Rodney Dangerfield

The story revolves around a struggle to determine which of Satan's (Harvey Keitel) three sons will succeed their father as ruler of Hell. Adrian (Rhys Ifans) is the most devious, Cassius (Tom Lister Jr.) is the cruelest and Nicky (Adam Sandler) is their father's favorite. Adrian and Cassius claim that Nicky's mother is a goat and torment him by controlling his body with their minds. Nicky has had a speech impediment and a disfigured jaw since Cassius hit him in the face with a shovel when he was a child. Having been the "Prince of Darkness" for ten thousand years, Satan assembles his sons to decide which of them will succeed him, but instead he keeps the throne for himself because his sons are not yet ready to be his successor and tells them that they need to learn to keep the balance between good and evil. Angered by this decision, Adrian and Cassius go to Earth to create a new Hell by possessing religious and political leaders in New York City. As they leave, they freeze the entrance to Hell, preventing more souls from entering and causing Satan's body to begin decomposing. Stanley the Gatekeeper informs Satan of this and Satan punishes him by growing breasts on his head and giving him to his father Lucifer. To stop Adrian and Cassius, Satan sends Nicky to Earth with a silver flask that traps whoever drinks from it inside. At first, Nicky has trouble staying alive on Earth. He is killed several times, landing in Hell and returning to New York each time. While learning how to eat and sleep, he meets a talking bulldog named Mr. Beefy (Robert Smigel), rents an apartment with an actor named Todd (Allen Covert) and falls in love with a design student named Valerie (Patricia Arquette). Nicky's first encounter with his brothers occurs when Adrian sees him with Valerie, takes mental control of his body and makes him scare her away. Then Nicky sees Cassius on television, possessing the referee (Dana Carvey) of a Harlem Globetrotters game. When he goes to the court and tricks Cassius into the flask, Satanist metal-heads John (Jonathan Loughran) and Peter (Peter Dante) are so thrilled with his performance that they become his devoted fans. That evening, Nicky tries to apologize to Valerie. The meeting goes badly at first, but she accepts him after he explains who he is and why he is on Earth. The next day, Adrian possesses the Chief of the NYPD (Michael McKean) and accuses Nicky of mass murder using an edited scene from Scarface. Not knowing what to do, Nicky has Todd kill him so he can go back to Hell and ask his father for advice, but his father has trouble hearing because his ears have fallen off and his assistants are in a panic because the midnight deadline to capture Adrian and Cassius is only hours away. Back on Earth again, Nicky and his friends devise a plan to capture Adrian in a subway station, but Adrian discovers their trick. In the ensuing fight, Adrian grabs Valerie and dives onto the track as a train approaches, but Nicky throws her out of the way, leaving himself and Adrian to be killed by the train. Arriving in Hell just minutes before midnight, Adrian dethrones his weakened father and takes over, rising into Central Park and starting a riotous party while all of the demons except Satan's assistant Jimmy (Blake Clark) join Adrian on Earth. Meanwhile, Nicky wakes up in Heaven as a reward for sacrificing himself and meets his mother Holly (Reese Witherspoon), an angel who tells him he can defeat Adrian with the "Inner Light" he inherited from her. After she gives him a mysterious orb, he goes to Central Park. The demons discover Nicky and try to attack him, but Nicky creates gifts for them which makes them respect Nicky enough to join him and stop Adrian, but when Adrian kills one, they all run away. Nicky and Adrian then fight, which results in both of them sucked into the flask where they have a three-way battle with Cassius. Adrian appears to win a pitched battle by locking Nicky in the flask and turning himself into a bat, but Nicky escapes from the flask. When he shatters the orb, Ozzy Osbourne appears, bites Adrian's head off and spits it into the flask. With his brothers captured, Nicky prepares to save his father. He and Valerie express their love for each other and she kills him. In Hell, Satan regains his body and suggests Nicky stay with Valerie to maintain things in the middle while stating to Holly that he still loves her. In the presence of Nicky and Satan, Lucifer shoves the flask containing Adrian and Cassius up Adolf Hitler's rump. The film ends a year later, when Nicky and Valerie live in New York with their infant son Zachariah. It is mentioned that John and Peter have died in a plane crash and are now happily living in Hell in Nicky's old room. A postscript revealed what happened to everyone: . Valerie accidentally struck Nicky with a shovel which fixed his jaw disfigurement. "He's still no George Clooney" . Zachariah was suspended from nursery school after turning another kid's bottle of milk into moose urine. . Todd started his one-man show on Broadway which only a transvestite named Andrew/Nipples who attended Adrian's riotous party attended. . Mr. Beefy reunited with his rat girlfriend Heather where they got married last April and had kids. . Stanley the Gatekeeper and Gary the Monster also had kids of their own. . Satan and Holly have been unable to deal with their long-distance relationship after dating for a while. Satan has been romantically linked to both the Blair Witch and Cher. Holly immediately fell in love with her new aerobics' instructor Chris Farley. . Using their $25,000,000 reward money, John and Peter purchased Led Zeppelin's old touring airplane, stocked it with cake, beer and great tunes, died in a plane crash soon after takeoff due to a lack of a pilot, and ended up happily in Hell as honored residents who have been given Nicky's old bedroom to party in.

Thorton Melon (Rodney Dangerfield) is a successful and wealthy businessman who owns a nationwide chain of clothing stores for overweight people. Melon himself came from humble beginnings where his father pushed him to succeed in school; however Melon himself, despite his sharp business skills, never attended college. At a meeting of his top staff, he accepts a few new investment ventures and suggests modifying a few more when his son, Jason (Keith Gordon), calls him. Jason is a student at a prestigious school, Grand Lakes University. His father asks him how he's doing with his studies, if he's enjoying being in a fraternity and if he's doing well as part of the diving team. Jason tells him all is fine, but is actually lying to his father; he isn't in a frat, and he's only the towel boy for the diving team. Melon's snooty, mean, spendthrift 2nd wife, Vanessa (Adrienne Barbeau), holds a dinner party for her rich friends at their luxurious house. Thorton mentions that nearly all the people who attend are only there for free food and drink and want to schmooze her for donations. While he raids the fridge for a beer, he catches Vanessa in a tryst with another man, Giorgio (Robert Picardo). Thorton has known about the affair for some time, and when Vanessa demands a divorce, he presents her with papers and shows her several Polaroids of her having sex with Giorgio. After the party, while he practices diving in his pool, Thorton talks to his personal aide and bodyguard, Lou (Burt Young), about how he's let Vanessa weaken his relationship with Jason. He decides he's going to make a surprise visit to Grand Lakes to see his son. When they arrive, Thorton goes to the wrong Greek house - it's a sorority house - and finds out that Jason isn't in a frat or on the diving team. Jason tells him that he's unhappy at the university because he hasn't made very many friends and the frats & diving team don't want him as a member. Thorton tells him that he needs to stay in college so he can be successful in life. He also tells Jason that he'll join him for a semester at the university, enrolling as a freshman. Thorton has no record of his academic achievement to qualify as a student, so he persuades the school's academic dean, Dean Martin (Ned Beatty), by donating money to construct a new building that will house the Thorton Melon School of Business. The school's dean of the business department, Philip Barbay (Paxton Whitehead), is appalled that Thorton is able to bribe his way into Grand Lakes. Thorton counters by saying that he has real-world business experience that trumps Barbay's academic credentials. Thorton and Jason register for classes and both take Barbay's business course. In the first class, Thorton counters nearly every point Barbay makes about his lesson plan for the semester where they will learn about theory by building a fictional company that will make and sell a product. Later, Thorton and Jason attend a literature class taught by Diane Turner (Sally Kellerman), whom Thorton embarrassingly falls for immediately. Though she's seeing Barbay, she seems to enjoy Thorton's freewheeling personality and dates him as well. When Thorton forgets that he's supposed to meet Jason for a study session, Jason instead meets with a young woman who he's smitten with, Valerie (Terry Farrell), and they bond, despite Valerie's attachment to a snobby student, Chas (William Zabka). Meanwhile, Thorton, while partying at a local bar, comes to the aid of Jason's roommate, Derek (Robert Downey Jr.), a politically radical troublemaker who'd earlier disrupted a pep rally for the football team. The team's captain threatens to beat Derek when Thorton has Lou intervene, prompting a huge brawl. Thorton later comments that the football team isn't nearly as tough as his high school team was. Thorton also connects with the school's diving coach (M. Emmet Walsh); the man knew Thorton when he was an entertainment diver on a pier in Atlantic City. The coach tells him that Jason tried out for the team but didn't do well. Thorton has Jason execute a difficult dive for the coach on the spot. Thorton soon finds that he likes the fun aspects of college; hanging out in bars, throwing parties, schmoozing with female coeds, but he doesn't like the academic work involved. He brings in his senior staff and hires people from scientific corporations to do his classwork for him. Jason is angered when his father presents him with an astronomy paper that Jason wants to do himself. Jason becomes further disillusioned with his father when, after he makes the diving team, that his father might have persuaded the coach to let him join. One night during a wild party thrown by Thorton in the dorm room he had luxuriously renovated, Thorton is caught in the hot tub by Diane with several young women. His relationship with her is further hurt when she reads the paper he'd turned in on Kurt Vonnegut, saying that he couldn't possibly have written it himself and that the person who wrote it for him didn't know anything about Vonnegut. (Thorton had called in Vonnegut (Kurt Vonnegut Jr.) himself (who appears in a cameo) for assistance.) Barbay soon goes to Dean Martin with charges leveled against Thorton of academic fraud. Thorton lies and insists the work he did was his own, but Barbay trumps his claim by suggesting that Thorton's final exams be given to him in oral format so he can't cheat. Thorton begins to pack, wanting to leave. Jason convinces him to stay and that he and his roommate, Derek, and Lou will all help him cram for his finals. When Thorton's big day arrives, he's exhausted. Barbay starts the proceedings, giving Thorton a grueling single question composed of 27 sections. Thorton persists and answers all the parts correctly. When he wants to give up, Diane asks him to recite Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night". Thorton gets a boost and finishes his exams. The Grand Lakes diving team has a match the same day. Jason does very well, earning high points while Thorton watches and waits for his exam results. When the team begins to fall behind their rivals, the diving coach calls Thorton poolside to execute his famous Triple Lindy dive from his Atlantic City days. Thorton is reluctant, but Lou talks him into it. Thorton executes the dive, involving bouncing on several diving boards on 3 different levels of the platform, and the team wins the match. Diane finds him after, telling him he earned all D's in his classes and one A from her. Thorton is allowed to give a humorous address to the graduating class. He tells them to stay in college and become successful, drawing laughter from the crowd.

To inherit his mother-in-law's colossal fortune, a hard-living gambling addict must change his unhealthy ways before they get the best of him. Monty Capuletti could receive 10 million dollars as an inheritance from his late mother-in-law's estate. Her will states he must first curb his vices for a year, which include smoking, drinking and gambling to name a few. —Richard W.

Danny Noonan (Michael O'Keefe) is an underacheving 17-year-old guy who works as a caddy at the upscale Bushwood Country Club in Beverly Hills to earn enough money to go to college. Danny often caddies for Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), a suave and talented golfer and the son of one of Bushwood's co-founders. Danny decides to gain favor with Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight), the country club's stodgy co-founder and director of the caddy scholarship program, by caddying for him. Meanwhile, Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), one of the dim-witted greenskeepers, is entrusted with combating a potentially disastrous gopher infestation. Throughout the film, he tries a variety of methods to kill the gopher (e.g. shooting, drowning) without success. Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield), a brash and obnoxious nouveau riche real estate developer, begins appearing at the club. Smails is heckled by Czervik as he tees off, causing his shot to go badly wrong. Smails throws a putter away in frustration and accidentally injures a member of the club. Danny takes responsibility for the incident, as a ploy to gain Smails' trust. Smails encourages him to apply for the caddy scholarship. At Bushwood's annual Fourth of July banquet, Danny and his girlfriend Maggie (Sarah Holcomb) work as servers. Czervik continues to irritate Smails and the club members, while Danny becomes attracted to Lacey Underall (Cindy Morgan), Smails' promiscuous niece. Danny wins the Caddy Day golf tournament and the scholarship, earning him praise from Smails and an invitation to attend the christening ceremony for his boat. The boat is sunk at the event after a collision with Czervik's larger boat. On returning, Smails discovers Lacey and Danny having a tryst at his house. Expecting to be fired or to have the scholarship revoked, Danny is surprised when Smails only demands that he keeps the incident secret. Unable to bear the continued presence of the crude-mannered Czervik, Smails confronts him and announces that Czervik will never be granted membership. Czervik counters by announcing that he would never consider being a member: he insults the place and is merely there to evaluate buying Bushwood and developing the land into condominiums. After a brief scuffle and exchange of insults, Ty Webb suggests they discuss a resolution over drinks. After Smails demands satisfaction, Czervik proposes a team golf match with Smails and his regular golfing partner Dr. Beeper (Dan Resin) against Czervik and Webb. Against club rules, they also agree to a $20,000 wager, quickly doubled to $40,000, on the outcome of the match. That evening, Webb practices for the game against Smails and meets Carl, where the two share a bottle of wine and a joint. The golf match is held the following day. Word spreads of the stakes involved and a crowd builds. During the game, Smails and Beeper take the lead, while Czervik, to his dismay, is "playing the worst game of his life". He reacts to Smails' taunts by impulsively redoubling the wager to $80,000 per team. When his own ricocheting ball strikes him, Czervik feigns injury in hopes of having the contest declared a draw. Lou, the course official who is acting as an umpire, tells Czervik his team will forfeit unless they find a substitute. When Webb chooses Danny, Smails threatens to revoke his scholarship, but Czervik promises Danny that he will make it "worth his while" if he wins. Danny eventually decides he would rather humiliate the selfish, conceited Smails than take the scholarship. By the time they reach the final hole, the score is tied. At the climax of the game, with Danny about to attempt a difficult putt to win, Czervik again redoubles the wager to $160,000 per team. Danny's putt leaves the ball hanging over the edge of the hole. At that moment, Carl, in his latest attempt to kill the gopher, detonates a series of plastic explosives that he has rigged around the golf course. The explosion shakes the ground and causes the ball to drop into the hole, handing Danny, Webb, and Czervik the victory. Smails refuses to pay, so Czervik beckons two hulking men, named Moose and Roco, to "help the judge find his checkbook." As Smails is chased around the course, Czervik leads another wild party attended by all of the onlookers at the match, shouting, "Hey everybody! We're all gonna get laid!" In the final scene, the gopher emerges, unharmed, and dances amid the smoldering ruins of the golf course.