Random Fun Facts You Didn't Know About Adam Sandler (23 items)

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  (#1) His Dad Is The Reason He Got Into Comedy

  Sandler cites his father's temperamental influence as one of the reasons he got into comedy:

  I never had a speech from my father [saying], 'This is what you must do or shouldn't do,' but I just learned to be led by example. My father wasn't perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down... part of my father having a temper led to me developing a sense of humor to calm the old man down. 
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  (#2) His First Comedy Album Was Nominated For A Grammy

  In addition to his movie success, Sandler garnered much acclaim from music critics as well. His first comedy album, They're All Going to Laugh at You!, was nominated for a Grammy and eventually went double platinum. His second album, What the Hell Happened to Me?, released three years later, received the same honors.
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  (#3) He Donated $1 Million To The Boys & Girls Club

  In 2007 Sandler donated $1,000,000 to his hometown Boys & Girls Club. In a video announcing Sandler's donation, he revisited memories from his time at the club, including "basketball, ping pong and peeing his pants."
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  (#4) He Has A Star On The Hollywood Walk Of Fame

  Adam Sandler was honored with the 2,431st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He received the recognition in the motion picture category on February 1st, 2011, in anticipation of his then-upcoming film, Just Go With It. Henry Winkler was the guest speaker at the event. 

  The star is located at 6262 Hollywood Blvd., directly in front of the W Hotel.
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  (#5) He's Always Been The Class Clown

  Adam Sandler has been destined for comedy since childhood - from kindergarten all the way through high school, he was infamous for his humorous antics. He hadn't considered making a career out of his talents until a suggestion from his brother planted the seed.

  Soon after, he performed at a comedy club in Boston, paving the way for larger gigs and eventual widespread fame.
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  (#6) He's A Dedicated Basketball Fan

  Basketball played a pivotal role in Sandler's film, Grown Ups, undoubtedly because the sport is remarkably important to the actor in his everyday life. Sandler has described his positive experience playing basketball with his church league as a child and wished for that nostalgic dynamic to be portrayed in the film.

  Sandler explained: "Sixth grade was a big time, in my childhood, of hoops and friendship, and coming up with funny things. That’s what the movie is."
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  (#7) He's A Great Friend

  Sandler is known for casting his personal friends in many of his films - Allen Covert, Peter Dante, and Jonathan Loughran are just several of the regulars. As a further gesture of friendship, he also produces many of his friends' movies. Many of Rob Schneider's and Kevin James's films have been produced by Sandler.

  Grandma's Boy, Allen Covert's first leading role, was a Happy Madison production.
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  (#8) He's Very Particular About His Characters' Names

  Many accuse Sandler's movies of being carbon copies of one another. Some have even theorized an unnerving pattern between films - and one such connection could be the names of the characters Sandler plays. They almost always have names that end in a Y sound - Billy, Happy, Robbie, Sonny, Nicky, Davey, Whitey, etc.

  In addition, nearly all of the female love interests in his films have names that start with V - Veronica Vaughn, Virginia Venit, Vicki Vallencourt, Valerie Veran, etc. The reasoning behind these patterns is ultimately not known. 
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  (#9) For Half A Decade, He Was Impossibly Bankable

  Movies of the mid-to-late '90s were often dominated by Adam Sandler. After small roles in Coneheads and Airheads, he made Billy Madison in '95, Happy Gilmore and Bulletproof in '96, The Wedding Singer and Waterboy in '98, and Big Daddy in '99. 

  In 1999 alone, he was estimated to have made approximately $8 million - not to mention $327,740,000 in combined box office sales for that year.
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  (#10) He Went Back To His High School In 2010 To Speak At Graduation

  In 2010, Sandler paid a visit to his New Hampshire alma mater, Manchester Central High School, to give a commencement speech at their graduation ceremony. He reportedly did not pass up the opportunity to make a joke or two. 
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  (#11) He Has A Burger Named After Him At His Hometown Diner

  The Red Arrow Diner, Sandler's favorite restaurant from his childhood in Manchester, NH, was reproduced for the movie Grown Ups 2. To display their appreciation for the actor, the restaurant's menu now includes "The Adam Sandler Burger," topped with lettuce, tomato, raw onion, and mayo.
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  (#12) He Was An 'SNL' Cast Member For Five Years

  Soon after his feature film debut in Going Overboard, Sandler joined the cast of Saturday Night Live. He was a full-fledged cast member from 1990 to 1995, during which time he developed the characters of Cajun Man, Canteen Boy, and Opera Man. He also wrote "The Chanukah Song" and "The Christmas Song" while on the show.
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  (#13) He And Judd Apatow Were Roommates

  In a joint 60 Minutes interview hosted by Anderson Cooper in 2012, Sandler and director Judd Apatow opened up about the period of time in the late '80s when they shared an apartment in Los Angeles. When describing their daily routine, Apatow claimed: "Back then, life was just doing stand-up or writing jokes. You would sleep until noon every day and kind of stumble out. You would have to be at work at 8:30 at night. Work was sometimes 15 minutes."

  Though their lifestyle may strike many as meager, Sandler insisted that they weren't struggling: "It wasn’t broke. We were doing as comedians good enough to get by. We could eat at Red Lobster once every month. That was a big night out." 
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  (#14) He Is Married And Has Two Children

  Adam Sandler married model and actress Jackie Sandler (formerly Titone) on June 22, 2003. The two met on the set of the 1999 film Big Daddy and began dating shortly after. Before their marriage, Sandler cast her as the female lead in the animated 2002 film Eight Crazy Nights.

  Their two daughters are Sadie, born in 2006, and Sunny, born in 2008.
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  (#15) He Began Working Almost Immediately (And Consistently) After Graduation

  Directly after graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 1988, Sandler booked a guest appearance on The Cosby Show, followed by an appearance on MTV's Remote Control. In 1989, Dennis Miller saw Sandler in Going Overboard and recruited him to Saturday Night Live.
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  (#16) His Rate Multiplied By Almost 20 In Five Years

  As Sandler's films grew in popularity, his earnings reportedly followed suit. For 1995's Billy Madison, his first writing/starring venture, he was paid a respectable $1.7 million. For Bulletproof in 1996, $2.5 million. The Wedding Singer made him $5.5 million in 1998, and 1999's Big Daddy garnered $8 million.

  For Little Nicky, his eighth starring role, released just five years after Madison, he earned $20 million.
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  (#17) He Made A Deal With Netflix

  Adam Sandler signed a deal with Netflix in 2014 for an undisclosed sum to release four films exclusively on the streaming service. “When these fine people came to me with an offer to make four movies for them, I immediately said ‘yes’ for one reason and one reason only… Netflix rhymes with ‘wet chicks,'” Sandler said. “Let the streaming begin!” 

  Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos explained that Sandler’s appeal “spans across viewers of all ages - everybody has a favorite movie, everyone has a favorite line - not just in the US but all over the world.”

  In 2018, he released a new comedy special, 100% Fresh, exclusively on the service, which some called "his best work in years."
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  (#18) He Founded His Own Production Company In 1999

  After his roaring success in the mid-'90s, Adam Sandler elected to establish his own production company. Happy Madison Productions was founded in 1999, named for Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, two of his earliest films. Happy Madison has produced upwards of 20 films since its 1999 inception - all comedies save for one drama, 2007's Reign Over Me. 
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  (#19) His More Acclaimed Work Tends To Make Less Money

  Adam Sandler is best known for his comedies, but he has ventured into the realm of drama on more than one occasion. Whenever he strays from his comedic formula, however, only critics and film aficionados emerge from the theaters satisfied.

  In one of his earliest dramatic roles, Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, even famed movie critic Roger Ebert praised his performance. He stated: 

  [Punch-Drunk Love] may be the key to all of the Adam Sandler films, and may liberate Sandler for a new direction in his work. He can't go on making those moronic comedies forever, can he? Who would have guessed he had such uncharted depths?
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  (#20) He's A Huge Fan Of Professional Wrestling

  Much like his love for basketball, Sandler's love for pro wrestling has often seeped into the films he's written. Principal Max Anderson in Billy Madison leads a double life as the wrestler "the Revolting Blob"; Paul Wight, better known as Big Show, plays Captain Insano in Waterboy; and Sandler demonstrates Chief Jay Strongbow's sleeper hold in Big Daddy.

  Additionally, wrestlers Kevin Nash, Bill Goldberg, and Stone Cold Steven Austen all appear in The Longest Yard.
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  (#21) His Beloved Dog, Meatball, Passed In 2004

  Sandler's bulldog, Meatball, was the son of the talking dog, Mr. Beefy, in Sandler's film, Little Nicky. Many of Meatball's antics were recorded and posted online, much to the delight of Sandler's loyal fans. In 2004, Meatball passed at the age of 4.

  Sandler reportedly held a memorial service for his canine friend, and more than 100 people attended.
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  (#22) He's Responsible For Some Of The Worst-Reviewed Films Of The Last 15 Years

  Adam Sandler and his production company have the unique distinction of creating some of the highest-grossing comedies in movie history; however, their monetary success apparently manifests in inverse proportion to the films' perceived quality. 

  While Sandler's earlier films such as Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer at one time maintained moderately positive Rotten Tomatoes scores, with the former garnering an 85% audience approval rating and the latter a formidable 81% (as of a 2014 analysis), his ratings reached an all-time low with both audiences and critics when Jack and Jill was released in 2011. 
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  (#23) He Topped Forbes' Most Overpaid Actors List Twice

  Sandler has twice topped Forbes's list of the Most Overpaid Actors in Hollywood. Both 2013 and 2014 saw Sandler climb to the peak of this infamous list, with Johnny Depp in second and Ben Stiller in third for the latter year.

  A Sony hack from 2014 revealed that employees of the conglomerate were tired of working on Sandler's films, calling them "mundane" and "formulaic" in emails (not all of which were focused on Sandler). Some have speculated that this may have been the reason Sony let Sandler move on to Netflix.

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