Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels once stated, and probably still firmly believes, that any individual’s favorite cast of Saturday Night Live is the one from their college years. That may ring true for most, but I’ve been a fan of the show ever since I could really understand it. I’ve lived through the great years and the lean ones, but the first cast that really got my love of sketch comedy and SNL off the ground was the early 90s crew featuring Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Chris Farley, David Spade, Chris Rock, Dana Carvey and Mike Meyers.
This weekend sees the opening of a movie in which four of those cast members get back together both as actors and as their characters. Adam Sandler – by far the most successful of the bunch with his acting career and his own production company joins forces with Schneider, Spade, Rock and the non-SNL entity Kevin James for Grown Ups.
I can’t judge the film because I haven’t seen it, but by all accounts, it looks like all of these once cutting-edge comedians have grown up to pee in a pool together.
I find myself shaking my head and wondering how the titans of my youth (and Kevin James) could end up here. I have to assume that, in some small or large degree, they’re asking themselves the same question. Sandler got his start making funny noises, Rock was a cultural icon with a lot of funny things to say about racial relations, Schneider annoyed everyone by the copy machine, and Spade annoyed everyone while they got off a plane, but all of these men created phrases that were repeated ad nauseam around the water cooler. Kevin James has always based his comedy around being large (like a non-threatening Chris Farley), so his trajectory to this point seems less confusing, but for the others, it’s almost like seeing the neutering of sharp comedic minds come to fruition. And they’re all doing it in one convenient movie.
Do you plan on seeing Grown Ups when it comes out?
Related Topics: Adam Sandler
