Grandma's Boy is a 2006 American Stoner Flick produced by Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions and directed by Nicholaus Goossen. The cast includes Allen Covert (who also co-produced and co-wrote the screenplay), Linda Cardellini, Doris Roberts, Shirley Jones, Shirley Knight, Peter Dante, Nick Swardson, Joel David Moore, Kevin Nealon, and Jonah Hill.
Evicted by his landlord after his roommate blows the rent money on Filipino hookers, 35-year-old video game tester Alex (Covert) has to find a new place to live. After trying unsuccessfully to crash at his dealer's place and a colleague's house, he moves in with his grandmother Lilly (Roberts) and her roommates Grace (Jones) and Bea (Knight). In order to save face with his co-workers, Alex claims to be living with "three hot babes", but things get more complicated when he falls for the beautiful Samantha (Cardellini) — and discovers a romantic rival in J.P. (Moore), the creator of the video game they are all working on.
While almost universally panned by critics, the movie did become a cult classic, earning almost six times its production costs in DVD sales (the movie was made for $5.5 million and made $30 million of it back).
No connection to the similarly named 1922 film starring Harold Lloyd.
This movie contains examples of:
- Based on a Dream: In-Universe: Mr. Cheezle's predictions and commands are based on abstract visions of his dreams.
- Bilingual Bonus: Madam Camae's Filipino Palace will be familiar to any Filipino speaker, since "Camae" is a corruption of the word "kamay" (hand), referring to the extra hand "service" that comes with every massage session.
- Brick Joke: Josh shows up at Alex's grandmother's party with some of Madam Camae's "massage therapists" (see Insistent Terminology).
- Canon Immigrant: Doctor Shakalu later appeared in That's My Boy as Father Shakalu.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Jeff's mom walks in on Alex masturbating right before he reaches his climax, resulting in him accidentally ejaculating on her.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After quitting his job out of frustration of having his game stolen, Alex has Dante roll every strain of weed into one and proceeds to smoke the giant joint with him.
- Dude Magnet: Samantha. Almost every guy in the movie has a crush on her.
- Hollywood Game Design: J.P. and Alex are both essentially creating games on their own. A manager also congratulates a QA tester for "finding all the bugs," which seems to misunderstand the entire concept of QA.
- Insistent Terminology:
- JP corrects Kane when he forgets to add the "3" to "Eternal Deathslayer 3".
- Jeff doesn't live with his parents, he lives with his roommates. And it's not an inflatable fish, it's an air mattress.
- Madame Camae doesn't have hookers, she has "massage therapists".
- Inelegant Blubbering: J.P. drools over himself when he starts crying in front of Alex.
- Insufferable Genius: J.P. is a brilliant programmer, but he is so arrogant and condescending that all of his co-workers despise him.
- Ironic Echo Cut: When Bobby challenges Jeff to a game of DanceDanceRevolution.Jeff: That's great, Bobby, but we don't have DanceDanceRevolution so... you're dumb.*cuts to a shot of the DDR machine sitting in the break room*Jeff: When the hell did we get this?
- Manchild: Played most noticeably with Jeff, who still lives with his parents, sleeps in a onesie with stuffed animals and whose bed is a car.Jeff: Yeah, but it's a fuckin' sweet car.
- JP, who constantly compares himself to robots, complete with voiced sounds.
- Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration: Alex can no longer stay at Jeff's house after one of his masturbation sessions goes VERY wrong.Jeff: I can't believe you came on my mom.
- May–December Romance: Jeff is in his early 30s and Grace is old enough to have been adult during The Great Depression. Actors playing them were 30 and 72 back then.
- Mistaken for Gay: Alex's "roommates" get this idea about him thanks to Jeff pretending to be him on the phone (and the fact that Alex is 36 and single).
- Ms. Fanservice: The "milkmaid" whose boobs Barry sucks on for 13 hours straight.
- Mushroom Samba: When Alex's grandmother and friends run out of tea, they look for more tea inside a jar in Alex's room. The same jar where Alex hides his weed. Hilarity (and a massive party) ensues.
- Nerds Are Virgins: Implied rather strongly, since the massive party in the middle of the movie is when Jeff loses his virginity and Barry gets to second base for the first time...for 13 hours straight.
- Never Trust a Trailer: This movie was marketed in the trailer as being about a slacker who lived with his grandma and smokes weed with his stoner friend and pet monkey. Hilarious antics of the trio would presumably ensue. The actual story involves a slacker who lived with his grandma and smokes weed with his stoner friend and pet monkey when he's not dealing with the hilarious antics of the video game company.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: When the disc for the game Alex is working on is stolen, he considers the entire game to be stolen. Apparently, he directly works on the game while it's in a disk somehow and leave no documentation.
- No Social Skills: Most of Alex's co-workers, but especially J.P. Alex even tells him that the whole robot thing doesn't exactly make him popular.
- No, You:
- Josh: "They're not hookers.. they're massage therapists..."Evictor 1: "Yeah, massage your cock for money."Evictor 2: "There's a word for that, I think it's Hooker."Josh: "YOU'RE A HOOKER!"
- Pac Man Fever: Mostly averted, but still refers to numbered levels even when discussing fighting games and RPGs, two genres which seldom if ever feature numbered levels.
- Palette Swap: Discussed. One of the testers suggests this to JP as a time-saving measure when he notes two of the game's enemies have similar designs. After dismissing him about it, JP makes the same argument for it to Samantha.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: After taking Alex's only copy of his game to give notes on, J.P. instead claims to have been working on it on the side for the past year.
- Poor Man's Porn: Alex uses a Lara Croft action figure as visual stimulation while staying over at his friend's house due to not having access to anything better.
- Product Placement:
- Alex's game, "Demonik", was an actual game in development for the XBox360 until its publisher, Majesco, got into financial trouble and the game was canceled.
- Alex and Samantha play Guilty Gear during his grandma's marijuana-fueled party.
- Really Gets Around: Grace has slept with Abbott and Costello, Charlie Chaplin and Don Knotts, among God knows how many other people. Jeff claims that she gave him an STD from the silent film era.
- Robo Speak: J.P. does this when he gets nervous. Everyone's reactions to his Robo Speak seem pretty realistic (i.e. They all think he's off his nut. And they make fun of him. A lot).
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: For both Jeff and Barry during the mid-film party.
- Shout-Out:
- While it may seem like simply a reference to him being a Japanophile,
Word of God has said that the scene where J.P. eats sushi for lunch was done as an homage to the scene where Claire eats sushi for lunch in The Breakfast Club. - A statue of Naked Snake can be seen early in the film.
- Kane's car is the same modified Toyota Supra from 2 Fast 2 Furious.
- JP's office has Doom Doors.
- Gay Robot, for which there are a couple of posters at Brainasium, was an actual animated TV series written by and starring Nick Swardson based on a comedy skit from Adam Sandler's album Shhh... Don't Tell. Also, the Gay Robot
◊ is an edited version of the Gundam F90.
- While it may seem like simply a reference to him being a Japanophile,
- Shown Their Work: The set designers do a good job of setting up an office that resembles what you might find in a game studio.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Alex's grandma and her roommates come to his office to bring him lunch, Jeff assures them that he is definitely not under his desk sleeping.
- Take Our Word for It: The "Brown Bomber", a strain of marijuana that gets you so high, you shit your pants.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Alex loudly and angrily quits his job at Brainasium after J.P. plagiarizes Demonik, but comes back after his grandma helps him prove that it's really his game.
- That Came Out Wrong: "Let's do it! The levels, I mean, not sex."
- Villainous Breakdown: When J.P. gets busted at the end for stealing Alex's game, he makes malfunctioning robot noises.
- Whole Costume Reference: J.P. consistently dresses like Neo.Alex: How much do clothes cost in The Matrix?
