Watching ‘The Waterboy’ 20 Years Later Reminded Me Of What A Gem It Is

Growing up in the 90’s, Adam Sandler was sort of an icon when it came to comedy films, skits, and just about anything else – from movies like The Wedding Singer and Happy Gilmore to Saturday Night Live skits such as “The Hanukkah Song” – just to name a few. If you recall, one of Sandler’s best titles to date, The Waterboy, was released in 1998 and centers on a bullied waterboy turned college football superstar. In the spirit of Super Bowl LII, this writer decided to stream the classic title 20 years later and one thing became inherently clear… the film is a true gem.

In the film, Sandler plays a stuttering 31-year-old Louisiana “momma’s boy” named Bobby Boucher (a character we can only presume was inspired by his SNL persona “Canteen Boy”). Bobby has been conditioned to listen to everything his overprotective momma Helen (Kathy Bates) tells him. Bobby takes his job as waterboy for the town’s local college football team The Cougars very seriously, that is until he is fired by disgruntled head coach Red Beaulieu (Jerry Reed).

Bobby then heads out on a mission to find a new employer (paid or otherwise) and stumbles across the struggling South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs. Perturbed by the team’s lackluster drinking water situation, Bobby begs head coach Klein (Henry Winkler) for the job and is hired on the spot.

When Bobby starts to get ridiculed once again by his new team, his anger begins to boil and he eventually explodes and tackles the team’s quarterback Gee Grenouille (Sandler’s Happy Madison cohort Peter Dante). Coach Klein takes immediate interest in Boucher’s tackling skills as the saving grace for his pathetic team and the rest is history. Gee’s taunts and Red’s harsh ridicules of Boucher, what Bobby and Coach Klein refer to as “tackling fuel,” make for some of the most hilarious supporting lines of the film.

One of the film’s best cameo(s) comes from Rob Schneider, who plays a local townie whose sole purpose is to yell “You can do it!” at pretty much any motivational turning point. One thing you might not have realized on first watch was that Schneider doesn’t even appear until the second half of the film:

We also can’t forget about Farmer Fran (Blake Clark) and his babbling gibberish to the team:

Momma Boucher’s words of wisdom and Bobby’s insistence on believing them also sets a brilliant foreground for Bobby’s struggles to become independent:

If you’re looking to stream something football-related today then you should head over to Netflix and take a trip down memory lane with The Waterboy. While it’s just one on a list of many excellent films that Sandler debuted in the 90’s, the title stands on its own as one of Sandler’s best to date. We applaud Sandler’s efforts in trying to take us back to his roots with recent Netflix original films such as Sandy Wexler and The Do-Over, but sometimes there’s just no substitute for the classics.

Michael is a music and television junkie keen on most things that are not a complete and total bore. You can follow him on Twitter — @Tweetskoor

STREAM THE WATERBOY ON NETFLIX