Going Overboard (also known as Babes Ahoy) is a 1989 No Budget comedy film starring Adam Sandler in his first ever movie role, two years before he became popular on Saturday Night Live. In this movie, Sandler stars as Shecky Moskowitz, an Idiot Hero who dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian on a New Orleans cruise ship. Unfortunately, he discovers the ship's comedian is actually a notorious jerkass named Dickie Diamond, who always gets the girls and is so jealous of Shecky. So Shecky struggles to become the ship's top comedian instead of Dickie.
Going Overboard provides examples of:
- Animated Credits Opening: It features a cartoon version of Shecky, who stands at his microphone and spews out Speech Bubbles that consist of names of people who worked on the movie.
- Attention Whore: Shecky.
- Big Bad: Dickie.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Miss Australia, who makes an attempt to seem somewhat nice during her interview segments when she's not accusing General Noriega of smelling like a pizza, but otherwise has quite the sharp-tongued personality.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Shecky always does this by addressing the camera, talking about his events.
- Also done when terrorists start raiding the ship and several residents flee in panic. The residents and even the terrorists holler at the camera during this scene.
Terrorist: (to the audience) This is no joke! - The Cameo: Milton Berle himself, who shows up in one scene and helps Shecky learn the power of laughter.
- Camp Straight: Bob. Despite wearing so much makeup that he almost qualifies as a drag queen,note he seems to have far more luck with the ladies than Shecky does, and even gets to hook up with Miss Australia.
- Covers Always Lie: Happens
◊ twice.◊ - Deranged Animation: During Shecky's nightmare, when Dickie tears off his eyes.
- Dope Slap: Bob does this to Shecky during the scene where panic ensues on the ship, because Shecky is Comically Missing the Point.
- Dream Sequence: At one point, Shecky had a nightmare in which he's in a white room tied up in a straight jacket with an apple in his mouth a la Michael Richards while Dickie insults him. Afterward, Shecky wakes up and tells the audience he's going to have another dream. He sleeps and tries a much brighter dream in which he's on a beach and has sex with some ladies but it was disrupted by Shecky's mother, who turns out to be Shecky's best friend Bob waking him up.
- Everyone Has Standards: Miss Australia is kind of a bitch, but she's still critical of Noriega's human rights abuses, especially him killing people who vote against his candidates.
- Funny Foreigner: Miss Australia.
- General Ripper: There's General Noriega, a lazy general who stays at his house and blames anyone for their lame opinions.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Shecky and Bob.
- Idiot Hero: Shecky himself.
- Indulgent Fantasy Segue: At one point, Shecky daydreams about shooting Diamond.
- Informed Ability: We're told that Shecky has what it takes to be a good comedian, he just needs to work on his delivery. But even when he's supposed to have improved, his jokes are still horrendously unfunny.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Miss Australia criticizes Manuel Noriega's murderous regime. His response? Send assassins after her.
- Jerkass: Dickie Diamond
- Last Minute Hook Up: Shecky and Neptune's daughter Slimey.
- Limited Animation: The animated sequences.
- Locked in the Bathroom: Dickie Diamond locks himself in a bathroom because he felt like he's going to puke. After that, he just stays there locked, but later on, the door opens and Dickie is so happy to reclaim his job as a comedian.
- Manchild: Shecky.
- Medium Blending / Art Shift: At the end of Shecky's bad dream, Dickie suddenly
becomes an animated version of himself when he rips his eyes out. - Medium-Shift Gag
- New Orleans
- No Budget: Shecky lampshades this at the beginning (see quote at the top of the page), and then illustrates it by making the camera shake excessively.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Dickie Diamond is a pretty obvious knock-off of Andrew Dice Clay.
- No Fourth Wall
- Non-Actor Vehicle: At this point in his career, before Saturday Night Live, Sandler was mainly known as a stand-up comic and as a recurring face on MTV (doing fill-in VJ work and appearing on Remote Control).
- The Pig-Pen: Croaker
- Noriega as well, if Miss Australia is to be believed.
- Pink Is for Sissies:
- In one scene, Shecky is determined to wear a green shirt and not a pink shirt, but then he was forced to wear pink instead of green. However, he later wears green at his stand-up.
- At the climax, when Shecky, Bob and Miss Australia were running away with the terrorists chasing them, Shecky's shirt changes to pink, then back to green, and this goes on and on. Shecky then lampshades it by realizing he's now wearing a pink shirt, saying that it's due to the film's budget.
- Public Domain Character: King Neptune.
- Right-Hand Cat: Noriega has a Cute Kitten.
- Shoot the Television: Noriega near the end, when he gets fed up with what was going on in the ending of the videotape he's watching. Cue Smash to Black.
- Shout-Out: Noriega's video tape The Unsinkable Shecky Moskowitz is probably a nod to the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown.
- Show Within a Show: Most of the movie turns out to be one of Noriega's video tapes entitled The Unsinkable Shecky Moskowitz.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Dickie Diamond
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Shecky and Miss Australia.
- The Stinger: Noriega picking up his kitten and throwing a grenade at something offscreen in a suicidal manner causing the movie to explode, followed by a cheesy Evil Laugh accompanying the last remaining credits on a blue background.
- Tear Off Your Face: Dickie Diamond does this to himself at the end of Shecky's nightmare, when he becomes animated in a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.
- Toilet Humor: During the scene where Shecky is serving drinks to the ship's residents, he just stands there and looks at the sky. He then sees the seagulls fly and one of them drops diarrhea on the drinks.
- Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness: During her interview, Miss Australia accuses Noriega of smelling like a pizza.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Shecky.
- Villainous Lament: "It's a Sad, Sad World When Your Head Looks Like a Pizza".
- Villain Song: At one point, General Noriega calmly sings "It’s a Sad, Sad World When Your Head Looks Like a Pizza" after he called Miss Australia a "leftover kangaroo vomit".
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Shecky and Bob.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Bob.
