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 somehow transfers to the coach and the rest of the team on the final game.
Alliterative Name: Bobby Boucher, Vicky Vallencourt (the third of Adam's "V-name" girlfriends), Coach Klein, Farmer Fran, Guy Grenouille
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.
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.
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.
Disappeared Dad: Bobby's father Robert died of dehydration in a desert while serving in the Peace Corps.
His dad was actually someone who left for another woman. He gets his comeuppance in the end.
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.
Eye Poke: Because "Captain Insano shows no mercy."
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.
Harsher in Hindsight: In-Universe. 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.".
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.
Jerkass: Coach Red and the whole Louisiana Cougars team. Also, most of Bobby's teammates, at first.
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.
One-Scene Wonder: Paul Wight, aka The Big Show, as "Captain Insane-O", who laughs so hard at the thought of Bobby being his waterboy that he cries.
"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.
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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