Jabadoo, Delahoohoo (AKA A Treatise on Adam Sandler or Dying Young Like Ke$ha)

My two year old has been running around the house lately making random noises. It reminds me of the career of Adam Sandler.

Sandler, if you don't remember, was once funny. Up until about the time cable internet came to high society, Sandler was making movies that made the average person laugh. Granted, the random "jabadoo" shit he did 1/3rd of the time rubbed many the wrong way. But movies like "Happy Gilmore" and "Billy Madison" are genuinely funny films that still can make a 32 year old man chortle.

While making tacos and listening to a two year old do the greatest hits of someone worth a small countries GDP made me think. What would have happened if Sandoo would have died after filming, say, Little Nicky? Would we think of Sandler like some think of Chris Farley? A comedic lightning bolt that flew across the sky on a trail of humor and coke?

I think that if Sandler had passed in 1999, most would have held his works in higher regard. Many hold folks like Kurt Cobain or James Dean as paradigms of burning out and not fading away. When an artist dies young, there is no flabby middle period or long, slow fat Elvis period. Sandler had both, and hasn't made a watchable movie since, I don't know, Click?

NOTE: I find Click watchable for two reasons 1) Kate Beckensdale runs around in boy shorts and 2) It made me cry when I was REALLY hungover and saw it on HBO like 10 years ago

Point being, Neil Young really did have it right. It's better to be a bright shining star and to burn out and fade away than make a huge piece of shit like Pixels.