'Rob Schneider: Asian Momma, Mexican Kids' Preview: Daughter duet and hacky jokes expected in Netflix special
‘Rob Schneider: Asian Momma, Mexican Kids’, the ‘Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo’ actor’s first Netflix stand-up comedy special, promises to give viewers a look at his family and personal life through hilarious anecdotes.
As per Netflix, in the special Schneider will talk about potty training his young daughters and his own “pig potential”, though it’s not exactly clear what that is supposed to be. Netflix also says that the show will end with a surprise duet performance with his daughter, singer-songwriter Elle King. Although, can it be called a surprise anymore?
While this is pertinent information, it is certainly not something that would prepare the unaware for what a Rob Schneider stand-up special would look like. Fortunately, there is a trailer to help matters. In the short clip that dropped on July 29, Schneider talks about life in his 50s, why he feels weird at the gym, and the downside of being f***ed up.
He begins by saying, “I’m at the age now -- it’s not that I’m less interested in sex. But I’m as interested in cookies.” That probably solves one mystery: what Netflix and Schneider mean by “pig potential”. His conversation around food continues in the short trailer as he dismisses the supposedly young idea of getting “f***ed up”, and says that if he were to indulge in that, he wouldn’t drink or party -- he’d just eat some cheese.
For people growing up in the ‘90s and 2000s on a steady diet of goofy Hollywood comedies, Schneider and Adam Sandler, who he frequently collaborated with, were fixtures. And in all fairness, neither actors’ films have aged well. Sure, they have their moments and ‘Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo’ is certainly iconic enough for Scheider to be continued to be referred to as that. But at the end of the day, it’s not particularly smart comedy. Nor is it likely to tickle the younger generations of comedy viewers who have grown up on a very different diet of what is funny.
That is not to say that Schneider is not an experienced comic on stage. Schneider began his stand-up comedy career while still in high school. He would go on to perform at several Bay Area nightclubs and was also a regular guest on local radio programs. In 1987, Schneider won a slot on HBO's 13th Annual Young Comedians special. This would prove to be a big break for him and earned him a position at NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’.
But has his stand-up material grown up, unlike his film roles? Speaking to the Charlotte Observer in 2018, Schneider said, “It was a sillier time back when I first started; now I think the logic has to be very clear. There’s so much media and so much in-your-face stuff, and I think in some ways they’re looking for a moral barometer -- for you to be their guide. We have to be there to entertain, that’s the thing that’s the constant. To be funny. But you can do it in a way that can touch on some things.”
He further said, “I like the challenges that come with the fact that people are very sensitive and overly reactive. I don’t think they’re necessarily more so than they were when I first started, it’s just now they have a device in their hand that (allows them to broadcast their) outrage. But I don’t really believe it’s real. I mean, I think some people are really outraged, but most people are just, you know, going through Twitter or whatever and going, ‘Yeah, OK, maybe I’m outraged’. And moving on. So I call it fake outrage.”
That just about answers the question of whether one can expect matured comedy. But there is also the question of his stage presence. Be it Reddit, or YouTube or even serious critical pieces on reputed publications, a theme that emerges is that Schneider seldom looks and feels interested in his own material. “Something about Schneider's bored tone implies even he doesn't find this stuff exciting,” observed Brian Logan of The Guardian in 2010, while reviewing his set in London.
Similarly, a Reddit user wrote, “I watched a video on YouTube. He seemed pretty disinterested in his own material... He ended on a punchline that required the previous viewing of his movies, so I didn't get it.”
So, what can one really expect from ‘Rob Schneider: Asian Momma, Mexican Kids’? Maybe one good song because we know Elle King is going to be there, and some hacky jokes about choosing comfort in one’s later years. And -- possibly, but let’s hope not -- references to ‘Big Daddy’, ‘The Animal’, or ‘The Hot Chick’.
‘Rob Schneider: Asian Momma, Mexican Kids’ drops on August 11, only on Netflix.
