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YMMV / Eight Crazy Nights

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: While Davey isn't seen facing any further punishment, considering what his top priority was after his Heel–Face Turn, it's entirely possible that he no longer cared if he still gets arrested for his charges, so long as he makes sure Whitey finally gets the respect he deserves.
  • Awesome Art: The one unanimous praise that the movie gets is for its incredibly fluid hand-drawn animation, created by many of the artists who also worked on The Iron Giant, hence the similar art styles.
  • Awesome Music:
    • "Davey's Song" does a good job of letting the viewer know just what they're in for while being as outrageously over the top as possible. Fitting, as it's the very first song in the movie.
    • "Long Ago" makes for a lovely yet somber duet between Davey and Jennifer, even though it's constantly interrupted by random and raunchy humor from other characters.
    • "Intervention Song" (a.k.a. "Let It Out, Davey"), despite being one of the most gratuitous scenes of Product Placement in the entire movie, is incredibly catchy. The Foot Locker guy, voiced by Peter Dante, has some wicked pipes. There's also the Mood Whiplash Tear Jerker coda in which Davey finally reads the card his deceased parents wrote him and breaks down in tears. Makes it better that Sandler's own father (before his passing) voiced Davey's father in the scene.
    • "Bum Biddy", which comes at the climax and features a lovely three-part harmony.
      Jennifer: ♪Tonight Whitey was counting on this town // to show that we care. But the first time he really needed us, we weren't there~! ♪
      Benjamin: ♪And on Christmas Eve and the last night of Hanukkah~!♪
      Davey: ♪It's juuuust noooot - fair-air-air-air!♪
  • Base-Breaking Character: Whitey. Most consider his nails-on-a-chalkboard voice to be the reason they hate this movie, while others are more forgiving since he is just such a Nice Guy.
  • Broken Base: The animation. Nobody will deny that this is a very well-animated film, especially since it was one of the last major American hand-drawn animated films, but there's some debate about whether its dissonance from the vulgar humor makes it funnier or just awkward.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Davey insulting an obese boy by calling him "jelly jugs" isn't funny. Whitey trying to remedy the situation by assuring the boy that he "has very nice boobs", however, is. And then we see the kid trying on a bra at Victoria's Secret.
  • Critical Backlash: While the film has a very negative reception overall, it is one of the few mainstream holiday movies that deals with Chanukah, not to mention it is one of the few traditionally animated movies at the time, with the animation being one of the few things that was unanimously agreed to be good, so it has some millennial fans who appreciate it for those qualities if nothing else.
  • Designated Hero: Davey. He treat pretty much everybody with equal disdain and commits a lot of crimes such as vandalism, theft, assault, and purposely torments Whitey any chance he gets. His eventual Heel–Face Turn can feel hollow as a result, especially since he faced no repercussions for his actions.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Eleanore for being as nice as Whitey while also having a voice that actually makes her sound like a different character. Not to mention she can kick your ass if she needs to.
  • He Really Can Act: Say what you want about Adam Sandler's performance as Davey, but "Bum Biddy" reveals that he can have a great singing voice if he needs to.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "My hand is in your mouth, kitty, but I don't feel no teeth."
    • "Bum Biddy" has been used in various shitposts because of how downright bizarre the dancing looks.
    • "How many hot dogs did you eat?"Explanation 
    • Adam Sandler's [X]Explanation 
  • Moe: Whitey. Whether you dislike his voice or not, he's just so kind that you can't help but have a little love for him.
  • Narm:
    • The judge near the beginning delivers some exceptionally clunky exposition with little to no prompting in front of people who already know this info.
    • Any attempt at a serious scene with Whitey is destroyed by his incredibly over-the-top and obnoxious voice.
    • The narration after Davey lashes out at Whitey, for two reasons. First, there's the incredibly on the nose line "Just when you started to really like Davey"(which some viewers still didn't at that point making it somewhat inaccurate).
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • The brief but viscerally uncomfortable image of Davey screaming "GOOD! YOUR HOUSE SUCKS!" at Whitey, after he bans Davey from his house. When he yells, his face is drawn with more anatomy for emphasis, almost looking like he came straight out of The Christmas Tree, and his voice is downright hateful. It perfectly represents that horrible feeling you get when someone is yelling at you.
    • The intervention scene. The logos spray boiling hot coffee in Davey's face, strap him down bodily, and are attempting to get him to cry; it's an awesome song, but pretty creepy.
  • Older Than They Think: Whitey actually first appeared in Adam Sandler's 1999 album Stan and Judy's Kid, as well as the film Little Nicky, where he was played by Dana Carvey.
  • Questionable Casting:
    • Adam Sandler as Whitey. He gives him a voice that's both irritating and unfitting for the character. Not to mention, his voice barely even sounds like a different character when he's doing both Whitey's voice and Davey's voice.
    • Rob Schneider proves to be a rather odd choice for The Narrator, given his completely unexceptional voice combined with an underwhelming and dull delivery. There's also the matter of him portraying a Chinese man with a stereotypical accent.
    • Jackie Sandler as Jennifer, the main love interest. Though Sandler has cast her in other movies before it becomes clear here why their cameos as, when she's given a bigger role, she proves to be a rather stiff and wooden actress.
  • Rooting for the Empire: Even people who like the film wanted the cops to arrest Davey for his actions.
  • Squick: The scene with the poop-eating deer. Eating while watching is not recommended.
  • Strangled by the Red String: David and Jennifer getting together at the end can come off as this. While it's established that they have a past, they didn't directly interact much as adults, and the times they did were mostly built around her scolding him for doing something bad. Davey has more meaningful interactions with Jennifer's son Benjamin than he does with her!
  • Tainted by the Preview: The previews put a few people off the movie from the outset when they showed Whitey's infamously high-speaking voice, along with the disgusting scene of the deer with poop in their teeth.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Jennifer. She's meant to be the other half of a Childhood Friend Romance with Davey, but most of their relatively few interactions as adults are negative, which doesn't allow them to build much chemistry. Also, her struggles as a divorced single mother are mentioned, but she's so Out of Focus that they aren't really shown or expanded on.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Davey's Freudian Excuse doesn't amount to much more than "He had nice parents, and then he didn't." The movie does say that he was too young to really understand it when it happened, but not why he would have taken so long to come to terms with it. Had there been more to the story than just his parents dying when he was young, it might have had a little more bite.
  • Uncertain Audience: The main reason why the film ended up bombing as hard as it did. Besides being a traditionally-animated film released at a time when those kinds of films were going out of favor as viewers at the time considered them too kiddie compared to the CG-animated films from Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, it's a typical PG-13 rated Adam Sandler comedy, making it too crude and inappropriate for younger viewers. Yet, at the same time, the heavy amount of toilet humor made it too juvenile for adults.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
    • Davey is meant to be a Jerkass Woobie but comes off more as an outright Jerkass with little to no woobiness. Yes, he eventually learns to be a better person, but he also never faces any consequences for his nasty behavior or selfish attitude. It doesn't help that even after he comes to terms with the death of his parents and finally grieves for them properly, his first instinct is to assault the officers who try to take him in and then attempt to skip town in order to avoid any negative consequences. It takes a "Hanukkah miracle" for him to actually go back and help Whitey. The worst punishment he gets is a self-inflicted wedgie. Worst of all, his bad attitude is said to have come entirely from his parents' deaths when he was a child, but his parents don't even come up until their deaths are mentioned, which doesn't really communicate a deep, profound love for them so much as a decades-long tantrum that his nice things got taken away.
    • For that matter, we are clearly supposed to sympathize with Whitey when Davey snaps on him because he brought up Davey's parents' deaths. The problem is that Davey had beforehand asked Whitey not to bring it up in a firm but respectful way, but Whitey did it anyway. Even if Davey went over the line with his comments and Whitey meant well, Whitey had no place to continuing talking about an obvious touchy subject that Davey clearly was not willing to talk about. At the very least, it was completely understandable why Davey was pissed at Whitey and snapped on him.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: At the mall, among the many stores are The Sharper Image, KB Toys, Tie Rack, and RadioShack, nearly all of which closed all their stores years after this movie came out. RadioShack still has some locations, but even then, there aren't many left, with many people not even realizing they're still around, and even those who do feeling their best days are behind them. For that matter, Benjamin's Hannukah present is a Game Boy Advance, and it's framed as something new that Davey doesn't recognize.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • The "My darling wife was once a he!" line depicting the mayor's relationship with his trans wife. The depiction might be seen as transphobic nowadays and cut from the final release of the film in favor of a different rhyme. Could double as Values Resonance, since it's depicted as a loving relationship.
    • Rob Schneider's depiction of the Chinese restaurant owner would be considered racist by today's standards, and indeed, was when the movie first came out. Nowadays, in a film that wasn't aiming for that, he would most likely be replaced by a fully Asian voice actor note  with the character's stereotypes toned down.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Yes, it's a wacky animated holiday musical rife with juvenile toilet humor, but it is most definitely not for children, what with profanity, alcohol abuse, mean-spirited humor, and deers eating crap. Doesn't help that in Canada, the movie's rated PG, whereas a 14A would have been more like it. Also, expect certain retailers to put it near family-friendly movies as well. Also, the movie was advertised on Nickelodeon when the network had its short-lived Sunday Movie Toons slot. The movie also aired on Bang Bang (a kids channel) in Albania.
  • The Woobie:
    • Whitey. Whether you like him or not, he's a long-suffering guy and is crushed to discover how little the town appreciates him.
    • Eli Wolstan, the kid who stole Eleanore's wig 43 years ago. He grew up to be a very humble man and apologized to her the instant he saw her. Only to be met with a comic relief roundhouse kick.

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