The Waterboy is a 1998 film starring Adam Sandler and Henry Winkler. Sandler plays Bobby Boucher (pronounced ''Boo-SHAY''), is a socially inept (but also intelligent), stuttering water boy with hidden anger issues due to constant teasing and his mother's excessive sheltering. It is discovered that Bobby's anger issues make him an extrordinary football player. This transfers to the coach and the rest of the team on the final game.
Artistic License - Biology: Bobby tackles his biology professor over the fact that alligators get ornery because of their enlarged medulla oblongata, leading to more aggressive emotions, instead of Mama Boucher's explanation that "they got all them teeth and no toothbrush". They're both wrong, because the medulla oblongata has absolutely nothing to do with emotions, being responsible for breathing and heart rate. The amygdala is responsible for emotions.
Big "NO!": After imagining his old coach berating him, he delivers this word to Casey before tackling him.
Bilingual Bonus: Guy (pronounced Gey) Grenouille's last name is French for "Frog".
Black Best Friend: Derek, the only member of the Muddogs who Bobby gets along with.
Book Dumb: Apparently, Bobby's lack of common knowledge is a result of his sheltered upbringing, rather than some learning disability.
Brick Joke: When interviewed at the final game, Vicki tells the interviewer that the game will be 30-27 and threatens him that it will happen. Soon enough, it does happen and the look on the interviewers face sells it.
Broken Record: Dan Fouts "Last game of the year, Brent. Can't hold anything back now...", eventually making Brent say "We know, we know...".
Bobby: Everything is the devil to you, Mama! Well, I like school, and I like football! And I'm gonna keep doin' them both because they make me feel good! (walks towards the door) And by the way, Mama. Alligators are ornery 'cause of their "medulla oblongata"! (walks out, then back in again) And I like Vicki, and she like me back! (almost in tears by this point) And she showed me her boobies and I like them too! (slams the door on Mama)!
The Cameo: Director Frank Coraci plays Bobby's father.
Captain Ersatz - If you didn't notice the professor strongly resembled Colonel Sanders, one of the characters points it out.
Chekhov's Gun: The glacier water Bobby gives to Vicki.
Cloud Cuckoolander: Coach Klein, ever since Coach Red stole his playbook. His first reaction was calling his grandma on a disconnected phone while wearing high heels.
Coattail Riding Relative: Bobby's dad tries to coast on his success at the very end of the movie. Momma tackles him instead.
Deliberately Monochrome: All the flashbacks are shown in black and white. During Coach Klein's flashback, everything is black and white except the playbook Red Beaulieu takes from him.
Bobby: I like school! And I like football! And I'm gonna keep doing both because they make me feel good! [slams the door, then opens it] And alligators get ornery because of their medulla oblongatas! [slams door again, then opens it again] And I like Vicky! And she likes me! And she showed me her boobies, and I like them, too! [slams door for the last time]
Expy: Bobby Boucher shares a speech impediment (one which Sandler overcame himself), obsession with water, and a few personality traits with one of Sandler's Saturday Night Live characters, Canteen Boy.
They could be the same character. He may have done some canteen jobs on the side.
Strangely, though, Bobby has no real traits in common with Cajun Man, another of Sandler's characters.
Bobby also shares the same voice as The Excited Southerner, a character from Sandler's album What the Hell Happened To Me?.
Bobby seems to also be an extremely broad parody of Forrest Gump, a Southern mama's boy and manchild turned college football star
Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: Mama Boucher, until Bobby finds out from old letters that her first name is Helen.
Ever wonder what Fonzie's ass looks like? Now you know!
Foreshadowing: When Mama Boucher argues with Vicky Vallencourt after dinner, Mama says "Nobody's gonna take him away, especially not some godless Jezebel like you!". This sounds like yet another attempt to smother Bobby, but later on, she reveals that Bobby's father abandoned them to be with "a voodoo woman named Phyllis.".
Foreign Queasine: Mama Boucher's meals, which include grilled alligators and a huge snake.
Generation Xerox: Apparently Bobby got his anger and ability to hit like a ton of bricks from his mother.
Gone Horribly Right: When Coach Klein gave Bobby the "Water Sucks" line in an attempt to fuel his tackling ability. It not only worked, but Bobby scored the touchdown that lead the muddogs to the Bourbon Bowl.
Gretzky Has the Ball: Coach Klein forging Bobby's transcript would get the school punk-slapped by the NCAA and easily cost them the entire season's worth of wins.
It Runs in the Family: At the film's end Bobby's dad finds out that Mama has her own little vault of pent up rage.
Jerk Ass: Coach Red and the whole Louisiana Cougars team. Also, most of Bobby's teammates, at first.
Jerkass Façade: Mama Boucher actually isn't an Evil Matriarch, she's been pretending to be one due to the pain of her husband deserting her and Bobby.
Laser-Guided Karma: Coach Red Beaulieu, who tormented Bobby in his youth and stole the playbook from Coach Klein for his own purposes. So it's only natural the two of them would take him down in the end. To elaborate: he lost the Championship game to a farm team run by the coach he screwed over, who'd never won a game until they brought on the waterboy he'd fired earlier.
My God, What Have I Done?: Bobby Boucher after his mom was in the hospital. He blames himself and feels guilty because she was the only person to ever care about him. She was faking it.
And his mama gets this small moment when she realizes that she made Bobby abandon his friends. Though we only see that during the new years.
My Greatest Failure: Coach Klein regrets not standing up to Coach Red when he originally stole his playbook.
Never My Fault: During lunch with Vicki, Mama Boucher constantly brings up embarrassing facts about Bobby, like how he frequently wets the bed and how much his feet smell. After Bobby becomes so humiliated that he walks away saying "Excuse me, ladies, while I go hang myself...", Mama says "You see what you did?", to which Vicki says "What I did?!".
"Gentlemen, this brings me to my next point: Don't. Smoke. Crack."
Ragin' Cajun: The "Cajun" part is way off, but is what they were going for, at least.
Salt the Earth: When Bobby arrives for the second half of the Bourbon Bowl Coach Red briefly attempts to not play offensive in an attempt to run out the clock.
Screams Like a Little Girl: Coach Klein, after Coach Red revealed that Bobby's school transcript was a fake and hid under his desk and "cried like a ten year old girl!".
Was It All a Lie?: Mama Boucher revealed the truth about his father: He left for New Orleans to make some money to support his family. But after two weeks, he "deserted" them to be with his two new loves: big city-livin' and a "voodoo woman named Phyllis". And changed his name to Roberto. She lied to him about his father because she was afraid Bobby would leave her too, thus the reason why she sheltered him all his life.
Your Mom: In one game, Bobby wishes an opposing player good luck in the next play, but the player rudely tells him "I'll be playin' with yo mama tonight.", making Bobby ominously mutter "62", his jersey's number. In the play, Bobby intercepts the ball, but idiotically gives it back to that player, who takes for a touchdown, beating the Muddogs. Though Bobby roughhouses him anyway.
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