Adam Sandler’s newest standup special culminates in a moving tribute to comedy, featuring shoutouts to some of late night’s most fondly remembered comedians and moments.
In Adam Sandler: Love You, the Josh Safdie-directed comedy special that arrived on Netflix on Tuesday, Sandler caps off a show of standup and comedy music with a song called “Here Comes the Comedy.”
Written and performed with Saturday Night Live writer Dan Bulla, the performance finds Sandler waxing philosophical on the value of comedians, then thanking his influences and contemporaries by name while a montage of their work plays above him.
“You need a fix and you need it fast / How can you put all this sh*t in the past / Yeah, who’s gonna be the hero to get you through the night?,” Sandler sings. “You know it’s comedy / Here comes the comedy.”
The song then runs through loving references to “Leno on Letterman,” SCTV, Joan Rivers, “Aykroyd and Belushi,” and “Triumph and Conie”—the latter being Sandler’s nickname for Conan O’Brien. Also mentioned and shown are frequent late-night guests including George Carlin, Jerry Lewis, and David Brenner, and late night-adjacent projects like Animal House, Caddyshack, Mean Girls, and Bridesmaids.
Sandler devotes ample time to his frequent collaborators, both onscreen and behind the scenes. SNL alums David Spade, Tim Meadows, Rob Schneider, Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, and Tim Herlihy all get mentions.
He slows down to pay particular tribute to another SNL cast member: “Eddie Murphy, my whole f**king neighborhood wanted to be you,” Sandler sings.
Sandler wraps up the song with a focus on some particularly impactful presences from his time at Saturday Night Live. “Thank you, Downey / Thank you, Lorne,” he sings, referring to longtime SNL writer Jim Downey and creator Lorne Michaels, before closing it out with two posthumous offerings of gratitude: “Thank you, Farley / Thank you, Norm.”
The video montage also highlights some other influential figures and moments not mentioned by name: Richard Pryor on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Andy Kaufman, Bob Hope, Garry Shandling, Dana Carvey’s impression of Dennis Miller on “Weekend Update,” Jane Curtin, Arsenio Hall, Phil Hartman’s Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, Kristen Wiig, and Gilda Radner.
Sandler’s last Netflix special, 2018’s 100% Fresh, ended with an emotional tribute to his former SNL castmate Chris Farley. He brought that tune to SNL when he hosted in 2019 in one of that episode’s most widely acclaimed moments.
Adam Sandler: Love You is streaming now on Netflix.
