Dissect DJs - Happy Gilmore 2 (2025) - Did it Work?

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

After last week's thorough breakdown of Happy Gilmore, it's time to run it back with the 2025 update, as Ryan Castle dissects the brand new Adam Sandler comedy that's got the whole world buzzing - Happy Gilmore 2!  Did it live up to the hype after 30 years in the making? We break it down with 3 simple categories: What worked? What didn't work? And what the F*ck was that?  Was there a different way it could've been produced? Who made the best cameo? What was the funniest scene? It's a full dissection of Netflix's brand new feature film, and it's coming up NEXT! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

D'SETI-SET. DJ. It's up, everybody. It's Ryan Castle of the Dice. D-Js. If this is your first time, joining the podcast. Welcome. If you're checking back in, welcome back.

Now, today we are doing something a little different than the usual. If you heard our most recent episode, we covered the incomparable 1996 classic Gilmore Happy. And that, of course, was a response to the fact that Happy Gilmore 2, Long-awaited was finally just released on Netflix. Now, when we recorded the episode, it was literally the day before release date. Could we have recorded that earlier? Probably. Might have been a good idea.

But, you know, when I realized it was coming out when it was, I grabbed the band back together, and we kind of did a bit of an emergency pot. So I'm glad that we were able to get it out there. We had a lot of questions, a lot of gesticulating, a lot of wondering on how the new movie would be. And we were really positive going into it. We had this very strong outlook on what it could be based off the trailer. That's all we knew of. And we had every right to be because Happy Gilmore is one of our favorite movies of all time.

And you always got to remember the golden rule when it comes to sequels. Keep your expectations at but a minimum. But having said that and now having watched the sequel, I feel like given all the fact that we did all this commentary on it in episode 141 on Happy Gilmore, I should do 142 and do a follow-up. Now that I've watched the movie, what did I think? And that's what I'm here to do. Now I said we were doing something a little different,

and that is because I am riding this one solo. I am like Stephen fucking Glansberg at the lunchroom table sitting by himself. What, so I've got to sit here and you dessert alone like I'm fucking Stephen Glansberg? That's right. I'm going to see if I could hack this one on myself, because I'll tell you what, I'll give you a little inside baseball for you. In order to make these pods happen, we record it, out of my home here in Hermosa Beach. Justin, he lives pretty far. Jason lives pretty far.

Sometimes it's a whole ordeal to sort of set up a record date. And there are times where something comes out in the media, new movie, new TV show, something that happens, where I kind of like, you know what, I just want to hop on there real quick and just give my two thoughts and don't really have the capabilities to call in the whole team for it. So what I'd like to do is maybe just sometimes hop on here and just give a little solo react action. You guys, can tell me in the comments, give feedback wherever your feedback is given, what you think of it. I like to think that it's something that we can make work and help me put out more regular episodes because if I have quicker access to be able to record and put things down on print,

that's not where you put it down. Put it into this microphone and into your earballs, whatever. And I'll be able to get more action to you more frequently. And on that note on Spotify, we actually have now qualified to be able to get full video podcast up on Spotify. So the whole Happy Gilmore video is available on Spotify. This one, minor bells and whistles, because I just wanted to put my voice down for this one. So no video for this one, but we will still be uploading clips onto the TikTok and whatnot. All the social media is at Dysack DJs. Cheap plug, go check it out. So I will be uploading a lot of our past video episodes up onto those episodes so you can find those on Spotify coming soon as well. So exciting times over here at the Dysack DJs studio.

Because we are the DJs. I like to spin it, mix it, throw it back, and dissect it. So we're going to try a new wing of the podcast that we're going to call Castle just fucks around and talk some shit about something and reviews a little bit. That is a working title. We will probably go with something more like quickie reviews. You guys tell me in the comments which one you think sounds better, but kind of like the first one. All right, here we go. So let's get into Happy Gilmore Dose.

All right. Now, I wanted to break this down in a very simple method, and I've thought of three basic categories that I wanted to take on this mission with, and that's going to be these. What worked? What didn't work? And what the fuck was that? Sometimes cadence matters, you know? It's the accentuation.

It's not, what the fuck was that? That's way too aggressive. I'm not trying to say that. It's, what the fuck was that? So let's get to it and break down this film that just got new release. So first ever dissect DJ's immediate movie review. Let's go. Oh yeah, and I brought my soundboard with me.

Don't worry. There will be plenty of that as we'll be here in the dissect DJs. All right, so let's kick it off. Happy Gilmore 2. What worked? Let's start there. Let's go positive first. I like to be a positive guy, and I'm going to try to be as positive as I can for this review.

Happy's updated family. Really liked that. When you come back 20, 30 years later, you want to kind of see how this person's life has progressed. We've seen what a success, happy continue to be in the world of golf. Although I will say, they said he won six tour championships. That's fucking crazy, dude. Do you know how many golfers have won a single major championship six times? Two, Jack Nicholas and Harry Vardon. Nicholas won the Masters six times, and Vardin won six British Opens. And that dude goes back to like the 1800s. Yeah, girls have gone on for a long time.

Let's slow down a little bit on Happy's accomplishments. You know, I mean, the dude could barely putt. He needed to knock the ball off of Chevy Volkswagen. I don't even know if that's the right make, but let's just go with it. It's just to absinck the winning putt in his first Pro Tour championship, you know, which another thing that they say right at the beginning that I loved, because I totally called it on the first podcast. Happy just has a stroke of luck about his whole game.

I got it, Mitch. some great out there today. Thank you. But you weren't that great. By that was luck. Well, some might call it luck. I'd like to call it. Well, luck, I guess. So what? His whole game is like 60% power drives with his wild swing, which every time I see it, I'm also like, I don't know why nobody's tried to incorporate some sort of technique like that because I feel like there's an element to it. The way he walks up to it when it's like on the fairway and he just kind of hacks it, it looks smooth, it looks good, and especially on the drive. I feel like there's something to that and I'm surprised that golf still hasn't incorporated something like that. But anyways, I digress. I'm getting ahead of myself here. He says something right at the beginning about how there was a lot of luck involved in his

game. And it's like, yeah, that was always a huge component. The winds didn't always come as expected, but like grandma always said, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. As I was saying, 60% of it is monster drives. 30% of it is just wild luck carrying him along the way. And what is the percentage I'm at right now? Was that 90?

Yeah, it's like 10% just pure rage and aggression, which I don't think would actually help. Zero percent of it is putting. He still swipes at it like a slap shot. And as far as I saw, it never actually got good at putting. So I'm not saying he couldn't have figured out over the years, but the luck percentage of it is way too strong. A bird takes a shit on the ball and it like knocks it in the hole. Over and over in this movie and the last, it just cleared that luck is a huge part of his game, which is a terrible game plan in any field to just rely on luck, especially sport.

Anyways, back to Happy's family. Really liked how they showed the progress of them. He's got all these boys running around now and he's got a girl. And as I had said, in the last podcast, I was really hyped to see that MJF was his son. At the time, I'd heard that. I imagined it was just he was the only son. And I sort of had my ideas of what kind of personality you would have. Sort of the MJF, we get an AW, maybe sort of like entitled, cocky, talk shit back to his dad.

I was imagining that. I think that would have been like a funny. of your character, but the ways all the boys just, you know, carry his rough housing ways. They seem like they're sweet, but like the same time, they're ready to throw down. And one of the funniest scenes in the entire movie to me is when they're kind of having like a sweet goodbye with Happy and he gets in the car and then a car won't start. And he starts punching the wheel and all the boys just immediately start beating the shit out of the car.

All right. All right, let's go. What's going on? I like the way the kids were presented and also and have the same crude humor. that happy and thereby Adam Sandler has. I mean, I feel like they had like four different scenes where they're mooting happy. So go bigger. And then the whole story with his daughter, which is like really the main heart of the movie,

he says the nice line about like, your dance class in Paris is my boss in Bruins, except for you can dance and I couldn't skate. Thought that was a good line. So yeah, I think that that element of it, like him wanting to be a good dad, you know, specifically like give his daughter something who's obviously got a great gift for dancing. I thought that was great. I will say, super disappointed that we lost Virginia three minutes into the movie. And I know it's a callback joke to the way his dad just got taken away at the very beginning with life is full of surprises after the funeral, you know, in the first movie.

But Julie Bowen is a legit star now. I feel like she could have provided so much more to this movie than she did. And that was disappointing to me, you know? when she was in Happy Gilmore One, she was a new actress on the scene. I don't think anybody really ever seen her before. But now we're coming off 10 plus years of her being on arguably the most popular sitcom of its era in modern family. She's a bona fide star now.

And she's shown over and over again that she has great comedic chops. She has great timing. She could have added a whole lot to a whole bunch of scenes in this movie if she was actually along for the ride. All she really does. It does provide a service that she's sort of there as like this emotional support and spirit. It has some special moments. So I do appreciate that, I guess.

But I just think she could have brought so much more to the role. And I was stunned to see her get taken out immediately. I just think it took away of something that we could have had. I know it ends up kind of being a huge catalyst to what the story is. But I'd say we could have taken a whole shakeup on what the story was, really. I think you could have had him down on his luck in different ways without losing Virginia. But that being said, I did think that the family vibe of it was nice and it tied in nice with how Adam himself has become like a big family guy, which by the way, did you know that Adam's whole family is in this movie? Now, I didn't realize this initially. I had not heard that, but it was in the scene when he's in the rehab clinic and there's this girl, Charlotte, and there seems to be like an express amount of sort of focus being put on her.

and I'm immediately like, what is it about this girl? Like, why is this girl getting an odd amount of screen time? It felt like, is this somebody I'm supposed to know? Is this like a cameo or something? So I looked it up, and I found out that that is actually his daughter, Sadie. And then right after that, it cuts to his daughter in the movie, Vienna. And I actually put down on my notes, like Adam's actual daughter looks just like Happy's daughter in the movie. And then in further research, when I got to the credits, I see that Vienna is played by his other daughter, Sunny.

And on top of that, Adam's real-life wife, Jackie, plays Monica, the dance instructor. And it's not over yet, because Adam's mom, Judith, also makes a cameo in the movie as Bobon's mom, aka Draggo Larson, NBA player, Boban Marjanovitch, who plays Mr. Larson's enormous son. And that was another one of those ones where just the way she was getting screen time and clearly not really a polished actor, I was like, who is this? Am I supposed to know who this lady is? Because sometimes Adam Sandler movies do this where they kind of like put like a certain focus on a person. The camera hangs on them for like an extra second or two. And you're like, okay, wait, you're trying to like give a nod to this person. Like I'm supposed to know who they are.

So doing the research, that's why it's because it's Adam's mom. So it was nice that he was able to get them all parts in this movie. But there is that moment at the end that just felt unearned where, you know, he's talking to Charlotte when at the end of the movie when they're in the rehab center. You're a very cool kid. You're a very cool guy. Remind me my dad. Yeah. For those who don't know that that's his actual daughter, which I feel like a large portion of the audience would know,

that moment is totally unearned and it doesn't make any sense of the story. Like that was literally just a line just for Adam and his family and those close to them. Like, oh, that was a wholesome moment. You had your daughter's saying that way. But yeah, it didn't really work with the story. And I don't, I don't know. I guess Adams earned that to be able to have this movie that everybody was waiting to him. to have and clearly a lot of this movie is a victory lap a lot of it is just like adam flexing

like he gets to put in all his family in it he gets to make all these references he wants and if he wants to have a touching moment kind of breaking a little bit of the fourth wall with his daughter he has every right to do that whether it makes the story better it's debatable but i'm going to say no anyways what else worked uh the return of the happy place i thought the whole scene where virginia comes back and they replay the original done very well with the The way, you know, they have the scene from the original one where she's coming out with the pictures of beer and then it's kind of frozen and then modern day Julie Bowen comes up. I'm going to just slip in between Cullin her Virginia and Julie Bow. There's a good chance it can be a lot of that in this.

It really feels like they're right there and she even like hands her the pitcher act at some point. I thought that was a pretty cool scene. A lot of callback moments in this movie feel like a reach. That one I thought was nice. So yeah, well, up. What else worked? Benito Antonio Martinez-Ocar. A.k.a. Bad Bunny. Now, there are a lot of cameo moments in this movie, and we will get to that later. But Bad Bunny comes off the bench, and I don't know what Bad Bunny's ideal role, like, as an actor. I'm obviously familiar with his music and seen a lot of his work with WW. I've seen him do some performance stuff. I've seen him in other pop up in other roles before, but I could never have told you what would be Bad Bunny's perfect acting role.

But now that I watched him in this movie, I'm like, that is it. That is the best portrayal that I think Bad Bunny could possibly be used for. He's so funny in this movie and is so effective. I could actually see a spin-off. Let's not get wild with it. Let's not make it a huge motion picture that shows up in theaters. But I don't know, maybe a little Netflix series action. Who knows?

I like that character. And with Marcello Hernandez from Saturday Live fame as sort of his little sidekick. I feel like there's legs there. I feel like I would watch a series with those two guys getting into Shenans, maybe following through with the restaurant business that they kind of come up on at the end of it. Through the last match, spoilers. By the way, this whole podcast, I'm going to have a lot of spoilers. Mostly all spoilers.

I should have said that at the beginning, but if you listen to a review on a movie, it's going to be heavily implied. So sorry I didn't give you the heads up on that at the beginning. But as soon as I started talking about stuff with spoilers and you don't want to hear it, you probably clicked off anyways. So sort of 15 minutes in about spoilers, it does nothing for anybody, so I don't know why I said it.

But yeah, Bad Bunny was fantastic in it. On the note of cameos, my main thing with cameos, and again, I'm going to get more into the cameos in a bit, but I just do want to say this right off the bat. One of the things I hate most about cameos in anything is when the whole joke is, oh my God, look, it's this person.

And that's the laugh. sort of the shooter turnaround moment from like happy Gilmore one which was a callback they did in this one I do appreciate some of the callbacks I really did enjoy when Doug shows shooter to like coach the guys for that final tournament and he's like shooter be good if it turns around the same way I enjoyed that but that can't be the whole cameo okay thing you always have got to remember with cameos is a good portion of the audience is not going to know who this is and it's like having a fucking walk on on a 90s sitcom where they walk in the room and everybody's just like, oh, yeah. And maybe that's where my hatred for these moments start because as a kid, you know about like

9% of pop culture celebrities and whatnot. So most of the time when that would happen, I'd be like, Mom, who is that? I don't know why everybody's cheering. Am I supposed to know this person? Probably not Ryan. Little Ryan watching TV. You don't need to know who all these people are. But if you have a cameo, that's cool, but like give them something to do. Unless it's like the biggest star in the world. But even then, if fucking Tom Cruise walks in, give Tom Cruise something funny to say. Give him a joke. Let him add to the scene. Let him add to the story. The whole thing cannot just be, look at this person. It's Camila DeVelle or some person from TikTok, you know. It's a Lou the Toe Groza. Famous kicker from 60s NFL era. Is that Rex Grossman that just

walked in the room? That's crazy. Like, there's a good percentage of people who, aren't going to know who this person is. So the very impact of like, what? It's them. It's not going to land unless you actually have something funny for them to say. So that's a little touch on for cameos for now. But speaking of it, when we're talking about things that work, I also loved Eminem's came out of nowhere, you know, in a movie that was just 80% cameos.

It felt like you'd gotten hit from all angles. And it was starting to almost feel jaded to it. Like, all right, I could imagine any. Anybody's showing up in this? Like I'm not gonna be a surprise. The way Eminem shows up as the jackass guy from HG1, his son, you know, the scene is quick. It adds a slight relevance to the story to the point that we were at that point anyways. Then he ends up in a fight with all happy sons, good little return moment for them, I guess,

and then he ends up in a fight with an alligator. Love the way he starts calling out. Detroit, what? I know a lot about fighting. I'll bite your leg off. You want some smoke? This ain't nothing. Now you got me really pissed.

Oh, what is this? Oh, you want some of this? Oh, look at the game. Oh, you brought the whole family. What? Oh, my dick. Mom, Detroit, what? It was about, I'd say, 60 seconds total of screen time.

That was absolutely perfectly executed. So, a tip of the cap to Marshall for making it count. And this is in a movie where screen time was not. at a minimum. There was plenty of it to go around and a lot of it was used and exhausted and a lot of people. Okay, I'm saying in the positive zone. We will get to that in the next section. One more thing because we're about ready to get to the what didn't work category, but John Levitt's falling off the top of the driving range. I thought it was hilarious. I saw one time a video on social media of a guy who just happened to be like recording his drive and then suddenly some random

person fell from the top layer of the driving range. And it was a hilarious. hilarious visual and then their foot got caught and they were like hanging it's hilarious visual if you're not ready for it imagining it being john levitts all the more incredible the only problem with it is it kind of had to then deliver like the the very adam sandler script which can be super ham-fisted and hokey at times will that to that too so he shouts out something like damn you happy gilmore or something like that i just feel like let love it's cook let him improv so that i feel like he could come up with something way funnier in that moment as he's hanging out upside down. But either way, visual of it, fantastic, and it was great to see him too.

All right, sound bite. Let's get to what didn't work. We had a few things. I hope you enjoyed me being positive, because it might flip a little bit. Number one thing, didn't work. Over reliance on references to Happy Gilmore One. Look, anybody that saw this movie was a big fan. a happy Gilmore. And that movie was so massive. You're going to get a great turnout. We like some

tip of the caps, some nods to the original. This movie was like 50, 60 percent was like, remember when that happened? And then sometimes they would actually show you the clip right after they made the joke. It happened multiple times. I can't even think of one off the top of head, but like, if you saw the movie, pick a reference. Very similar to my whole point about cameos that I want to make about sequels. If you're ever making a sequel, I think rule number one that you should just always keep in mind

as you're putting a script together. Does this movie work as a standalone property? If somebody has not watched the first one, maybe they've never even heard of the first one, can they watch this movie and be like, that was a great movie? I'll tell you a story. First time I ever saw Major League 2

was on a flight to Cleveland when I was a kid. I had never seen Major League 2. I had never heard of it. I loved that movie. I thought it was great. And you know what? I went back and watched Major League 1. I was like, wow, they even did it better the first time.

I'm glad if I had seen it in the proper order, I might not have liked Major League 2 so much. But I was just, that was my team. I loved seeing all these characters and the Cleveland Indians uniforms. I loved that movie. It worked for me, even though maybe if I had actually understood it more as what the entire entity of the franchise was, maybe that would have heard it a little bit for me. But I'm pretty certain that anybody that watched Happy Gilmore 2, that did not see or know of Happy Gim or 1 will be like,

what the fuck is it going on the whole time? There is so much just stuff in that Thanksgiving turkey. Just fucking plow this Volkswagen Beetle into this garage that's meant to fit a toy truck. Like it really just tried to jam every single aspect of, remember this, remember that, remember this person, Remember that moment? Like every single thing was just hitting you over the head like a goddamn clown mallet.

Just like happy saying. Now why would I want to steal the life of somebody who eats pieces of shit for breakfast? That was funny the way. It was a quick zing when it happened the first one. When you really like lay it on like a third coat of paint, it just doesn't hit it. strong, you know? Not to mention, a lot of these jokes were just beat to death in our childhood, so they're just not going to hit. And then the nostalgia alone is not going to carry it. The nostalgia alone is not going to carry it is a great theme for this whole movie. Also,

the Mista Mista Lady part where they have her grave with the graveyard fight with Shooter, where there's just, they're literally, for some reason, in this tight circle, every single person they've known that died is all buried within like a nine goddamn yard diameter, the misty misalady that literally just uses the exact sound bite from her one role in the first one. A little hacky. It didn't land for me. But when they were doing some of the flashback footage, it did make me wonder if this maybe would have worked a little bit better as like an eight-part Netflix series. Because the way they did, you know, sort of the filter on the old footage and they would kind of have a soft little sort of sweet music in the background, just kind of remembering it,

really reminded me of what Cobra Kai does with Karate Kid. They'll kind of play the gentle music in the background as they'll show a scene, and it has such a sentimental value to it. You almost get, like, choked up, like, because it reminds you of your childhood when you first watched it. And I was thinking, they did this, like, a series and not, like, in one movie, which was a little longer than it would be anyways and felt like they were trying to jam so many things in. Think about all the different stories that you could have told with each episode. First of all, if you wanted to kill off Virginia, that could be something that happens in, like, episode four.

Okay? You build up, you give her a moment to shine in the series. She can have her a few moments after that. She comes back. It could be a good mid-season surprise. Something like that, I think, gets more earned and has more weight. And a lot of the stories that you want to tell, there could be an episode that focuses on how. There could be an episode that focuses on the Maxi League.

There could be an episode that focuses on Shooters' Redemption. I feel like a lot of times when we try to do these sequels that are filled with references, cameos, and story, it just gets packed in like a sandwich with just too much lettuce on it and too many tomatoes. Probably one slice of Guta too much, you know? You didn't need to go turkey ham and the grilled chicken. Too many items in there. Unless you want to make a little club sandwich, cut it up, disperse it, and then do the thing that nobody does enough these days.

release one or two episodes at a time so that we're all talking about as the series goes think about like south park right now every episode south park drops everybody's talking about it all week you think that they dropped the whole season at once that everybody would be talking about each individual episodes this is old school tv culture bro easy shit you want to get people talking about your show for a whole season's worth of material one episode a week for like six months. Do it like that. Oh, Ryan's got a lot to say today. What happens when you hand the kid a solo mic and say, go cook. All right. That's just one part of what didn't work. What else didn't work? I brought it up earlier, just in over-reliance on cameos. And I said my piece about this a little bit.

I made the main point. You can't just have the cameo be the whole cameo, because a lot of people aren't going to get that. And there's a good chance that your cameo, if it's somebody that's super shocking. They're like, I can't believe they got them in this role. There's a strong chance that they probably can't act. They're not going to have a good line delivery. And if that's the case, get somebody else to do it. Or don't give them more than a couple lines, you know? And not everybody could be Bad Bunny with it, you know? Bad Bunny is the gold standard of how to do a cameo in this movie I feel like. You know why? I don't think my mom knows who Bad Bunny is. We haven't had a whole lot of Bad Bunny conversations. But I'm pretty sure that if I watch this movie with her,

She'd be like, oh, I like that guy, Oscar, he was funny. Not even really knowing it was a cameo. You know why? Because he's a funny character. He was a great character for the movie. He had death. He had growth. You had reason to root for him, you know?

I actually do like the callback that Happy doesn't remember to bring a caddy. And he does the same thing he does in the first one. He just goes and finds the nearest guy down his luck that he just had an interaction with. Thought that was it? That's how you do a callback right there. They didn't need to show the clip of like, remember when he did that? even though they did just bring it up in the locker room, but I'll forgive him for that

because it made the moment, I think, work in this case. And then he brings in Oscar, and here we go. Now, not only his bad bunny showing up for one scene, but a huge part of the movie. I also have some of my favorite line delivers. I like the whole part when he tells him to go to his happy place, and he's like, I'm hopping now. I'm happy now.

Hit the ball. Yes. Oscar, you were thinking about a bear eating that waiter, weren't you? Yes. I thought so. Was there honey involved? A pukito. Excellent line delivery. I'll become more of a fan of Bad Bunny

every time I see I'm on Skirt. I gotta say. Anyways, I went ahead and just did this straight up grassroot style, okay? Old school, I could have fucking looked up a list, but I wanted to do this the old school way putting pen to paper, though it was actually written on my Google Doc sheet here, but you know, you get the point.

I wanted to follow along, and every time I saw a cameo, write it down, and see how many cameos I could call out just with my bare eyeballs. So here we go. The cameos that I saw in Happy Gilmore 2. Ken Jennings, Jeopardy host, John Daly, MJF, Eric Andre, Martin Hurleyhee from S&L's Please Don't Destroy, who's also the writer of the movie Tim Hurlehy's son, BT-dubs. Ben Stiller, Kim Whitley, who plays Bassie in the rehab scene, Dan Patrick, Bobby Lee, Andrew Santino, Alex Earle, Dot Hot Wings guy, I don't know his name. John Lovitz, Fred Couples, Jack Nicholas, Lee Trevino, Justin Thomas, Scotty Sheffler, Jordan Speef, Travis Kelsey, Bad Bunny, the guy with a weird side eye that's in every Sandler movie,

Vern Lundquist, Jim Gray, the blondie kid from Happy Gilmore One, which upon looking up further, was actually pro golfer, Will Salatoris, who just kind of looks like the caddy from the first movie, so they just said it was him, even though that is actual actor who probably went off doing something else his whole life and is now wondering what the fuck, why didn't I get this role? Kevin Eland, Rob Schneider, what a shocker he made an appearance in a Sandler movie, Marcella Hernandez, Stephen A. Smith, Haley Joel Osmond, Boban Marzanovic, Nick Swartson, Chris Berman, Robert Smigel, Lavelle Croffer, who played Slim Peterson Chubbs' son. And then there's a blonde girl that comes out and yells at him as he's walking away from the minigolf.

I feel like that was one of those cameos where it's like, oh, it's her. I don't know who that is, but add her to the list because I feel like that was a cameo. Bryson DeShambeau. Rory McElroy, Steve Buscemi. Post Malone, who actually I feel like had my favorite character name in the movie, who showed up at the end as DJ Omar Gosh. Found that to be funny. Reggie Bush, who shows up as eight ball.

WW superstar Becky Lynch, who showed up as Flex. Nikki Bella, who is sort of like her catty friend. I feel like she didn't really get much time to shut. but there she was. Eminem Guy Fieri who was playing a character who I don't know what the fuck he was or why he was there. Clearly just a, oh look, it's him because it's him. Nick Faldo, Sergio Garcia, Jim Furrick, Tony Finnell, Xander Schofley, Bubba Watson. And if you notice, all those last ones are either current or former pro golfers.

And I only know those last ones because I saw them in the credits. And that brings me to the next thing that didn't work. just a super over reliance on modern day golf. The amount of screen time that these golfers get just fully breaking the rule of, oh, it's this guy and it's funny because it's him. Can any of those actors deliver a line? I'll give Jack Nicholas, you know,

making the Arnold Palmer little joke when he's like, Lemonade and I see there. Like Arnold Palmer, he's like, Jack Nicholas, but I get that a lot. Like, all right, golf clap to that. You know, that's also one of the all-time greats. him making a reference about the other all-time grade who has that drink named after him, that's a good one.

There's so many scenes that are just built around golf culture. And I just ask, how many people that are huge fans of Happy Gomore are monster golf fans? And in this day and age, when there's no Tiger Woods carrying the mantle that's like keeping everybody invested, you know, I wouldn't say that golf is super cold or nothing, but it's definitely not on fire. I would. It's a little bit of a niche sport. You know, I like sports. I'll watch the occasional, you know, big tournaments.

I'm not going to recognize most of these guys on the streets. And they really built this movie largely around the idea that not only we recognize these guys, but you were going to be absolutely yanked to see them in this. And they just deliver some of the worst deliveries I've seen ever. Fucking Xander Shuffley. Three times. Three times. Hit some with them.

the, that's what she says, yarn. Ah, Adam. I'm gonna go into further detail about some of your joke writing, but bro, can we just, can we, can we all just decide that that's what she said, has passed along, six feet under, perhaps lying in a bed of ashes, and an urn on the mantle, however you want to view it, that thing is dead. Let's leave it lie, okay? It went to bed with Michael Scott when the office ended, okay? And their series finale, Steve Carell shows up, makes his return,

says one more great, that's what she says, and he brought that joke to more providence that ever had, and it jumped a shark with him, okay? It's done. Maybe the occasional moment when you're out with your friends and somebody orders a sub that takes over the whole plate and you know somebody is like why you're gonna fit that whole thing in your mouth and you're like that's what she says first of all it's got to be quick okay and that was off the cuff and that was just you and your friends if you're writing for a movie or a tv show or that it's buried don't ever bring it back again i don't want to hear it again and they said it four times in that one scene I will say the one thing that did make me slightly chuckle was Travis Kelsey, you know,

as the winner, when he kind of had the little reaction, like he came in and like daft him up a little bit. His reaction to the third one, that kind of made me laugh. But the fact that that whole scene, that whole scene was built around a horrendous, that's what she said joke. Oh, man, gag me with a spatula. All right, it's not just the bad jokes in the poor line delivery. You know, like Scotty Sheffler, I've got to say, say though I respect their number one golfer dude's got a personality of a doused mob rag okay he got so much screen time and opportunity to like try to deliver multiple lines which clearly does not have comedic chops and that's fine that dude can knock his way out of a sand trap with a hell of a pitching wedge

you know he's got his own skills that are carrying them just fine i don't need them all over my happy Gilmore's sequel but it's not just the golfers use it's the golf culture which brings me to the next thing that didn't work. Just a whole subplot about this maxi golf league, which is clearly a reference to the live golf league. I would say if you're not familiar, but they didn't do any, you're not familiar, they hit you over the head with it.

You got to be familiar with what's going on with pro golf to understand even a minuscule amount of what this maxi league thing was. So much of it was built around the idea that you understand what live golf is, which, by the way, is just another pro golf tour came from Saudi Arabia where they started snatching players out of the PGA and they kind of had a battle.

They seem to have somewhat of an agreement now on how to handle majors. They're just players that are in live, some players are in PGA. I understand it's a huge part of like the golf culture now, but not enough to like make it the, I would argue, the main point of the whole movie that just, I feel like totally fell flat to me. The very fact that the chaos in that whole maxi league matchup that takes the whole last chapter of the movie by Storm is incredibly difficult to find. follow what's going on. They're like running through a fire sand trap at one point. There's like

explosions. There's wild colors. There's other balls coming out of nowhere. It was really impossible to follow. And I understand that that was the point of like they're ruining golf for this. But the very commentary that they're rallying against in this movie is why that scene doesn't work. It completely gets away from what being actual golf is. And because of it, it's a sport that we've never seen and thus impossible to follow. The last, The last pivotal scene of the movie, when Happy has to sink a putt on some fucking wobbly thing, is literally built around the fact that he's trying to pull off a balancing act with Bad Bunny. Like, what sport are we playing it even now?

Like, is this a gnarly mini golf course? Like, it just got away from what golf is. And, like, I honestly watched it the first time, like a week earlier. And I honestly fell asleep during that whole maxi tournament. Like, I just didn't. It was losing me. I was kind of tired. Had a long day anyways.

And then I watched it again last night. just take some notes and it's just chaos, man. It's impossible to follow. They're just throwing cameo darts at you left and right as it's happening. I don't know. I will say, I like the idea of the shot clock in golf. That was the one thing that he said in all the chaos of like the throwing this new way of doing golf. That guy, I forgot his name, the guy that's running the maxi league.

He's like seven holes. Like I think, like I said in the last one, like I think nine is, I could do a nine. nineer. 18 holes? Boring. We do seven holes. Slow play. We got shot clocks.

This is obscene. It's a lot to take in. I get it. And then he's like, we're going to add shot clock. And I'm like, all right. I don't want to see what that looks like. Look, people rallied against the pitch clock when that started. And I think we've all universally agreed.

That was a great addition to baseball. Am I right? All I'm saying is, can we try it? can we try it a little shock up in golf can we try it I'm just saying but the one part I did like

was when the guy who owns the runs the league is like first making his appearance and he gets lowered in with wings and he's like I'm tippy toeing I said I'm tippy toe thank you okay anyways

last thing for me that didn't work just a lot of long scenes a lot of scenes where it felt like this was the first round edit. They just felt like they kept going. I wrote this down on my notes. The original golf round that he goes on with Eric Andre goes on for like 10 minutes. They literally follow him through like five or six holes. And I get that they're trying to show that oh, happy's is like drunk and he sucks now and you're building up to showing like he has his happy moment where he remembers

chubs and then he hammers it. You could have got there so much quicker. I really felt like they were trying to give the other three time to shine. And then the issue with that was like Eric Andre, I fucking love. hilarious. They didn't really give him one funny thing to say. You got all this screen time all that whole time and he was just kind of like random golfer three. I don't know. It felt like a missed opportunity to me. Then I also wrote the Alki Anonymous meeting goes on for like nine minutes. Like right after that, not a whole lot going on there either. Then the montage of him returning the tour is like 12. And then the final matchup of the maxi tour is like the last quarter of the movie. For a movie that had a lot of jokes that kind of felt like they just keep going, a lot of

It's just somebody could have taken a hacks out of this, man. If we lose a few cameos, I'm all right with it. If we lose Guy Fierry, you know, you still got a paycheck. You'll be fine. He's got his fucking cars and his shows where he talks about how much these meatballs are dripping with barbecue sauce, whatever the fuck. They'll be good because the first one was just tight. There was almost no scenes in the first one where you were like, I feel like we could have just lost that scene. There are like whole sections.

There are whole subplots in this movie that I feel like we could have gotten rid of. Like, for example, another thing I felt like didn't work, the whole, like, alcoholic subplot wasn't a huge fan of. And I get that they found it a way to get Ben Siller back in there as a prominent thing. Another thing I'd say didn't work was just like Ben Stiller was apparently like his main foil in this movie. Ben Stiller felt like he had a cameo in the first one that worked great. They brought him back as sort of a cameo callback. And then he kind of just wouldn't go away.

and he wasn't really funny enough to like continue to bring back and they kept referencing him like he was happy's biggest rival like at one point the kids gift him the dummy that's supposed to be him I didn't even know that was him until the second time I watched it and then like at the end his face is on the golf ball like why is he seeing his face as the one that like and he's like talking I don't know felt like a joke out of like a cartoon show you never made the Bruins because you suck at skating

you such a stupid face Who's he talking to? Oh, and your daughter's never going to ballet school because your dad's a washed up drunk. I'm going to kill you. And then the very unearned forced ending, trying to recapture the shooter running away with a jacket, with Ben Sillers' character running off with the three-month sober chip.

Like, that's not something that they have, like, a whole box full of. Like, is that really something that they need to chase him? You need to actually have the come up and speed about the guy who's been the biggest issue. And I don't think there was a big enough main enemy in this movie. And it certainly wasn't earned with him. But that's how they end it.

So there you go. And then I will say I did like that they did the callback to the waving and that Abe Lincoln and the alligator were still there. They added Bob Barker and his grandma. And then, of course, Virginia at the end, you know, saying, I thought that was sweet.

Okay, I liked that callback. Some of the callbacks weren't for me. I would say a good portion of them were just kind of dropped over your head. Like a goddamn Randy Savage elbow drop off the top. All right, and that finally brings us to the, what the fuck was that segment? I need to add a little sound bite there. No, better.

What the fuck? Yes, there it is. All right. So this is an extension of what didn't work, and it's just something that I noticed for the past 20-plus years of Adam Sandler movies. And that's just, when Adam has a hand in writing, which you can clearly tell when he does, because most of his comedies these days, he does. He just sort of has a real elementary style of humor that he doesn't ever seem to be grown out of. I've noticed in a lot of movies and it was all over this one where he just goes for the cheap layup. You know, like what would make the eight-year-olds in the room laugh?

I went ham on that whole, that's what she said segment, because that's the epitome of it. It's just for the lowest nominator of comedy, you know. Here's a few I just took note of as I was watching when he first shows up, played that golf course, and the guys that worked there like, Who was that? Grizzly Adams? Yeah. You know what?

I'm going to have to add a grown soundboard right here just to drive these home. That's a good one. That appropriately sums up my reaction to that joke. A lot of reliance on kind of weird old homeless guys in his movies. That seems to be a recurring theme. There was multiple in this. Steve Busemi keeps popping up as like the guy that lives across the street. That guy in the beach who is,

just the whole joke is like, oh, it's like a weird, like homeless guy. And that's like the whole joke. That's it. And then like at the end of a montage, he's just randomly grabbing his nips, which I think is a callback to that guy and water boy that was like, didn't make any, wait a second. Wait a second. Was that the same guy? I know that was probably the same guy. I should look that. I don't want to look that up. I'm just going to say it's the same guy. We all know that Adam likes putting in the same people in his movie. So that's probably like a friend of his. He tossed me in because as I was watching and I was like, why do I feel like I'm supposed to know who this guy is? I don't. But now that I'm thinking about.

I'm connecting the dots right here live either way. Okay. When he first meets the blonde kid again, who is actually pro golfer, Will Zalotaurus, turns out, he's like, that's your name, Zalotaurus? That's your name? What a idiot. Oh! All the bad breath jokes. Just...

Yeah. And any time that somebody just... that somebody just emphasizes a moment with bitch. Like, that's the, oh, he just said bitch. Like, it's just, here's the thing. A lot of these may have been funny at one time. Maybe when I was 10. I don't know.

But the point is, a lot of these are just as a layup. Take, take no real hard thought. You know the joke of, like, you had, like, 100 chimps in a room, and they all, like, they would eventually write Shakespeare. Like, I think it's more closer to that. If you put 10, 10-year-olds in a room, they're all going to eventually come up with a handful of Adam Sandler movie jokes. I think that's more accurate.

And I don't know. I just like a little bit more creativity, a little bit more well thought out. Intrinsic humor. Something comes around. It's delivered well. I don't know. I love a good comedy. And it kind of sucks because we don't get enough comedy movies nowadays and I miss them.

But there's still comedy we had, you know? I don't know. He just takes the easy joke a lot. And I think I've come to this point with my realization of Adam Sandler. As I mentioned in the last podcast, I think he's gotten so much better as an actor. I really liked him in Uncut Gems, and I really liked him in Hustler. He has some really good acting moments in this one when he's kind of going through his struggles and stuff. Like, he's developed to me as a much better, like, person as an actor than he is, like, delivering comedy.

And I think I'm at a point where I kind of just like to see him, you know, just focus more on that. Like, do some good dramas. He could probably win an Oscar. You know, I know there was Oscar buzz around him for Uncut Gems. and stuff. I think he has it in him. But his humor is too basic. It's too elementary. And I feel like as long as he kind of hangs around that end of the hoop, he's just going to be putting in layups. That's just where we are with them. And I think that he's matured as a performer, and he kind of just needs to realize it and harness it. So that's where I'm at with Adam. Still love seeing these characters

together as much as a lot of it was a swing and a miss. And that seems to be the general sentiment I'm seen on the onlines. I did enjoy watching these characters and seeing the progression of who happy is now. That was fun. But as I said at the beginning, you always got to remember rule one when watching a sequel. Expectations low. And that reminds me. When we were talking about sequels that we were disappointed with on the last podcast, I forgot to mention Anchorman 2, only because that was the ultimate I had built up in my mind. Like there's no way this movie fails. Will Farrell, to me, is at his absolute funniest when he's Ron Burgundy. And around that time, he was popping up on a bunch of commercials and just like segments on like sports center and stuff.

And it just seems like his ability to riff come up with references and the way he just carries himself as Ron Burgundy is just home run every time. Add on top of that, you throw all those other guys in there, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Keckner. And then that movie, again, similar to this one, I feel like they were just trying to fit too many things in at the same time. I, I read right before I watched it that the original cut was five hours, which should have been a massive red flag. I actually went to see that movie in a theaters. I never go to theaters anymore.

I went to the theater because I was so excited to see that movie. And it was one of those moments where I had like 15 minutes in. I had the slow realization. Oh, what? Is this going to be fucking terrible? And it just had no direction. It was at one point, there's a whole part of the movie where it was like a pet shark. There's another part of the movie where like he's dating a black woman and the whole

joke is like, isn't that crazy? He'd be dead. He can't stop saying black at the dinner table. That's wild, you know, and a whole other part where he's blind. Anyways, that movie was, I think, the ultimate jump the shark moment for me with sequels where I was like, never get your hopes up for a sequel again. And this one, I kind of let it happen a little bit. I was really looking forward to this one. And I would just say pretty underwhelmed. I was pretty overwhelmed, but I guess when I look back on it, shouldn't be surprised. So that's where I've landed. Now, to It's just run through the final C notes. That's how I like to end these.

And that's just where I sweep up the last few notes that I took on the movie that I haven't brought up yet. Put the crumbs in a basket. I get under the boards and start snatching rebounds like Charles Barkley. Let's go to the final C notes. Yeah, I like that sound bite for that. All right, let's see what we got.

We need that Happy Gilmore Golf game? Are you fucking kidding me? How you gonna tease that and not actually release it? That's the sequel we need, a combination of golf and fighting game? Are you kidding? You could add all the characters from the movie,

and at this point, we have a whole host of them. It'd be like when Street Fighter first expanded to like 18 characters and you had to go to like a second page to pick the players. We got a bunch of players we could pick with.

You can start throwing some pros in there now that they're a part of the whole universe too. You could have like 50 characters involved and you could choose between playing golf or fighting or a combination of the two. You could do a career mode where you never know where a fight's gonna break out. I haven't played a golf

game in years. Do they have career mode where you have to do like random missions? You know how in Street Fighter there's just a random bonus round we have to beat up a car and like destroy it to bits and a lot of amount of time? Fight! How about Happy does that with his fucking driver? Sonic boom! Same way he starts beating the shit out of his car when it won't start. Start like that and it's just like, Happy, you have 30 seconds to destroy your cruiser. Higer, upper cut. I got to get that golf game out there. Looked awesome. I like that Happy has hosted S&L more times than Adam has. In the intro moment, when he's talking about his life, bringing it up to speed, he mentions that he's hosted Saturday Night Live, like four times or something.

Famously, Adam Sandler, who was on the show for several years and then got fired, stayed away from the show for like 20 years, was not invited back until he finally came back to host one time. And I want to say, around 2018-19, as far as I know, I think I get this right, he's hosted only one time. Maybe two, but I'm pretty sure it's just once. And meanwhile, Happy's hosting like four. four or five times. I thought that was funny. My favorite joke of the movie comes right at the beginning when he thinks his car is getting broken into and he runs out there. And he just says, Hey, can you hold my beer? And then he gives it to him, he punches him in the face.

Then I caught some guy trying to break into my Ferrari. Hey, can you hold my beer? The guy wasn't a thief. He was a repo man. Dude, can you let me explain? Turns out, I didn't know I had to renew the lease. I gotta say the first 15 minutes, I thought we were off and running. I was upset and shocked to see that Virginia died, but I'd say the first like 15% of it, I was like, all right, I feel like this is going somewhere good. And then we meet the family. I thought the initial meeting of the family was nice.

He met his daughter, all the boys, and everything like that. It seemed like we were going somewhere good. And then it just kind of stalled. I feel like it really kind of started stalling when he starts trying to get back into playing golf. We have that long round with those other players. It literally felt like we were just sitting in the round with them. And you were just, like, walking along as, like, they're catty while these random kids play fucking a round of golf and think they're cooler than they are and shit.

So that's right around the point where I think they lost me and it never really pulled me back in. It sounds trite, but the lady playing Happy's grandma moves nothing like her. Just the moment where she, you know, obviously that woman's dead. I mean, she was super old when the first one happened, so she's no longer with us. But they try to redo her with, like, the kiss mask. And you can just tell by the way the woman moves. Like, that's not Happy's grandma. You just put a mask on some other random woman.

Get the fuck out of here. I love that Happy's attic is loaded with the giant checks. I thought that was a funny callback. I think I probably would do if I ever won something via a big check. There's no way I'm just trashing it. You could easily slide that in the corner of a garage somewhere. Good decorative piece. I thought the terrible happy statue bust was funny.

Just with the recent pickup in bad statue bust culture, we had like the Rinaldo one, Dwayne Wade one. That was a fine joke. The whole shoe up the ass and like the cutting of the lower lumber hip ligament being a main subplot to the end of the movie was odd. I don't know. Thought that was stupid. And that whole last round of golf just, hey, it lost me in eight different ways. It was fun seeing Nick Swartz and pop up in that little throwback clip.

Happy Zaki alarm clock was sick. A little hockey guy on it when it goes off. It makes a little hockey horn. I thought that was great. And then the last thing I have is just overall the movie just didn't. seem to have any real stakes. They didn't give me enough to really get invested about. It just kind of felt like a sweep everything, a catch everything all in when he kind of makes the bet with a guy at the end, like, oh, and Oscar gets a restaurant and you got to pay for my daughter's things. Like obviously,

like he's going to miss it after that happens. Like, oh, so you're going to get everything you want from you're just going to throw that in there at the end. They didn't go into the match with any stakes just to toss it in the bucket right at the end. Just be like, oh, look, there is ends up winning stuff that matters. I don't know. It just felt like an easy catch. y'all i never felt like there was any real driving force of like what we're rooting for what we're supposed to care about who is the main villain what's the the general arc of the story like i said i think this could have been done much better as a series that's where i've landed because then each episode can kind of have its own story and you could maybe develop something over the series

that we're working towards and maybe even then have a little cliffhanger to maybe say oh we could keep this Happy Gilmore thing grown. We could keep the train riding as an ongoing series. But in terms of like movies, I think after this one, we're all good on the Happy Gilmore as a franchise movie. I'm glad that they came back to it and bookended it. I wish they delivered the handmaker a little better. But like I said, it was good to see everybody back in their roles and happy toss on the old Bruins jersey and get after it again. And overall, I'm happy that it happened. But I do wish it was a little better. But anyways, that was my first attempt at solo guying this whole pod thing. Let me know what you guys think. Give your thoughts. Be sure to catch us on the other socials.

Add Dysak G-Js, TikTok, Instagram, all the good stuff. But that's it from here. Hope you enjoyed this little quicker review, which probably, once I got going, ended up being a little bit longer than that quickie review. But have you made it through the end, I'll take that as enjoyment. And I'll tip my Chubbs golf cap and give them one of these. Next!