Adam Sandler was on the verge of superstardom in 1993, but he may not have known it. Sure, he had become one of the most popular Saturday Night Live cast members, but many previous SNL alums had been ushered into obscurity rather than stardom. Sandler had only acted in a few small comedies (anyone remember Bobcat Goldthwait’s Shakes the Clown?), and despite some regular SNL characters like Opera Man and Canteen Boy, none were apt for a movie adaptation. Sandler’s friend Mike Myers had found movie stardom only a year prior when Wayne’s World made it to the big screen with a bang, but the thought of Adam Sandler’s movies one day grossing over $2 billion was laughable.
So he did what any young bachelor comic with nothing to lose would… he made a really dirty comedy album with his buddies called They’re All Gonna Laugh at You. The rest was history, as young adolescent males across America united in front of their boom boxes to listen to naughty sketches like “The Longest Pee” and “The Beating of a High School Janitor.” Three decades later, the married father version of Adam Sandler has moved towards doing comedy that’s way more family-friendly, but ’90s babies still vividly recall the sidesplitting hilarity and seriously politically incorrect sketches and songs that never could have made it onto SNL.
Adam Sandler Felt Encumbered at SNL
Essentially, the basic material for They’re All Gonna Laugh at You came from sketches and songs that Sandler wrote for SNL but couldn’t get on the air because they were too filthy. At age 27, Sandler still wanted to do edgier material, and getting sketches past the gatekeeper (SNL’s head writer) wasn’t always easy. Sandler thought he’d instead make a comedy album released on a record label, a space where he could be as naught as he wanted.
So Lorne Michaels introduced Sandler to Mo Ostin, then the Chairman of Warner Bros. Records. Sandler told Ostin he wanted to do something more than a mere stand-up album like the ones Richard Pryor used to release. Sandler wanted it to be more like Cheech & Chong’s albums — with sketches and songs. Sandler enlisted the help of legendary comedy album producer Brooks Arthur, who had already made comedy albums with the likes of Robin Williams.
Sandler Pulled Together a Team of Writers and Comedy Performers
For the writing team, Sandler pulled together a murderer’s row of writing talent, including Judd Apatow, Bob Odenkirk, SNL writer Tim Herlihy, and Conan O’Brien. To perform in the sketches with him, Sandler brought on his fellow SNL cast members like Rob Schneider, David Spade and Tim Meadows. Sandler recalled the recording dynamic for SPIN, “Schneider and Spade and all my friends from SNL were there, and we felt like no one was watching us. It was great. [We were] recording one thing in one room and in the other room Odenkirk and Herlihy were writing something else. It was so much fun.”
They’re All Gonna Laugh At You also had a bunch of sound design and foley to give the sketches a more realistic and much funnier outcome. Sandler worked closely with sound designer Elmo Weber to get all the hilarity out of the sketches. “If we were going to have the sound of someone taking a leak,” Sandler said, “I wanted it to sound really good.” That led to a sketch where the foley might have even been funnier than the dialogue.
Plenty of Content on the Adam Sandler Album Wouldn’t Fly Today, Save for the Songs
With Sandler characters like the wheezy Fatty McGee, the potty-mouthed Toll Booth Willie, and the straight-up perverted Buffoon, it’s a wonder that Sandler ever matured into making the romantic comedies and family-friendly content of today. Still, it has all the earmarks of classic Sandler films like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, like the New England-accented lummoxes, the endless toilet humor, and songs that make your heart melt while you break a rib from laughing so hard.
Speaking of the songs, two on the album had already been performed on SNL, “The Thanksgiving Song” and “Lunchlady Land,” and the Thanksgiving-themed track may be the album’s greatest legacy today, still getting regular radio and streaming play around Turkey Day. It presaged Sandler’s later “The Chanukah Song” and proved that it was no fluke when They’re All Gonna Laugh at You got nominated for the Grammy for Best Comedy Album the following year, having sold over 2 million copies.
Sandler went on to become one of the highest-earning actors of all time over the next 30 years and has recently returned to stand-up comedy with a spate of specials for Netflix. Could another filthy comedy album be in the stars? Given Sandler’s fatherhood and the type of content he’s making these days… we won’t hold our breath. They’re All Gonna Laugh at You is available for purchase on Amazon.
