The Waterboy

Infobox Film
name = The Waterboy


image_size = 200
director = Frank Coraci
producer = Jack Giarraputo
Robert Simonds
Adam Sandler
writer = Tim Herlihy
Adam Sandler
starring = Adam Sandler
Kathy Bates
Henry Winkler
Fairuza Balk
Jerry Reed
music = Alan Pasqua
editing = Tom Lewis
cinematography = Steven Bernstein
distributor = Touchstone Pictures
released = November 6, 1998
runtime = 90 min
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = A173675
imdb_id = 0120484
budget = $23,000,000

"The Waterboy" is a movie starring Adam Sandler, released in 1998. It co-stars Henry Winkler, Kathy Bates, Jerry Reed, and Fairuza Balk. Lynn Swann, Lawrence Taylor, Jimmy Johnson, and Bill Cowher have cameos, as well as Rob Schneider, who in this movie originated the "You can do it!" guy seen in other Sandler movies. Sandler produced the movie and co-wrote the script with Tim Herlihy. It was directed by Frank Coraci.

The movie was extremely profitable, earning over $160 million in the United States alone and made Sandler a successful actor with Waterboy becoming his second $100 million film in a year, along with "The Wedding Singer".

Sandler's character, Bobby Boucher, bears a strong resemblance to his "The Excited Southerner" comedic skits from his album "What The Hell Happened To Me?" The portrayal is one of a stereotypical cajun from swamps of south Louisiana, not the typical stereotype of a southerner. He also shares similarities in speech and mannerism to Canteen Boy, a recurring character, also portrayed by Adam Sandler, on "Saturday Night Live". [http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1998/nov/11-06-98/arts/arts2.html] Like Bobby, Canteen Boy preferred "purified water, right out of the old canteen", which he always carried with him.

Plot

Adam Sandler plays Bobby Boucher (pronounced "Boo-SHAY"), a socially inept (but also intelligent), stuttering, water boy with anger issues due to constant teasing and his mother's (Kathy Bates) excessive sheltering. He was the water boy for the fictitious University of Louisiana Cougars (a name and mascot bearing a strong resemblance to the Louisiana State University Tigers) for the past 18 years (he joined sometime around the 1980-81 season), but the players tormented him, and the team's head coach, Coach Red Beaulieu, (Jerry Reed) fired him for disrupting his team's practices. His attempt to become the new waterboy of his favorite wrestler, Captain Insano (Paul Wight, aka The Big Show), fails because he reveals that he is in fact 31 years old. As a result, Captain Insano and the TV presenter laugh and Bobby hangs up before they can answer. He later goes to Coach Klein (Henry Winkler), coach of the fictitious "South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs" (a name and mascot strongly resembling the former University of Southwestern Louisiana Bulldogs, also known as the Ragin' Cajuns), and volunteers to work as the team's water boy for free after seeing the filthy water that the coach provides his players.

During his first few hours of being waterboy for the Mud Dogs, one of the players spits into the water can. A flashback is then seen when the waterboy was a young kid working for the Cougars. Coach Beaulieu refuses the right for the waterboy to retaliate against one of his players for spitting in the cooler. Coach Klein notices his anger problem and encourages Bobby to stand up for himself instead of letting the players walk all over him. After Gee Grenouille (Peter Dante), the team's captain taunts him, Bobby then sees flashbacks of the people that also made his life a living hell (to name a few: Greg Meaney, Coach Red Beaulieu, Captain Insano and the TV host, Jim Simmonds). Bobby utters the phrase "Stop makin' fun of me!" signaling that enough is enough.

Bobby then effortlessly runs onto the field, grunting and growling in sheer anger and tackles Grenouille, shocking the whole team and prompting Coach Klein to put him on the field, with positive results. Despite his overprotective mother's disapproval, he secretly continues to play football, and also secretly goes to school. He uses his anger (also known as "The Tackling Fuel") to tackle the opposing players by pretending they're the people who made fun of him throughout his life (Coach Beaulieu, his mom, a player who called him "needle dick", etc.). He quickly becomes one of the most feared linebackers in college football and love interest of Vicki Vallencourt (Fairuza Balk). They play so well with Bobby on the team that they make it to the Bourbon Bowl against the Cougars.

But during their victory bonfire and celebration, Coach Beaulieu and his team drop a bomb by showing Bobby's high school transcript, which turns out to be fake. Coach Klein tells Bobby that he can continue to play on the team, if he takes and passes a GED exam and admits it was him that forged Bobby's transcript so that he could play. He then tells Bobby of how twenty years ago (around 1978) Beaulieu bullied him out of his green notebook in which he wrote down all his foolproof play ideas, enabling Beaulieu to get the job as coach for the Cougars over Klein. This inspires Bobby to study for the exam to show that he isn't a dummy and to help get Coach Klein's manhood back which was also (figuratively) taken along with the playbook.

When his mom sees him studying for the exam, she is shocked when she finds out that he has been playing football and going to school behind her back, but Bobby says that he likes school and football(and Vickie's "boobies") and that he has had enough of his mother's over protectiveness. On the day of the exam, Bobby passes the exam with flying colors. Then the Parish Sheriff arrives and tells Bobby that his mother is in the hospital after falling sick.

When Bobby arrives at the hospital, the doctors tell him they don't know what's wrong with her. Mama is actually faking her illness to keep Bobby from leaving her. While in the hospital, she finally shows Bobby why she's been so determined to keep him inside of her house. She reads him letters his father sent her, which shows he once left their home and, while he was out, fell for an attractive fortune teller named Phyllis. She explains to Bobby that she didn't want him leaving her the way his father did, and allows him to go to the football game, going with him to see what football is like.

Bobby misses the first half of the game due to being in the hospital with his mother, causing the Mud Dogs to fall behind. Bobby joins the team at halftime and inspires them to come back from their deficit. Coach Beaulieu adopts a scorched earth tactic of running out the clock; he's already winning, he just needs to neutralize Bobby's tackling abilities, and force the Mud Dogs' offense to win the game. Bobby is able to help Coach Klein overcome his fear of Coach Beaulieu by "pretend [ing] that Red Beaulieu is somebody [he's] not afraid of," and design brilliant new plays that Beaulieu is unable to counter, since he has never seen them before. The Mud Dogs eventually score the winning touchdown with a halfback option play (with Boucher throwing the pass) at the very last instant. The movie ends with Bobby and Vicki getting married and driving off on his tractor, followed by the sudden reappearance of Bobby's father (who is quickly tackled by Mama Boucher).

The movie was filmed in DeLand, Florida. The Mud Dogs home stadium is actually Spec Martin Memorial Stadium, where the DeLand High School Bulldogs play football and soccer. Some of the classroom footage was filmed at Stetson University, also located in DeLand. The University of Louisiana's home stadium and the Bourbon Bowl were actually shot at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida. The house where Bobby lived in was located in Clermont, Florida, off the Lake Minnehaha Canal.

The line "You can do it!" is referenced in "Original Prankster" by The Offspring. The line was used again in Sandler's movies "Little Nicky" and "The Longest Yard" and both times was said by Rob Schneider. It was used again in Rob Schneider's "The Animal," this time spoken by Adam Sandler, as well as in Sandler's "Anger Management", but spoken by then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Cast

*Adam Sandler .... Robert 'Bobby' Boucher, Jr.
*Kathy Bates .... Helen 'Mama' Boucher
*Fairuza Balk .... Vicki Vallencourt; "Vicky Vallencourt"'s last name is a reference to "Tony Vallencourt" a character played by Adam Sandler on SNL. Her name also continues the tradition of the female lead in Adam Sandler movies have both her first and last name begin with the letter V.
*Henry Winkler .... Coach Klein
*Jerry Reed .... Coach Red Beaulieu
*Larry Gilliard Jr .... Derek Wallace
*Blake Clark .... Farmer Fran
*Peter Dante .... Gee Grenouille
*Jonathan Loughran .... Lyle Robideaux
*Al Whiting .... Casey Bugge
*Clint Howard .... Paco
*Allen Covert .... Walter
*Rob Schneider .... Townie
*Todd Holland (actor) .... Greg Meaney
*Robert Kokol .... Professor "Colonel Sanders"
*John P. Farley .... Tony Dodd
*Kevin P. Farley .... Jim Simonds
*Frank Coraci .... Robert 'Roberto' Boucher, Sr.
*Paul Wight .... Captain Insano
*Soon Hee Newbold ....Mud Dog Cheerleader
*Dan Fouts .... Himself (ABC Sports commentator)
*Brent Musberger .... Himself (ABC Sports commentator)
*Lynn Swann .... Himself (ESPN commentator)
*Chris Fowler .... Himself (ESPN commentator)
*Lee Corso .... Himself (ESPN commentator)
*Lawrence Taylor .... Himself (LT's Louisiana Lightning Training Football Camp)
*Bill Cowher .... Himself (Pittsburgh Steelers coach)
*Jimmy Johnson .... Himself (Miami Dolphins coach)
*Wade Phillips .... Referee (uncredited)
*Moosie The Cocker Spaniel ... Herself
*Paul Wight .... Captain Insano, who is also known as The Big Show in World Wrestling Entertainment or as The Giant during his time in World Championship Wrestling. He made reference to his small part in the movie at Backlash 2006 and on an edition of RAW, when fellow wrestlers John Cena and King Booker talked about their respective movies, "The Marine" and "Ready to Rumble".

External links

*imdb title|id=0120484|title=The Waterboy
*amg title|id=A173675|title=The Waterboy
*rotten-tomatoes|id=Waterboy|title=The Waterboy

Box Office Leaders USA
before = John Carpenter's Vampires
date = November 8
year = 1998
after = I Still Know What You Did Last Summer