which, despite a great cast and a fun concept, became more famous for bringing amateur criticism to the fore than any merits it might have offered. I haven’t seen it because I do get angry when I literally could’ve made a better movie myself.

THEY'RE NOT GONNA LAUGH AT YOU!

THEY’RE NOT GONNA LAUGH AT YOU!

Adam Sandler was a stand-up comedian in his teens, before he became one of the youngest sensations to ride Lorne Michaels’ Saturday Night train. This is the problem. When you are young and famous, all criticism is negated by your success. There’s no need to hone your craft when the money is already there. You’re encouraged to rest on your laurels and repeat the routines that made you. It’s creative stasis; you are born product. No one survives. Witness the formula:

  1. Adam Sandler movie is released with huge marketing push.
  2. Everyone hates it.
  3. Everyone talks about how much they hate Adam Sandler movies.
  4. Rob Schneider gives a terrible interview.
  5. Everyone talks about how Rob Schneider has no talent.
  6. Everyone concludes that Sandler movies are worse than Hitler.
  7. Someone says “calm down, it’s just a movie”.
  8. Everyone forgets about the Sandler movie for a year.
  9. GOTO 1

You can’t walk up to a billionaire comedian and say “you’re funniest when you act retarded”. Just do what the rest of us do; go rent The Waterboy, and be satisfied with that. What can I tell you? You’re here on this site because things were a lot better before 2001. It was lightning in a bottle. Be grateful for what you have. It’s been a rough century thus far, you know?

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Anyway. Let’s get back to belly laughs in 1993.

First of all, not everything on They’re All Gonna Laugh At You! is funny. None of the five songs really hold up, and a handful of skits are pure filler. But the sound effects and voice acting are so top-notch, that the sketches become a kind of low-brow art. On this album (and to a lesser extent, its follow-up), Sandler is the funniest he has ever been.

There are two over-arching narratives on the disc, the first featuring Sandler’s “Buffoon”, and the second being a series of severe beatings.

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. –A.S. (from liner notes)

The first beating to be administered is received by “a high school janitor”. This may possibly be the funniest thirty seconds you’ll ever hear.

The sound effects are amazingly crisp. Who knew the words “that’s my bucket” could be that funny? Sandler does it again as a high school bus driver who is clobbered by a silent assailant. Listen to him cheerfully call the children in by name, before he gets the whack on the steering wheel:

The blows continue to rain upon a science teacher (Rob Schneider: “You’re breaking the beakers!”) and a Spanish teacher, to riotous effect. Each beating is preceded by a peppy intro spoken by Conan O’Brien or Schneider that deflates any negative tension. The environmental recording is astute, and creates an immersive atmosphere. Aurally, it feels just like goofing off in class.

One of my favorite tracks on the album uses these sonic tricks to resemble weird performance art. Most people don’t dig it, but it makes me laugh my ass off. I could’ve sworn it was Tim Meadows as the voice on the phone, but it’s credited to Steve Koren. I hope this Kafkaesque masterpiece isn’t lost on today’s listeners because of the antique telephone functions. People of the future: the noises on this track are discrete and accurate.

The track that the album title comes from (“Oh Mom…”) is a bit of a dud, inspired by the mother from Carrie, but Sandler’s incessant repetition of the line is one of those unfunny things that comes around to being side-splitting. “Buddy”, featuring nearly the entire cast, was made into an animation that I think appeared on SNL. If you find repeating the word “buddy” to be funny, or you like that “dude” scene from BASEketball, you’ll probably love it. “The Longest Pee”, to quote Lisa Simpson, “delivers what it promises”.

The Buffoon is an early Sandler creation based around the following formula:

  • Establish relatively formal situation
  • Buffoon makes wholly inappropriate proclamation

Sandler’s timing and delivery as the Buffoon are the pinnacle of his “idiot” persona. He isn’t an ethnic creation, like the goat from the following album, and everything he says is a mic drop. Listen to his story about his snake from “The Buffoon And The Dean Of Admissions” (Conan again).

My eyes squinted shut when I first heard that. It was the type of laughter that causes involuntary facial spasms. When you make an audience laugh that hard, they follow you for the rest of your life to see what you’re gonna do. That is the price, and the pact. Trust me, the better you understand that, the better you’ll understand behaviors you once considered lunatic. Laughter and orgasms are analogous, and equal in their power.

Sports injuries, also known for their slapstick potential, make appearances on “Right Field” and “The Cheerleader”. Sandler plays a terrified right-fielder and a rallying cheerleader, respectively, and Steve Koren throws in the most perfectly timed “SIT DOWN” ever recorded. The sound of a projectile whistling through the air before it smacks into a noggin is also a real panic.

But the high point of the album, maybe even life as we know it, is “Fatty McGee”.

If you aren’t familiar with “Fatty McGee”, there’s a chance you won’t like it. It’s a different style of comedy, from a bygone time. Technically, it’s about a high school student with a deviated septum who is so obese he can barely move. On the stairs to the library (they’re fun), he becomes short of breath, and his high voice sets off the fire alarm. A fireman arrives, and declares Fatty the fattest.  Ahhhh, les mot juste!!!

The final third of the album wraps up the running gags, and offers “I’m So Wasted”, a hysterical prank war that ends in tears, and “Tollbooth Willie”, featuring Sandler as Worcester’s most combative toll collector. That’s the track where David Spade calls Willie a “dried-up ol’ stinky dick licker” (or similar), which I’ve utilized as a standard insult for years. Most of the female voices are supplied by “Sweet” Margaret Ruden, Sandler’s girlfriend at the time, which explains her general under-confidence. Still, she does a decent job, and “Tollbooth Willie” is fucking uproarious.

Everything that people celebrate about Sandler’s movies; the perfectly-timed burns, the raucous lunchroom ambiance, the schoolyard impishness; it all originated here. This is the reason people still follow him, eager to see what he’ll do. They know he can create that world again for them. Maybe he still can.

Adam Sandler produced the comedy album What The Hell Happened To Me? in 1996. It also contains one of the Funniest Things He Ever Did, the faux reggae classic “Ode To My Car”. The backing vocals are gorgeous, Sandler abandons his Bob Marley impression about halfway through, and the lyrics are accessible for anyone who’s ever owned a used automobile.

“What the fuck did I do, what the fuck did I do,
What the fuck did I do,
To get stuck with you,
You’re too wide for drive-thru,
And you smell like the shoe,
But I’m too broke to buy something new.”

That’s why people come back to him, and that’s why people still love him. It just doesn’t get the airtime that Happy Gilmore does.

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