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The ventriloquist act that opens for Adam Sandler in his new special Love You is working hard to win over the crowd. “How’s he doing?” Sandler asks a world-weary guy operating the theater audio board.

“He’s doing good,” the guy croaks in unconvincing fashion.

A stray dog passes through the worn-down theater halls. Sandler looks to his entourage: “Who booked this place?”

As Sandler prepares to take the stage, he crosses paths with the ventriloquist and his dummy, wearing a cap with “Lester” bedazzled across the front. “Great audience,” says the puppetmaster.

“They made me feel real,” agrees Lester, the bespectacled puppet.

“Willie and Lester, you guys,” says Sandler. “This means a lot to me. The crowd loves you.”

While Willie Tyler and Lester might be unknowns to younger viewers of Sandler’s special, his admiration for the comic duo is genuine. The veteran ventriloquist act has been...

Rob Schneider makes a surprise appearance in Adam Sandler’s newest Netflix special Love You, and even more surprisingly, he doesn’t get himself booed offstage.

The oldest criticism of Schneider’s body of work dating back to the 1990s is that, without his best buddy Sandler, Schneider wouldn’t have a career worth ruining with an ill-advised turn toward conservative comedy that conservatives hate too. In 2024, Schneider is best known for publicly beefing with the entire country of Canada and getting himself kicked out of charity galas with his racist, transphobic and terrible stand-up routine. But today’s Schneider is a completely different Animal from the “You Can Do It!” Guy, Sandler movie era Schneider whose solo projects would earn one of the most enduring South Park parodies ever.

Looking back, the biggest tragedy of Schneider’s tumultuous late career is that we, as comedy fans, didn’t realize...

A version of this review originally ran in January during our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

If you had walked up to Harlem’s Mount Morris Park, on just about any given Sunday in the summer of 1969, you’d have run in to a crowd. There would be vendors selling food, kids running around, families grilling meat, folks lounging in the sun. You’d hear laughter, and chatter, and the sound of a good time. You’d smell what one resident recalls, decades later, as the combined scent of...

If you had walked up to Harlem’s Mount Morris Park, on just about any given Sunday in the summer of 1969, you’d have run in to a crowd. There would be vendors selling food, kids running around, families grilling meat, folks lounging in the sun. You’d hear laughter, and chatter, and the sound of a good time. You’d smell what one resident recalls, decades later, as the combined scent of “Afro Sheen and chicken” wafting through the air. You’d probably catch someone climbing up on a tree,...

Willie Tyler (right) gained fame in the '80s with his impressive ventriloquist skills -- alongside his comedic counterpart Lester (left) -- on shows like "American Bandstand," "ABC Weekend Specials," "Match Game" and "Hollywood Squares." Guess what they look like now!

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