Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502100052
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: DALLAS LENGTH: Medium
Sandler is hoping to explode on the scene this weekend as the star of the new movie comedy "Billy Madison." He has been building to this make-or-break moment with five years on SNL, a Grammy-nominated CD (``they're all gonna laugh at you!'') and supporting roles in two box-office bombs - ``Airheads'' and ``Mixed Nuts.''
``When I was 17, I said I'd like to get on `Saturday Night Live' and then I'd like to get into the movies,'' he says. ``And it's happening right now, so I'm taking advantage of it.''
Sandler wrote ``Billy Madison'' with his best pal, Tim Herlihy, who joined the SNL writing staff last year. The title character is a billionaire's son who plans to inherit his father's hotel business. But lazy, spoiled, thick-headed Billy has spent his 27 years making Pauly Shore seem like a Rhodes scholar. When Dad balks at turning over the family business, Billy bets his father that he can repeat and pass grades 1 to 12 in 24 weeks. If all goes according to plan, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss your brains goodbye.
``I've seen screenings, and it's a fun time,'' Sandler says. ``People leave happy. It's a good place for an hour and a half to just go goof off. Got a lotta nice, juicy laughs in there.''
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Manchester, N.H., Sandler says Abbott and Costello and Jerry Lewis made him laugh as a kid. ``Animal House,'' ``Airplane!'' and, especially, ``Caddyshack'' informed his junior-high years.
He used to sing around the house and play the guitar in high school bands with a ``bunch of silly names'' such as Final Warning, Storm and Spectrum.
``My mom would always like to hear me sing, and so she sent me to take some lessons when I was a kid,'' he recalls. ``And that didn't work out too well because I always would rather be playing baseball than singing in a room with an old lady.''
His latter-day singing voice can be a little boy's falsetto one second and a Joe Cocker gravel mix the next. Sandler's CD includes five tunes among its 22 comedy tracks. ``The Thanksgiving Song'' and ``Lunchlady Land,'' originally performed on SNL, are nonsensically sweet enough to sing before open-minded Rotarians. The exceedingly profane ``At a Medium Pace,'' which Sandler performed in concert last week at Southern Methodist University, is one of the multiple reasons his CD has a parental advisory label.
Sandler made it to New York University, where he earned a fine-arts degree. Matriculating at ``SNL,'' he has become best known for his commentaries and characterizations on the ``Weekend Update'' segment. Opera Man and Cajun Man are two of his better efforts.
If ``Billy Madison'' hits a long ball at the box office, Sandler might find himself leaving ``SNL'' and defending the show from a distance next season. The recent Jim Carrey-ing of America (``Ace Ventura, Pet Detective''; ``The Mask''; ``Dumb and Dumber'') ``definitely helps us all,'' he says. ``It lets Hollywood take a chance on newer guys starring in movies.''
To that end, Sandler and Herlihy are two-thirds of the way through their script for ``Happy Gilmore,'' which is scheduled to begin production this summer.
``It's about a blue-collar, sorta drunken construction guy who finds out he's got a crazy golf swing,'' Sandler explains. ``He can drive the green on a par 4 hole, and so he gets on the PGA tour. So he's just a drunken lout playing golf for money.''
Carrey on.
by CNB