The Waterboy

Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Use mdy dates Template:Use American English Template:Infobox film The Waterboy is a 1998 American sports comedy film directed by Frank Coraci. It was written by Adam Sandler and Tim Herlihy, and produced by Robert Simonds and Jack Giarraputo. Sandler also stars as the title character, while Kathy Bates, Fairuza Balk, Henry Winkler, Jerry Reed, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Blake Clark, Peter Dante, and Jonathan Loughran play other characters.

Lynn Swann, Lawrence Taylor, Jimmy Johnson, Bill Cowher, Paul "The Big Show" Wight, and Rob Schneider have cameo appearances. The Waterboy was produced by Touchstone Pictures, Jack Giarraputo Productions and Robert Simonds Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. The film was extremely profitable, earning $39.4 million in its opening weekend alone in the United States,<ref name="Box Office Mojo" /> earning a total of $190 million worldwide. The film received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot

Bobby Boucher is a socially inept, stuttering, 31-year-old man serving as the water boy for the University of Louisiana football program. He lives with his protective and extremely religious mother, Helen, and believes his father, Robert Sr., died of dehydration in the Sahara, while serving in the Peace Corps back in the 1960s. As the players constantly bully Bobby, the Cougars' head coach, Red Beaulieu, fires him for being "disruptive" during the 18 years of his employment. Bobby approaches Coach Klein of the South-Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs, and is retained as the water boy on a voluntary basis.

The Mud Dogs have lost 40 consecutive games, their cheerleaders and the mascot are alcoholics, and players are forced to share equipment due to budget cuts. When the new team teases him, Klein encourages Bobby to stand up for himself. Remembering all the bullying he has put up with over the years, Bobby tackles the team's quarterback, knocking him out. Seeing Bobby's potential, Klein meets with Helen and tries to persuade her to let Bobby play on the team, but she refuses, saying it is too dangerous.

Klein convinces Bobby to play anyway, seeing that he is eager to attend college. Bobby becomes a feared outside linebacker. In his first game, he costs the Mud Dogs a win to take down a player who trash-talked his mother. Afterwards, the Mud Dogs go on a subsequent winning streak. Bobby's newfound fame and confidence also allow him to reconnect with his felonious childhood love interest, Vicki Vallencourt. Helen forbids Bobby from seeing her, insisting that she is "the devil".

The team's success earns them new uniforms and a trip to the annual Bourbon Bowl on New Year's Day to face the Cougars and Coach Beaulieu. However, Beaulieu and his team crash the Mud Dogs' pep rally and reveal that the high school Bobby went to does not exist and that he was homeschooled, and his fake high school transcript makes him ineligible for college and football. The team and fans turn against Bobby, believing he is a liar and cheater.

Klein convinces the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to let Bobby play if he can pass a General Educational Development (GED) exam. He apologizes to Bobby and admits to submitting the fake transcript because he was desperate to finally win something and get even with Beaulieu. Twenty years ago, Klein and Beaulieu were assistant coaches at the University of Louisiana and the predecessor was retiring. After Beaulieu intimidated Klein into turning over his playbook and took credit for the plays, he was promoted, and Klein was fired. Klein suffered a mental breakdown and could not come up with new plays. The story convinces Bobby to help Klein get revenge on Beaulieu and prove himself to everyone. Bobby finally stands up to Helen while studying for the GED, angrily revealing that he has been playing football, going to college, and seeing Vicki, and intends to continue doing so.

Bobby passes the exam with flying colors, but Helen feigns a coma. Feeling he drove Helen to illness, Bobby stays in the hospital with her. Meanwhile, Vicki leads a gathering of fans to the hospital to convince him to play. Seeing Bobby struggling to ignore this, Helen ends her fake illness. She tells Bobby the truth about Robert Sr., who abandoned her while she was four months pregnant with Bobby to have an affair with a voodoo priestess named Phyllis in New Orleans while living up life in the city. This led to Helen constantly fearing that Bobby also would leave her. Deciding to put Bobby's happiness ahead of her own selfishness, she encourages him to play in the Bourbon Bowl.

Arriving at halftime via airboat, Bobby finds the Mud Dogs losing by a score of 27–0. As Bobby dominates the field and enables a fumble-turned-touchdown, Red has his offense take a knee, knowing Bobby cannot cause a turnover and the fact that the SCLSU offense is useless. Using the same technique of "visualizing and attacking" that Klein taught him, Bobby then turns the lesson back on him. Klein overcomes his fear of Beaulieu and comes up with amazing new plays. The Mud Dogs begin catching up. Bobby is then given a cheap shot by Meaney, Red's toughest defender and is knocked out cold. Vicki is able to revive Bobby by giving him the Alaskan water that Bobby had. Bobby and the Mud Dogs carry out one final play before time runs out and win the Bourbon Bowl 30–27, and Bobby is named the game's most valuable player.

Sometime later, Bobby and Vicki get married. Robert Sr., who has since adopted the nickname "Roberto", makes a surprise appearance to try to convince Bobby to skip school and go to the National Football League (NFL) so he can share in Bobby's newfound fame. Helen angrily tackles him to the ground for talking to Bobby like that, and for abandoning them years ago, prompting cheers from the attendants. Bobby and Vicki leave on his lawnmower to consummate their marriage.

Production

The idea for The Waterboy came from one of Adam Sandler's Saturday Night Live characters. Sandler said, "You could compare him to 'Canteen Boy,' whereas he does love water and they both get picked on a lot, but the thing I like the most about this character is just that he is a genuine, good person."<ref name="tush">Template:Cite web</ref>

Writer Tim Herlihy said the story was intended to invert the formula of his previous films, where Sandler was an extreme character surrounded by regular people. "With Happy Gilmore, [...] it was a very straight world that he was the disruptive element in. The pressure was all on Adam to be funny as Happy. Whereas this was like a funhouse, crazy version of Southern college football milieu. And it was the first movie where things were funny when Adam wasn't on screen. The pressure wasn't even on him."<ref name="sbnation">Template:Cite web</ref>

Template:Anchor Herlihy could not believe their luck getting Kathy Bates to play Boucher's mother. Bates' agent did not want her to do the film, and Bates threw the script in the trash after reading some pages, not being interested in football. Her niece spotted the script and noticed Sandler's name, and convinced her to reconsider.<ref name="sbnation" />

Filming

Template:More citations needed section Despite taking place in Louisiana, The Waterboy was mostly filmed in Central Florida and the Orlando area, as well as Clermont, Daytona Beach, DeLand, and Lakeland.

The Mud Dogs home games were filmed at Spec Martin Stadium in DeLand, home of the local high school's football team, as well as the Stetson Hatters (Pioneer League, FCS)<ref name="orlandoweekly">Template:Cite web</ref> The classrooms and gym where Bobby takes the GED are part of Stetson University, also located in DeLand. Stetson's Carlton Student Union building is featured in the scene where Bobby is told his mother has been hospitalized.

The scenes involving mama's cabin were shot on Lake Louisa in Clermont.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Coach Klein's office was a stage built inside of the Florida Army National Guard Armory in DeLand. It is home of Btry B 1st Bn 265th ADA. In the background of the practice field scenes, the armory and some military vehicles can be seen.

The initial exterior shot of the University of Louisiana stadium was TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville; the interior of the stadium is actually the Camping World Stadium in Orlando. The Camping World Stadium was also the filming location for the climactic Bourbon Bowl game, while the flyover shot at the beginning of the game is of Williams-Brice Stadium at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina.

The "medulla oblongata" lecture scene was filmed at Florida Southern College in Lakeland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The extras in the scene were students at the college, and the scene was shot on campus in Edge Hall.

Soundtrack

Template:Infobox album The soundtrack for The Waterboy was released on November 3, 1998 by Hollywood Records.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Reception

Critical response

As of May 2025, review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported the film had an approval rating of 33% based on 75 reviews with an average rating of 4.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "This is an insult to its genre with low humor and cheap gags."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On Metacritic, the film has a score of 41% based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A−" on scale of A to F.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a negative review, saying "Sandler is making a tactical error when he creates a character whose manner and voice has the effect of fingernails on a blackboard, and then expects us to hang in there for a whole movie."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He also included the film on his most hated list.<ref name="EbertMostHated">Template:Cite news</ref> Lisa Alspector of the Chicago Reader also gave the film a negative review, writing "Geek triumphs after all comedies can be charming, but in this one the triumphing begins so early it's hard to feel for the geek."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post described the movie as "[a]nother film about . . . a cretinous, grating loser."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Manohla Dargis of LA Weekly gave the film a mixed review, writing: "Of course it's dumb, but every 10 minutes or so, it's also pretty funny."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Glen Lovell of Variety wrote of the film, "This yahoos on the bayou farce is neither inventive nor outrageous enough."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews also gave the film a mixed review, calling it "an agreeable yet forgettable comedy."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote the film was "so cheerfully outlandish that it's hard to resist, and so good hearted that it's genuinely endearing."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Mark Savlov of The Austin Chronicle also gave the film a positive review, writing that it was "A mildly amusing bayou farce with plenty of 'foosball' action to liven the sometimes plodding proceedings."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Box office

The Waterboy grossed $169,429,646 in the United States, and a further $28,700,000 internationally, for a worldwide total of $190,191,646 worldwide, against an estimated production budget of $20 million.<ref name="numbers">Template:Cite web</ref> The film opened at number 1 at the US box office, earning $39,414,071 in its opening weekend,<ref name="numbers" /><ref name="Box Office Mojo">Template:Cite web</ref> a record opening for November, surpassing Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The trailer for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was released alongside the film, in its second week.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The film was released in the United Kingdom on April 30, 1999, and topped the country's box office that weekend.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As of 2020, The Waterboy is the highest-grossing film in the sports comedy genre.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Accolades

Template:Anchor For his role, Sandler was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Stinkers Bad Movie Awards awarded him Most Annoying Fake Accent in 1998.<ref name="auto">Template:Citation</ref> He also won a Blockbuster Entertainment Award and a MTV Movie Award for his performance.<ref name="auto"/> In 2000, the American Film Institute, nominated the film for AFI's 100 Years of Laughs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Legacy

Comparisons are often made between former LSU head coach Ed Orgeron and Waterboy character Farmer Fran due to Orgeron's Louisiana roots, Cajun heritage and accent.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Future

In September 2022, Adam Sandler stated that he was open to making a sequel. While Sandler stated that he has not figured out the story yet, he was looking forward to returning in the title role at some point.<ref name="Sequel_Variety">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

See also

• List of American football films

External links

• Template:IMDb title