Here's The Story Behind Bob Barker's Hilarious Happy Gilmore Cameo
It seemed like he'd be with us forever, but the iconic game show presented and primetime TV mainstay Bob Barker has died at the age of 99. Barker was best known as the long-running host of "The Price is Right" revival, which premiered on CBS in 1972. Barker told contestants to "Come on down!" and ushered them through the fabulous Showcase Showdown innumerable times during his tenure as host through 2007. But even before those three-plus decades of television excellence, Barker had already hosted the popular game show "Truth or Consequences" for 21 years, between 1956 and 1975.
Barker is perhaps the most prolific game show presenter in American broadcast history, but his eminence extended beyond daytime TV. His trademark combination of unflappable reliability, chivalrous old-school charm, and slight underbelly of mischievous caddishness lent itself to a remarkable ability to send up his own persona in cameo roles in films and scripted television series. Barker appeared as himself on a 1994 episode of "The Nanny" and a 2007 episode of "How I Met Your Mother," as well as lending his voice to an episode of "Futurama," "SpongeBob SquarePants," and multiple episodes of "Family Guy." And if you haven't seen him square up with Chris Jericho during a 2009 guest host stint on WWE Raw, you need to check it out.
More than any other guest spot, Barker will likely be remembered for his incredible role in the 1996 sports comedy "Happy Gilmore" alongside Adam Sandler. Sandler's string of mid-late '90s smash hits was just kicking off, where Barker had been sitting comfortably wearing the crown of the most popular presenter on TV for years. So naturally, Barker was asked to beat the s*** out of Sandler in their scene together. Here's how it came together.
Teeing up a legend
When "Happy Gilmore" went into production in 1995, Bob Barker had been a regular presence on daily television for nearly half a century. As steady and assuring as Walter Cronkite was or Oprah Winfrey would become, Barker's public image was far from the ornery, ass-kicking Chad he'd portray in "Happy Gilmore." That's exactly what made him so perfect for the role.
By contrast, Sandler was just getting started. He'd accrued a lot of enthusiasm and momentum at the time, having just released his first major starring hit, "Billy Madison," the year before and appearing in films like "Airheads" and "Mixed Nuts." He'd also just ended a five-season run (or rather, was fired after five seasons) on "SNL." Sandler was by no means a nobody when "Happy Gilmore" commenced production. But casting a legend of Barker's status would show he had the ability to not only get big talent to believe in him, but earn their trust enough to break them out of the comforting mold we'd all come to love them in.
In the proposed scene, Sandler's Happy Gilmore would have paired up with a celebrity partner for a pro-am match. His rival, Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald), would hire a heckler to throw Madison off his game. Madison's aggravation would reach a breaking point, leading to a fistfight that he loses against said celebrity partner. It's hard to imagine anyone but Barker in the role now, but Sandler recently revealed that they originally wrote the scene for someone else.
Casting Bob Barker
In an interview with Collider early this year, Sandler shared details on how they got the iconic presenter to appear so against type in the cameo role:
"We initially wrote it for Ed McMahon, Ed McMahon said he was busy. We were like, 'Imagine if Bob Barker did it. He'll never do it.' We sent it to him, next thing you know, Bob Barker — whose neighbor was Chuck Norris at the time, and Chuck and Bob used to spar — Bob was like, 'Yeah, if I get to fight I'm doing it."
"Happy Gilmore" was Sandler's first collaboration with Dennis Dugan, who would go on to direct Sandler in seven more films, including "Big Daddy," "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," and "Grown Ups." Dugan recalled Barker's casting in even more detail in a 2022 interview with Cracked. He confirmed that McMahon was the original choice but remembers Barker's participation in the film with the utmost fondness. "He was completely game for it," Dugan shared, "he got the joke." He continued:
"He and Sandler got along great and Bob couldn't have been a nicer gentleman. Like I said, he was a martial artist, so he knew how to throw a punch. I remember when he knocked Sandler into the water, it was freezing cold but Sandler said, 'F*** it, I don't care, throw me in!'"
Dugan also remembered that Barker "barely even used his stunt double." Apparently all that training with Chuck Norris paid off, because when you watch "Happy Gilmore," that's really Bob Barker taking and throwing punches, falling down, getting back up, and generally whooping a**.
Getting America's grandfather to beat you up
Barker himself gave a glowing interview to CBS Mornings in 2013 in which he recalled the cameo that, in its way, changed his career too, not just Sandler's. "Someone from the Disney office approached me and said they wanted to do this fight scene in this picture," Barker recalled. "I said, 'Who wins the fight?' They said, 'You win the fight.' I said 'I'll do the picture.'"
From "Happy Gilmore's" release in 1996 to the end of Barker's tenure on "The Price is Right" in 2007, Barker recalled that he "didn't do one show where the audience didn't want to talk about 'Happy Gilmore.'" The association between the two maintained as Sandler's career exploded and Barker settled back into place at CBS. The two reunited several times over the years, memorably re-starting their "feud" in a segment for Jon Stewart's 2015 autism charity event "Night of Too Many Stars." In the clip, Sandler and Barker duke it out in a hospital room. Lukewarm soup, defibrillators, and the contents of a bedpan become blunt weapons of battle.
My favorite reunion of the two stars occurred in 2007, when Sandler surprised Barker on stage during the taping of his final episode of "The Price is Right." The look of pure surprise and excitement on Barker's face is infectious, and Sandler reads him a poem that concludes with a tongue-in-cheek nod toward Barker's animal rights activism:
"Bob Barker, Bob Barker,
We'll always have the memories
of the happiness that you made.
So in honor of your retirement, sir,
I went out and got myself spayed."
Barker will be dearly missed. Sandler wrote him one last touching tribute to his old nemesis today in honor of his passing, which you can read on his Instagram account.