Dave Wilson | Canteen Boy / 1994 [TV (SNL) episode]

bed bugs

by Douglas Messerli

 

Adam Sandler and others (screenplay), Dave Wilson (director) Canteen Boy / 1994 [TV (SNL) episode]

 

It is hard to know what possessed performer Adam Sandler and whoever else worked with him on him on the script to create a story about an extremely naïve scout-camper, strange even to his fellow campers, who is found to be sexually attractive by his scoutmaster Mr. Armstrong, who basically attempts to sexually molest him on a camping trip—the skit presented, moreover, on Valentine’s day when actor Adam Sandler appeared on the show with his then-wife Kim Bassinger.

 

    I am well known to verbally strike out about our society’s now long-time hysteria about all child-adult sexuality, and I have often spoken out about the painful back-breaking bends theater and film has had made to be politically correct. But surely even I, had I been in New York and been able to contribute any comments about the planned February 12, 1994 skit, might have wondered whether all involved had just gone mad.

     Baldwin has long been known as a risk-taker in his roles, and I have always longed to drool upon the actor’s quite hairy chest, fully featured in this skit. But there are and have always been normative limits, as much as I like to flaunt them.

     Howard and I happened to be watching Saturday Night Live on television that evening, and witnessed, accordingly, the original version, now very difficult to find, although I did discover one isolate source.

     In sum, Canteen Boy—an already established SNL character—is “got a problematic situation going on, as he is terrorized by a wooden owl they’ve put up presumably to keep other creatures away. The other boys and their scoutmaster Mr. Armstrong (Baldwin), have been telling the kind of tall-tales that is presumably at the heart of all boy camping lore, whether the boys are in scouts or a church camp.

     A fellow scout (Chris Farley) is now ready, once Canteen Boy has returned to their circle, to tell a very scary story. “Once upon a time there was a moron who always had a canteen wrapped around his neck.”

     Canteen Boy (Sandler) answers that he thinks he’s heard this story before.

     “It was a dark and stormy night, and this moron went into the woods. And this bear came and ripped his head off, just because he looked so stupid.”

     Canteen Boy’s response is that of a child: “You want to see something really scarry, look in the mirror,” but he is quickly shut up by Farley’s bullying and the laughs of the other boys.

     The Scoutmaster demands that they lay off Canteen Boy, ordering them to hike back to their tents to “hit the hay” demanding, however, that Canteen Boy stay behind.

    Armstrong observes that the pour scout gets a lot of ribbing from the other boys, as Canteen Boy insists it comes with the territory: “Sticks and stones….”

      In the very next moment, the Scoutmaster is praising the wonders of nature, puts his arm around the young scout and moves in for a kiss on the cheek, as Sandler’s character grimaces in distress.

     “Sorry, Canteen Boy, my beard is scratchy, isn’t it?”

     “No harm done,” answers the forbearing idiot.

     “My beard is scratchy, Canteen Boy, but it gives good backrubs.”

     A second later, the Scoutmaster has ripped open his shirt, declaring his shirt fell off.

     “That’s a quick fix, Mr. Armstrong, just put it back on.”

     Hugging him close again, he asks if Canteen Boy likes wine, who insists that he prefers the purified water right out of his canteen. But like an impatient seducer Armstrong off to get them a little wine.

     “All right, a little drop wouldn’t kill me, I guess.”

    Suddenly in his bathrobe, the Scoutmaster is back with the wine, which, oh so surprisingly! He immediately spills on Canteen Boy’s sleeping bag which he has swirled around him for further protection.

      “You’d better share mine. It’s extra large.”

      He agrees, until his own dries off.

      Pulling open his bathrobe to again reveal his chest, he asks Canteen boy to rub some bug repellent on his chest.

      Canteen Boy, quite wisely, suggests that since it’s February, all the bugs have gone done south to hibernate.

       “Humor me, Canteen Boy.”

     At that moment, on our late-night televisions, we witness Sandler, somewhat resisting but nonetheless still rubbing the sexy actor’s hairy chest, an idiotic grin on his face. Although Sander since 2003 has been married and now has two daughters, given all the suggestive gay roles he’s played, one can only suspect that perhaps he might have somehow enjoyed the naughty cinematic task.

       After further discussion, Armstrong suggests they just lie there at look at the stars as he dives in for another kiss. An instant later the Scoutmaster is sucking the scout’s fingers as he asks whether or not the scout knows how to play “Truth or Dare,” that game that now seems to be de rigueur of all gay encounters.

       “Ah, refresh me.”

       “You choose between telling a secret…or doing a dare.”

      Canteen Boy pauses. “All right, dare.”

       Armstrong whispers his dare into the scout’s ear, Sandler’s eyes growing wider every second. “You know what, Mr. Armstrong, let’s start off with the truth.”

       “You want truth, Canteen boy,” begins Baldwin’s character as we see under the sleeping bag wiggling his body in the removal of a recognized article of clothing. “You know what I hate underpants.”

       “I think if you’re worried about bugs, underpants would be your last line of defense.”

        Pulling his shorts out from beneath the bag, Armstrong announces, “Problem solved!”

        As they both turn toward a sideways position, Canteen Boy yells out, “What the hell is that?”

        But we know that they’ve now gone about as far as they can go with this truly daring cartoon as possible.

       “I don’t know, it must have been a bed bug.”

       “That was pretty big for being a bed bug.”

        “Okay. It wasn’t a bed bug.”

       “Let’s go back to saying it was a bed bug.”

       Fortunately for the skit, Mr. Armstrong just as quickly falls to sleep on Canteen Boy’s shoulder, obviously having consumed to much wine behind the scenes that, in the end, he’s not up to the task.

       So it ends when the morning arrives and Canteen Boy is saved from sexual violation. “No harm done,” proclaims the scout, as the Scoutmaster runs off to make them a pile of breakfast.

      As it was established in previous episodes, Canteen Boy can summon up snakes, which does immediately, so that when the Scoutmaster reappears, dozens of snakes descend upon the laughing aggressor, shouting out “Canteen Boy, you rascal.”

      It should come as no surprise that there was immediate and immense negative reaction to the skit, many attacking the SNL offering as being both homophobic and as trivializing pedophilia.

      On December 1994, when Baldwin again appeared on Saturday Night Live he half-apologized but pointed out that, after all, both he and Sander were full adults—which of course anyone with even a smidgeon of sexual smarts realizes is quite clearly beside the point since Sandler was playing an idiot child scout and Baldwin the adult ready to take advantage of the boy’s strange innocence.

      Today, all but a few of the remaining tapes and DVD’s are preceded by the absurd fiction the SNL company was forced to tack on to the skit in both written form and narrative reading of the text:

 

      “The following sketch, ‘Canteen Boy,’ is based on actual events. It tells the story of Canteen Boy, a highly intelligent 27 year-old who still lives with his mother, and, who despite his age, remains active in scouting. Certain elements of Canteen Boy’s story, such as his ability to summon snakes, has been added for dramatic effect.”

 

     If that ironic statement resolves any problems you may have with this actually quite hilarious skit, I have a lovely bridge to sell you at a very reasonable price.

 

Los Angeles, August 23, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2024).