Happy Gilmore (1996) Has Become an Allegory for Adam Sandler’s Acting Career

My very first favorite actor was Daniel Stern. As a child, I laughed my butt off at his antics in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and I loved his even goofier character in Rookie of the Year.¹ I even dragged my friends and family to see Bushwhacked and Celtic Pride in theaters, both of which seemed like a good idea in my child brain.

But just a few years later, he lost his favorite actor status to Adam Sandler. I can’t remember exactly how I was first exposed to Sandler. He left Saturday Night Live when I was just nine years old (and still watching movies like Bushwhacked), so I was too young to catch him in prime time. And since his comedy albums bore that dreaded parental advisory label on the covers, those were off limits until around the time I reached middle school. Even though I was already watching PG-13 movies by then.²

Truthfully, I think it was the idea of Adam Sandler that I was first drawn to. My elementary school friends made him sound like the funniest man alive. As soon as I could, I rented Billy Madison from the video store. Then I watched it in our den where my parents couldn’t hear it, probably because I was worried they’d hear him say bad words and make me turn it off. And I was so floored by this obvious comedic genius that I immediately rewound it and watched it again—the last time I can remember ever doing that with a movie.

Naturally, I sought out Happy Gilmore after that and loved it almost as much. It didn’t make me laugh as hard, but it was just as quotable (a very important trait when you’re a preteen boy), and it felt more like an actual movie. I watched it many times, though at a certain point, I felt as though I’d grown out of it.³ And up until a few days ago, I hadn’t seen it for at least 20 if not 25 years.

I remembered almost every beat. I laughed more than I expected to. But most importantly, I was struck by how well Happy Gilmore works as a prophetic allegory for Adam Sandler’s career on the big screen.

When we’re introduced to Sandler’s titular character, we immediately learn that hockey is his number one passion. His father passed down his love of hockey to Happy, teaching him the fundamentals of the game and taking him to games often—until he’s tragically (though hilariously) killed by a puck to the face.⁴ After that, Happy simply couldn’t let go of the sport, trying out (and failing to make the cut) for numerous semi-professional teams even though his only notable skill is a deadly slapshot.

Happy discovers on a whim that his slapshot translates to an other-worldly golf swing—right around the time his grandmother gets evicted from the house he grew up in. At the advice of Chubbs, a listless golf coach (played by a very funny Carl Weathers), he competes and wins a local open tournament because he believes he can make enough money on the PGA Tour to buy his grandmother’s house back. One giant cardboard check after another, he does start to make some money.

But even as he becomes a novelty golf celebrity, Happy refuses to identify as a golfer.

In the scene where he checks in for his very first PGA event, the AT&T Invitational in Portland, he lets the attendant know right off the bat: “Hey, I’m a hockey player, but I’m playing golf today.” Even after several tournaments and hundreds of thousands in earnings, Happy doesn’t take his new profession seriously, insisting that he “[doesn’t] belong in this sport” and that he’s only on the tour for one reason: “I don’t wanna be a big [golf] star. I wanna make some money.”

Sandler is far from the first standup/sketch comedian to become a movie star. He wasn’t even the first SNL cast member to hit it big. Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and other comedians-turned-actors were headlining feature films before Sandler could legally drink.

But one could argue that he’s stretched his talents further into the realm of “serious” acting than any SNL alum before or since. Sure, many of his fellow SNL veterans have branched out to become legitimate performers. Many of them have even earned Oscar nominations, though interestingly enough, only Murray has earned one for a leading performance.⁵ But has Eddie Murphy given us an Uncut Gems? Has Chevy Chase given us a Punch Drunk Love? Has Bill Murray given us a Hustle? Has Dan Aykroyd even given us a Funny People?⁶

Happy Gilmore makes decent money at golf just by being himself—an irreverent slacker who cusses up a storm and wears street clothes on the course. (Or a “colorful, emotional, working-class hero” if you ask his love interest Virginia, played by Julie Bowen.) But he doesn’t actually win a PGA event until he takes the game seriously by learning how to putt and maintaining his focus. He understands that he’s capable of bigger, better things if he can convince himself that he’s not just a hockey player anymore.

Maybe it was Paul Thomas Anderson, or James L. Brooks, or Judd Apatow. Maybe it was Noah Baumbach, whose upcoming film Jay Kelly is already getting Oscar buzz on Sandler’s behalf almost a decade after they teamed up for The Meyerowitz Stories. Somewhere along the way, though, one or more of Sandler’s directors gave him Chubbs-esque support and convinced him to take acting seriously. Sure, he’s still making juvenile comedies like Sandy Wexler, Hubie Halloween, even the impending Happy Gilmore 2.⁷ But he learned how to putt, and now he can make some money and be a big star.

Happy Gilmore is now streaming on Netflix, and it is available to rent elsewhere.

1. I didn’t learn until much later in life that Stern also directed Rookie of the Year. How about that.

2. Like Bushwhacked. Did you know Bushwhacked is PG-13? I could’ve sworn it was PG. My parents really did me a solid by taking me and my friends to the theater for that one.

3. Before I grew out of my Sandler phase, I owned all of his films on VHS, up until Little Nicky (which I actually had on DVD, because I was high-tech by then). I even had Going Overboard, which I did not enjoy even as a child, and Bulletproof, which I can’t remember watching at all.

4. Happy tells us that his mother moved to Egypt because his father watched too much hockey, which, I have to say, sounds a bit extreme. I watch a lot of basketball, but my partner hasn’t threatened to move to another continent, thankfully.

5. Unless you count Robert Downey Jr. as an SNL alum, which I do not, even though he technically is.

6. It should be noted that Aykroyd’s lone Oscar nomination was for Driving Miss Daisy, which is…not exactly complimentary in hindsight.

7. Has the legacyquel gone too far? There’s no way Happy Gilmore 2 is good, right? I guess I’ll watch it. Ugh.