After Adam Sandler Bombed A Stand-Up Set, Robin Williams Gave Him Some Encouragement
One of the keys to becoming a successful stand-up comic — aside from, y'know, being funny — is perseverance. The high of your first good set, even if it's five minutes at an open mic, will wear off quickly. You'll have many off nights. You will absolutely bomb. Hard. That's the point at which most aspiring comedians quit. A select few lick their wounds, and come back for more — sometimes out of hunger, sometimes because they get a little encouragement from a more seasoned comic. This is how it worked for Adam Sandler.
While attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts during the mid-1980s, Sandler honed his stand-up craft on Manhattan's various, highly competitive comedy club stages. He had yet to complete his degree when he began booking high-profile roles on "The Cosby Show" and MTV's pioneering game show "Remote Control." In other words, the Sandman didn't struggle for long. But early in his career, he did experience one traumatically bad night on a very big stage that could've knocked him sideways — especially because he'd been lying to his friends about how well he was doing in New York City.
Robin Williams throws The Sandman a lifeline
As a guest on Josh Horowitz's "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, Sandler revealed that when he moved to the Big Apple from New Hampshire, he shined his friends on about his stand-up success. "I kept saying, 'Oh s***, people are really loving me in New York.' I would call them up, and I'd say, 'I'm killing there, man. People are digging me.'" Truthfully, he had yet to break through in a significant way, and this incontrovertible fact punched him right in the kisser when he opened for one of the most popular stand-ups on the planet.
Sandler didn't give a specific date for the time he bombed out opening for Robin Williams, but, this being the 1980s, there wasn't a bigger name in comedy outside of Eddie Murphy. When people bought a ticket to see Williams, they were primed to laugh. Alas, on this particular night, Sandler did not deliver the goods. So he did what anyone else would do in this situation, he lied to his friends back home.
But there was a thin, truthful silver lining, one that Sandler dined out on when chatting with his buddies. "Robin Williams gave me a little, 'Hey, I liked that...' particular joke," he remembered. "So I got to dwell on that and tell my friends, 'Yeah, Robin Williams is f*****' into me.'"
It wasn't long after this that a 24-year-old Sandler was hired to write for "Saturday Night Live." Five years later, he'd enjoy his first box office success as a leading man in "Billy Madison." But had he given up hope after that one bad night opening for Robin Williams, we would've never seen him comfort a little kid by pretending to pee his pants. What kind of curmudgeon wants to live in that kind of world?