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Ah, who can forget 1999, the summer of Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo? Remember how we all walked around in our Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo t-shirts? Cracking up our friends with our favourite Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo catchphrases? Arguing over our favourite Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo moments?
No, of course you don't, because that never happened. Nobody did that. And yet, somehow, as a direct result of that film - a gentle hiccup (or, more fittingly, belch) amidst the cacophony of 1999 summer blockbusters - Rob Schneider now finds himself as a somewhat unlikely comedy superstar.
Wait. What? Rob Schneider?
The "Makin' copies!" guy?
Yes, that guy. Just hear us out.
Currently, there are just a handful of comedians who get to star in their own, name-above-the-title comedy vehicles. One is Adam Sandler. One is Mike Myers. One is Jim Carrey (when he deigns to do comedy, rather than court an Oscar nomination with a muzzle on).
And one is Rob Schneider.
There are certainly lots of other more successful, more highly paid comedians. But do they get their own headlining movies? Do you ever see "Chris Tucker is...The Sous Chef"? No. These comedians get paired up and partnered off. Even old-timers like Steve Martin and Billy Crystal don't really make those kind of solo-vehicle movies anymore: the kind where they are thrust out, alone, into the spotlight, with the entire enterprise perched on their slender shoulders. Instead, they now make high-concept movies with high-powered co-stars.
But Rob Schneider makes Rob Schneider movies. High-concept, yes; high-brow, no. And he usually co-stars with a goat.
Okay, it might be a stretch to call him a comedy superstar. He's more like a comedy superstar sidekick. He's the farting Robin to Adam Sandler's belching Batman. Because if it weren't for Sandler, Schneider wouldn't be were he is now -- which is to say, in The Hot Chick, wearing a halter top and tottering around in heels and getting maced in the face and then chucked down a flight of grandstand stairs.
No, Schneider would now doubt be damned to the same comedic purgatory that other former SNL bit players who enjoyed one fleeting moment of catchphrase-related notoriety are damned to: people like Jim "Goat Boy" Breuer and Melanie "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" Hutsell. Which is to say, not headlining their own comedy vehicles.
Schneider was never a main attraction during his years on SNL -- he was always a supporting player to bigger stars such as Sandler, David Spade, and Chris Farley, as well as venerable holdovers such as Phil Hartman and Mike Myers. Sure, he had "makin' copies" guy and that sneezing Orgasm Guy, but none of these comic creations seemed like likely springboards to solo movie-star success. (Then again, neither did the smarmy Roxbury guys, The Ladies' Man, or Pat -- but we digress.)
Upon leaving SNL in 1994, Schneider -- with his lasciviously cocked eyebrow, unnerving perma-tan, and white man's Jheri-curl afro -- established a knack for playing squirelly, repellent sidekicks in films such as Judge Dredd and Periscope Down. Then, in 1996, he landed a lead in the sitcom Men Behaving Badly, in which pizza boxes were strewn, gasses released, breasts ogled, and Schneider waddled about in a gaping bathrobe, leering and unshaven.
At that point, his career seemed to have achieved a logical equilibrium. He'd used his limited skill-set (basically, equal parts goofiness and smarminess) to claim a place as Hollywood's go-to guy whenever it needed someone to deftly combine the qualities of "frat-boy chucklehead" with "neighbourhood perv." After the cancellation of his sitcom, his next gig was writing for, and hosting, a Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit '97 video.
So how, then, did it all go so horribly right for Rob Schneider?
Heck, Schneider's now lapped such former SNL bright-lights as Jon Lovitz, Dana Carvey, and David Spade. Is there anyone alive who would argue that Rob Schneider -- the "makin' copies!" guy -- is a more talented comedian than Jon Lovitz? So how is it then that Rob Schneider is on his third straight Rob Schneider film, and Lovitz is the fifth-billed guy in Rat Race? Does that make sense to anyone?
Schneider seems like a likable enough guy (except when we see him in paparazzi photos, skulking around some Maxim "100 Hottest Babes" party like Gollum from Lord of the Rings). Frankly, we're happy that he makes low-budget, low-brow comedies that earn back twice their budgets, if only because, on the weekends that his films open, we know that mouth-breathers everywhere will, for a few hours at least, be lured off the streets and contained in confined spaces, away from us.
Still, his fame is confounding -- to us and, no doubt, to David Spade, Dana Carvey, and Jim Breuer.
If you watch one of Schneider's movies (yes, we did -- we are intrepid, in your service), you realize that he's not really much of a comedian. Which isn't to say he's not funny, so much as he doesn't really do anything in his movies, except get beat on.
Here's a partial list of the indignities visited upon his person: He's pummeled, kicked, punched, tossed by an old lady, thrown downstairs, smacked, squared in the nuts, hoofed by a goat, slapped, maced, urinated on, and shot in the crotch. (He's wearing a bulletproof vest, though -- on his crotch. Don't make us explain this further.)
Again, there's obviously an audience for this kind of punching-bag comedy. But we suspect that part of his allure comes not from his antics, but from his pedigree -- which is to say, the Adam Sandler seal of approval.
Schneider's movies are like intermission-entertainment between Adam Sandler movies, and they no doubt appeal to roughly the same demographic. Schneider's like a Sandler impostor perfume: If you love Adam Sandler, then you'll like Rob Schneider!
Sandler, then, once again proves himself to be a canny entertainer. He's developed a little mini-me, a kind of organ-grinder's monkey that he can trot out to amuse his fans while he's busy changing into his next costume. Why haven't other stars thought of this? It's like a Hollywood apprenticeship program -- take a lesser talented version of yourself and train them to be your own personal half-time show. Brilliant!
The strange result of this experiment in Adam Sandler brand extension, though, is...well, Rob Schneider: the unfamous superstar. On the one hand, he churns out proficient comedy vehicles that make tidy profits. On the other hand, has anyone ever sighted a "Rob Schneider fan"?
Schneider, for example, does not appear to have even one fan page, official or otherwise, on the whole of the internet. (There is electronic residue of such a page, no longer operational. Though it's a bad sign that the first five words in the search-engine listings for this now-defunct page are "Rob Schneider: Who is he?")
And can anyone imagine even the most hardcore fart-joke aficionado coming home to bedroom full of treasured Rob Schneider paraphernalia? Or does anyone believe that people who flock out to The Hot Chick are doing so because they love the hilarious antics of Rob Schneider, and can't wait for more of the same?
Or, is it possible that his fame is kept afloat by people who are simply looking for an undemanding comedy with which to waste two hours? And that it's funny to see someone get thrown downstairs and shot in the crotch? And that Rob Schneider seems up to the task?
Whatever the answer, we have to say: We doff our hats to you, Rob Schneider. You fooled us all. And, frankly, better you than Jim Breuer.
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