DAVID SPADE AND FRIENDS
> BY GUY MACPHERSON
There’s something about David Spade’s brash yet self-deprecating humour that just gets me, whether in his days on Saturday Night Live, the sitcom Just Shoot Me!, his movies, his underrated memoir Almost Interesting, or even just in conversation. It’s not like he’s “on” all the time; he just thinks funny.
He can, and probably will, credit SNL with giving him his career, and Adam Sandler for keeping it going, but to my way of thinking, he makes everything he’s in better.
Spade started out in standup and has been performing it pretty much throughout his successes (and failures) in film and television. In his book, he talks about taking his mom’s suitcase filled with props on the road with him. He wisely lost the props over the years. When I bring up his killer Jeopardy bit, which he punctuated with toy xylophone, he laughs and bing-boings the theme song.
“Yeah, I love that bit,” he says, perhaps sarcastically, on the phone from California. “Believe me, there are some old jokes from my first or second year that would probably still work because I’m sort of the exact same style, pretty much.”
When he says he hasn’t played Vancouver before, I remind him he appeared at Richmond’s River Rock Show Theatre back in 2006, which, granted, is technically not in Vancouver. “So you did see that show? Okay,” he says, “well, I have three new jokes.”
Spade will appear here with two fellow SNL alumni: Adam Sandler, a comic he knew from their early standup days, and Rob Schneider. Sandler took a long break from the stage due in large part to the crazy success of his film career. But, thanks to some egging-on from Spade and others, he finally caved.
“I used to bug him about it,” says Spade. “When we were doing The Doover, we talked a lot about my standup and if he was ever going to try it again. I think when you do standup, which is what got him everything on SNL and all that, it’s always in your blood that you want to try it again. And also just to show that you can keep up and you’re still good. That’s probably why you do it. You try to be good with all these people out there doing it well. And I know Adam’s quick on his feet in real life and he writes movies.
“He started getting more interested during The Do-over and then after that he said, ‘Maybe I’ll try to put some stuff together.’ It’s hard to start from scratch and it’s terrifying because he doesn’t like to do old stuff, and he also has to write music. But he really got into it, because he’s a hard worker. So once he decided to do it, he hunkered down and wrote a lot.”
It’s a blast for the crowds to see Sandler, Spade, and Schneider all together again.
“All we do when we get together is act stupid,” Spade says. “If we’re flying or anything, we’re just making fun of each other. That is the fun of going on the road. Basically, we do the same stuff we did back at SNL and before. I think Adam likes to go out. I don’t think he’d have as much fun if it was just him.
“The road is tough. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. The 23 hours around the show is a little tough. But I think the crowd likes that we’re all buddies— and we’re legit buddies, not just fake cramming it together for a tour.”
Adam Sandler, with special guests David Spade and Rob Schneider, plays the Orpheum on Wednesday (January 24).