A Year of Garbage Movies #17: “Going Overboard” (1989)

We all start somewhere. Chances are, your first try at anything is going to suck. Back in January of this year, roughly 10 years ago, I wrote my first blog entry about a garbage movie, “Extreme Movie”. To date it has 0 views and upon reading it again I can see why. It lacks the craftsmanship you’ve come to expect from me, the clever turns of phrase and patented comedic technique (mainly make wildly inaccurate claims about the plot and comparing performances to ingesting household cleaning products; these articles are generated by Mad Lib at this point). I used the word ‘apparently’ less than 7 times, a rookie mistake. I didn’t even draw a cartoon. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is something much more complicated like this blog.

“Going Overboard” was Adam Sandler’s first movie, released between his breakout appearance as Theo Huxtable’s friend in one episode of “The Cosby Show” and his stint at SNL. He would have been around 23 at the time. Somewhere I have a DVD recording of my first and only sky-diving jump, also featuring an unfunny 23-year old who appears to be on the verge of complete and total nervous collapse. My video is in HD and only 4 minutes long, so it is clearly the superior movie. Sandler has no excuse, is what I’m saying.

The premise, such as it is, is that Sandler is a waiter on a cruise ship but wants to be a cruise-ship comedian. Also, he is aware of the fact that he is either in a movie or a very long commercial for a local furniture store and addresses the…