Nobody Was Expecting Adam Sandler to Make Them Cry During ‘SNL50’
It was certainly no surprise to see Adam Sandler take the stage with his guitar during SNL50: The Anniversary Celebration, but it was surprising that his performance caused viewers to succumb to “watching a Pixar movie while chopping onions”-levels of ugly-crying.
After being introduced by his Anger Management co-star Jack Nicholson for some reason, Sandler launched into a surprisingly touching song, “50 Years,” which contained lines like “50 years of waking up Sunday afternoon depressed” and “50 years of cast members saying I think our cast is the greatest of all time, but we all know that the first cast was the best.”
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He also shouted out the many years of work from the SNL crew, and former cast members, understandably getting emotional while name-checking his late friends Chris Farley and Norm Macdonald. While the song began with jokey lyrics about not being able to use Lorne Michaels private bathroom, it ultimately concluded with Sandler earnestly singing: “50 years of the best times of our lives.”
Judging from the online response, a whole lot of people were blind-sided by star of Little Nicky giving them the feels.
A lot of people were probably expecting Sandler to come out and sing something fun and goofy like “The Chanukah Song” or “Lunchlady Land” or that one about how much he loves eating turkey at Thanksgiving.
Sure it’s an anniversary show, and inherently nostalgic, but it’s not like Sandler was quite so sentimental at the 40th anniversary show. His Digital Short with Andy Samberg was reflective and sincere, but still involved some pretty ridiculous wigs.
In the intervening years, however, Sandler’s music has become more and more heartfelt. There’s perhaps no better example of this than his ode to Chris Farley, which he performed on SNL when he hosted in 2019.
And in his recent live tour, Sandler closed shows with a new take on “Grow Old With You,” the climactic song from The Wedding Singer. In the reworked version, the lyrics are all about how much he loves his real life wife — and not, as movies would have you believe, Drew Barrymore.
So, since Lorne Michaels is presumably dead inside and incapable of expressing his feelings, Sandler was the likeliest candidate to bring the tears to SNL50.
