It’s 1993. Most of the world knows Adam Sandler as the "Opera Guy" or the "Canteen Boy" on Saturday Night Live. He's the guy who mumbles, makes weird faces, and occasionally strums a guitar. Then, he drops an album. Not a collection of clean late-night skits, but a 54-minute descent into high school revenge fantasies, aggressive foley work, and songs that would make a sailor blush.
They're All Gonna Laugh at You wasn't just a comedy record. It was a cultural hand grenade.
Honestly, looking back at it from 2026, it’s wild to think this thing went double platinum. Two million people bought a CD that features a track called "The Longest Pee." But that’s the thing about the Sandman. He tapped into a very specific, very adolescent energy that hadn't been captured quite like that since Cheech & Chong.
The SNL Rejects That Built an Empire
Most people don't realize that a huge chunk of this album was basically the "too hot for TV" pile at SNL.
Sandler was only 27. He was young, he was restless, and he was getting tired of the NBC censors breathing down his neck. He wanted to do something edgier. So, he took his buddies—Rob Schneider, David Spade, Chris Farley, and Tim Meadows—and basically locked them in a studio with producer Brooks Arthur.
The vibe was chaotic.
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They were recording in one room while guys like Bob Odenkirk and Conan O'Brien were in the other room scribbling new bits. It wasn't a corporate production. It was a bunch of guys in their twenties trying to make each other crack up. That’s why the album feels so raw. You’ve got the "Buffoon" skits where the logic is paper-thin, but the commitment to the bit is 100%.
Why the Sound Design is Actually Genius
If you listen to the album today, the first thing you notice isn't the jokes. It’s the sounds.
Sandler worked with a sound designer named Elmo Weber, and they were obsessed with "realistic" foley. If a character was getting beaten up—like in the recurring "Beating of a High School Janitor" series—Sandler wanted the thuds to sound heavy. He wanted the squishing sounds to be gross.
There’s a weird technical brilliance to tracks like "Buddy." The stereo separation is aggressive. Voices bounce from the left speaker to the right speaker in a way that feels like you're standing in the middle of a room with two idiots. It's immersive in the dumbest way possible.
The title itself—They're All Gonna Laugh at You—is a reference to the 1976 horror flick Carrie. In the "Oh Mom..." track, Sandler plays a kid being taunted by his mother. It’s a parody, sure, but it also captures that core Sandler theme: the lovable loser vs. a world that thinks he’s a joke.
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The Musical Legacy of "At a Medium Pace"
Let’s talk about the music.
This album gave us "The Thanksgiving Song" and "Lunchlady Land," both of which became SNL staples. But the real "if you know, you know" track is "At a Medium Pace."
It starts as a gentle, 90s-style ballad. The guitar is clean. The vocals are soft. And then the lyrics start. It is, quite possibly, the most graphic song ever to be sold at a suburban Sam Goody. It shouldn't work. It’s objectively filthy. But Sandler’s delivery is so earnest that it becomes a masterclass in musical parody.
It proved he wasn't just a "funny voice" guy. He actually understood song structure. He knew how to build a hook. You can see the DNA of The Wedding Singer and his later Netflix specials like 100% Fresh right here in these early, dirty tracks.
Does It Still Hold Up?
Kinda. Sorta. It depends on who you ask.
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If you look at modern reviews, like the 30th-anniversary retrospective from Cracked, critics argue it might be his "worst" album because it’s so relentlessly "dumb." There isn't much nuance. It’s a lot of yelling and toilet humor.
But for a certain generation (shoutout to the Xennials), this album is a core memory. It was the thing you listened to on a bus ride with one earbud shared between two people, hoping the driver didn't hear Toll Booth Willie screaming about a "dolla twenty-five."
It’s a time capsule. It represents a moment before Sandler became a family-friendly brand, before the $2 billion in box office revenue, and before the Safdie Brothers turned him into a serious dramatic actor.
The Fast Facts
- Release Date: September 28, 1993.
- Certification: 2x Platinum (RIAA).
- Accolades: Nominated for Best Comedy Album at the 37th Annual Grammy Awards.
- Key Collaborators: Robert Smigel, Judd Apatow, and G.E. Smith (SNL's musical director).
How to Revisit the Sandman Today
If you’re looking to dive back into They're All Gonna Laugh at You, don't just put it on as background music. It’s meant to be heard.
- Check the Vinyl: There was a limited Record Store Day reissue on vinyl back in 2018. If you can find it, the analog warmth makes the "The Longest Pee" sound even more... vibrant.
- Watch the Howard Stern Interviews: Sandler has done a few deep dives with Stern where he talks about the specific SNL politics that led to this album. It adds a lot of context to why he was so "angry" in some of these sketches.
- Compare to "Love You": Watch his 2024/2025 specials on Netflix. You can see how he’s evolved from the "High School Janitor" beatings to more poignant, observational comedy, even if he still loves a good fart joke.
The reality is that without this album, we don't get Billy Madison. We don't get Happy Gilmore. This was Adam Sandler drawing a line in the sand and saying, "This is who I am."
It’s loud, it’s messy, and yeah, it’s pretty gross. But thirty-plus years later, people are still laughing.
*If you want to track how Sandler’s music changed over the years, your next best move is to listen to "The Chanukah Song" from his second album, What the Hell Happened to Me?, and see how he refined the "funny song" formula into a literal chart-topping hit.*