Here’s the One Time I Laughed During ‘Happy Gilmore 2’

Warning: Contains spoilers.

When it comes to Adam Sandler movies, I’m probably more of a Billy Madison guy, but I like Happy Gilmore too. I saw it in the theater opening weekend, bought it on DVD and have subsequently watched it again many times. So you have to understand this is coming from someone who isn’t a snob and was prepared to like Happy Gilmore 2. I laughed once.

I’m not opposed to a sequel, either. Neighbors 2 heightens the (also great) original. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me brought us one of Heather Graham’s most charming performances. But Happy Gilmore 2 isn’t only a retread of the original movie: it’s also… depressing?

Happy Gilmore does, to be fair, have a bummer premise: Happy (Adam Sandler, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Tim Herlihy) finds out the grandmother who raised him (the late Frances Bay) owes $270,000 in back taxes; she will lose her house if she can’t come up with the money in 90 days. Failed hockey pro Happy has a powerful slap shot and realizes he can adapt it to hustle golfer at a driving range, where he gets noticed by Chubbs (the late Carl Weathers), who offers to coach him so that Happy can get on the PGA Tour and earn some real money. 

Happy has a hard time with his short game and his short temper, but his everyman style and mighty drive attract a new audience to golf, so the tour’s PR manager Virginia (Julie Bowen) offers to help keep him on track. This being a comedy, Happy earns the money he needs to pay his grandmother’s tax bill and Virginia’s heart.

In Happy Gilmore 2, we find out Happy and Virginia not only stayed together; they also had four boys in four years, and eventually a girl. Happy continued playing golf and raised the kids with Virginia in his grandmother’s old house. When he was ready to retire, Virginia suggested that he wasn’t done with golf, nor was golf done with him. The very next thing we see is Happy at a tournament, driving a ball straight into Virginia’s head and killing her! 

This isn’t unprecedented: Happy is also responsible for Chubbs’ death in the original, when he presents Chubbs with the head of the alligator that ate Chubbs’ hand, and Chubbs is so shocked he falls out a window and dies. But this is played for laughs, including when Chubbs posthumously appears to Happy in the sky above Happy’s grandmother’s house, flanked by the intact alligator and, for some reason, Abraham Lincoln, all cheerfully waving. Virginia’s death is serious, sending Happy — now the sole support for his five children — into an alcoholic tailspin so severe he ends up going broke and losing the house. Again. 

That alone isn’t enough of a failure to make him change his life: It takes a ballet teacher (Jackie Sandler, Adam’s wife) telling him his daughter Vienna (Sunny Sandler, Adam’s daughter) needs intensive instruction, and that he needs to find $75,000 a year for her tuition at the Paris Opera Ballet School. How can Happy, now working at Stop & Shop, possibly afford it? By going on the PGA Tour. Again. He has early success again; gives in to his rage demons again; seeks the counsel of a wise golf pro again — this time it’s Chubbs’ son Slim (Lavell Crawford); bests his nemesis again; and earns the money he needs. Again! 

Considering the plot follows the beats not just of the first Happy Gilmore but of most sports movies, there’s no reason it should take two hours to get through it.

But it did make me laugh once, and here’s how. Early on, we learn that Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald) — the old-school golf star who hated and sabotaged Happy in the original movie, and who ultimately snapped when Happy won the movie’s last tournament, trying to steal the gold jacket from him — was committed to a psychiatric hospital after that, and has remained there for the past 29 years. We first see present-day Shooter at a parole hearing of sorts, as a panel led by Dr. Hertz (Herlihy) asks him what he’d do if he were released and saw Happy on a golf course. Shooter calmly says he’d nod and wave. And if Happy were wearing a gold jacket? That triggers a violent outburst and threats before orderlies rush in to take Shooter away.

Dr. Hertz doesn’t have much more occasion to appear in the movie. But at the end, we see a montage of everyone Happy knows watching him in a make-or-break tournament. (There’s a new X-Games-like golf league threatening the PGA; the less you know, the better.) Happy’s nauseated caddy (Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny) gets revived with smelling salts. A quartet of real retired golfers, including Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino, have fallen asleep in front of a country club TV. John Daly (as himself), who’s been living in Happy’s garage, has a slap fight with Happy’s neighbor (Steve Buscemi).

Then we cut to the mental institution. We see that Dr. Hertz and his fellow psychiatrists have been watching with patients in the day room. Elated by Happy’s win, Dr. Hertz says, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re all free to go.” The patients whoop as they run out. 

On paper, I’m not sure why this worked on me. Maybe it’s Herlihy’s un-showy delivery, reminiscent of his fellow ex-Saturday Night Live writer James Downey in Billy Madison. Maybe it’s the patients’ jubilant reaction. Maybe it’s that he then picks up a huge bowl of what appear to be jelly beans and goes to town on them. Or maybe I was just relieved that the end was in sight.

Whatever alchemy made the moment work, kudos to co-writer Herlihy for giving himself a great joke to deliver. Maybe Sandler should have tried that, too.