Billy Madison (1995) « Cut The Crap Movie Reviews
Tim Herlihy, a great SNL writer from the 90s, teamed up with Adam Sandler to pen this pretty good harmless comedy. This film basically introduced the non-SNL watching public to Adam Sandler.
:::
Billy Madison barely edges out Happy Gilmore as Sandler’s best contribution to society since “The Chanukkah Song”.
Billy Madison is about a twenty-something man child who has to graduate from first through twelfth grade in one-week intervals in order to take over his father’s wealthy company before a real weaselly scumbag businessman beats him to the punch. Along the way he falls for his third grade teacher who initially hates him, but then he pretends to wet himself and she can no longer resist him.
Yeah, this is a really freakin’ stupid movie, but just go with it.
Ya’ see, kiddies, long before Click, Zohan, Chuck & Larry, The Longest Yard, 50 First Dates, Eight Crazy Nights, Mr. Deeds and Little Nicky, there was good old Billy Madison, and oh how sweet it was. It was the year 1995, it was a funnier time, it was the days when people used to actually watch Saturday Night Live instead of relying on Betty White and Lazy Sundays to balance out the crickets, and it was the first time a youngin’ from New Hampshire named Adam Sandler made his big time movie debut (not counting Mixed Nuts).
And as if it even warrants mentioning, Sandler did alright for himself from that point on, and for good reason, too.
With the exception of all his gibberish talk at the beginning and the whole “Do you have any more gum?” line when everyone breaks into song, Sandler makes people laugh because he not only plays a damn good idiot, but he knows how to write like an idiot, and I mean that in the best way possible. Along with SNL co-writer Tim Herlihy, the funniest gags and situations can more or less be broken down to the “random” category, and since I can be a huge fan of random when it’s closer to Monty Python and further from Family Guy, I thoroughly enjoy what this movie has to offer.
Whether it’s Chris Farley and Norm MacDonald stealing and eating thirty kids’ lunches, Bradley Whitford being engulfed in flames during a pie cooking competition (only to show up magically unscathed in the next scene) or how James Downey keeps on talking about his tramp of a wife in the middle of an academic decathlon, it’s all hilarious and there’s a lot of it to go around.
Apparently it doesn’t hurt to write a script while both high and drunk.
Look, there isn’t really a whole lot to analyze with Billy Madison, because it’s kinda hard to convey the humor that goes along with old women saying that they’re cooler than Miles Davis because they piss their pants, but if that right there just made you chuckle, there you go, you’re on the level. But there’s also a great Steve Buscemi cameo, but he’s arguably the strangest aspect of the whole movie.
Billy Madison is unbelievably juvenile and it might not be your thing if you don’t find 69 jokes funny anymore, but it always cracks me up, I still quote it far more than I probably should and it’s one of the best and most bittersweet reminders of how funny Sandler can be. I have gone through the occasional phase where this has just been too dumb for me to handle, but I really don’t know what I was thinking, I’m all better now.
What can I say, I grew up on it and so did all my friends. We’re a silly lot.
Does help to watch with alcohol though.
