Adam Sandler Imagines The Ultimate Nightmare Gig In His New Hilarious Special, “Love You”

Adam Sandler: Love You. Courtesy of Netflix. Photo credit: Scott Yamano.

When you’re taping a stand-up special, so much careful consideration goes into every single element of it. Everything has been meticulously calculated, from the venue to the set to the camera placement, and so forth. As a result, every stand-up special you see is set in the most perfect elements possible for the comedian to succeed. But what if those things started falling apart before your very eyes?

That’s exactly the organized chaos that Adam Sandler invites in for Love You, his new Netflix special that dropped today. It’s the type of special we’ve yet to see from any comic, let alone from one as high profile as Sandler. It would’ve been easy for him to do a special similar to his last one - 100% Fresh, which worked really well - where you see a greatest hits of what he had been doing on the road. But for this special, Sandler took a chance on something entirely experimental, aided by director Josh Safdie.

The special basically shows Sandler at what could easily be the worst gig of his life. As he gets to the theater, he has a cracked windshield, so he’s already not in a great mood. He gets stopped by hordes of autograph hounds on the way in, and has every distraction in the world from getting the wrong drink to being asked to speak to someone in the hospital right as he’s walking onstage. Once onstage, the monitors behind him don’t work, a fight breaks out in the audience, the stage collapses, and a dog comes running across the stage. Sandler, for his part, just shakes his head in disbelief and delivers the comedy, as one must do. He is still committed to putting on the best show.

All of that may be chaos, but it’s organized chaos. It’s a performance piece in the midst of a stand-up special. As someone who was at the very first show, I can assure you that the audience had no idea what was going on.

The whole ordeal seemed shrouded in a bit of secrecy, perhaps to ensure that word didn’t get leaked out to ticket scalpers. The news that Sandler would be taping a special in Glendale, California, came to us from being on the newsletter for LA venues Largo and Dynasty Typewriter. It was never tweeted out, and tickets were only $20. If you were seeing Sandler on the road, you’d obviously be paying much more than this. But this wasn’t your standard show.

The venue they chose had to fully illustrate the “gig from hell” motif they had going on. That venue was actually a rather nice local theater space in the round, Nocturne Theater. Relatively newer, the production team came in and transformed it into what they needed. They reportedly added carpeting and made all the floors sticky to give it that vibe. The vibe itself at the theater was unique. Here we’ve got one of the biggest comedians out there, and he’s filming a Netflix special in a theater that normally seats 300, but because they added a giant Jumbotron, it now seats probably 220.

It’s a nice, intimate space that this special called for. You needed to feel like he was so close to the crowd that the barriers were broken down, as opposed to if you were seeing him selling out an arena in your nearest town. The vibe had to be much more contained and small for what they were trying to do here.

Before the lights went down, you could even spot a few Sandler regulars making their way in. Luis J. Gomez, Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald), and Cole and Dylan Sprouse all showed up to support Sandler. On the subsequent nights, guests would include David Spade, Chris Rock, and John Tuturro, among others. He did a bit with his friends the night we were there, where he shined a flashlight and called them out. This bit, sadly, did not make the final cut. But if you look hard enough, at one point you can see McDonald in the crowd. Unlike what we see in the special, there was no opening act.

As Sandler walks out onstage, you could feel the love, especially being in such an intimate space. Immediately, he draws attention to the monitors not working, just like in the special. As an audience, we didn’t have the context of the monitors, nor did we know about the Splenda vs Stevia discussion that started backstage and made its way onstage. It all felt real, especially since this was the first of 6 shows, so maybe they didn’t have a chance to work out the kinks. Even when the dog ran onstage, we just figured it was a service animal for an audience member. We saw the owner chase the dog - Gary - around the venue before leaving with him. It was definitely chaotic, but somehow, I still didn’t catch on to what they were doing.

As for Sandler’s routines, he definitely benefits from being in such a small room. It sort of feels like a warmup gig - or a drop in - before he takes the show on the road. It’s very bare bones, save for his piano player Dan Bulla, whom he collaborates with on the songs, and the collection of guitars behind him. The routines themselves are the standard Sandler irreverent and silly fare that still works today just as well as it had in his early stand-up days. A personal favorite is imaging Miriam Webster’s younger sibling, who insisted on adding words to the dictionary, in a hilarious, drawn out bit.

In his last special, his closer was a tribute to the late Chris Farley that was pretty inspired, and got everyone choked up. This time Sandler again closes out the show on a sentimental note, paying homage to all things comedy and the people he loves. It’s a love letter to his art form, after watching him trudge through a night where nothing was seemingly going his way.

That’s the main thing you can take away from this special, too. No matter what is going on in a comedian’s head or what is going wrong at the venue, there’s a commitment to doing what you love, and that’s comedy. That’s what we see this version of Sandler in the special try desperately to do. The fact that he succeeds, and you’ve still got a funny comedy special in the midst of the masterfully organized chaos speaks of the comedian and his reach, not to mention his passion. We’re ready to go with him on this unconventional journey of a stand-up special. By the end, we’re certainly very happy that we did.