Rob Schneider wants you to forget your problems and laugh

BY CRYSTAL SCHELLE Special to The News-Post

Rob Schneider was barely old enough to drive when he started doing standup comedy in his hometown of San Francisco.

“I didn’t realize that you could hang out with adults and be a teenager, and there was fun going on,” he said with a chuckle over the phone while at a movie shoot in Mexico. It was “adult fun that I didn’t know existed,” he continued, “and the next thing I know, I’m at this club, everybody’s laughing and drinking and having fun, and I was like, I want to do this … high school’s not as fun as this.”

At the age of 59, Schneider has only grown funnier as he’s honed his comedy chops. He will perform May 27 at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races in West Virginia, as part of his “I Have Issues” Tour.

As a father of three, Schneider said he wonders if he was too young to even be in that environment at age 16. He jokingly said because he was the youngest of three, his parents weren’t always on top of things.

“God bless them, because it turned into a career,” Schneider said. “I would sneak out, and I would just go to these comedy clubs. I had a day job, so I could pay for gas for the car. I would go to these clubs, and then I would not go to school the next day; I’d go to work or something. The next thing I know, I’m, like, failing in high school.”

Although it was a shock to his real estate broker dad and his former kindergarten teacher mom, who at one time also served on the Board of Education, they learned to accept it. He said his father, Marvin, who died in 2000, was especially supportive of Schneider pursuing his art.

His parents’ leeway must have helped. Today, he is a three-time Emmy winner, with a long list of credits as an actor, comedian, director, producer and writer. He’s best known for his movies “Deuce Bigalow,” “Grown Ups” and “The Hot Chick.”

Schneider said his early comedy was simply “not good.” He blames it mostly on his age and not having enough life experience to create strong material.

“You have nothing to relate to when you’re 16. You’re in a smoky room with drunks. The last thing they need to be reminded of is their children and responsibilities they’re ignoring, because they’re out drinking and smoking during the week,” he said. “And here I am, reminding them that they have children they’re not paying attention to. So it did not go well.” was onstage, he started acting out the stories while he was telling them, all while giving his own funny spin on them.

“It’s not an intellectual process,” he said. “It’s an emotional process coming from an emotional high, where you kind of go ‘ohhh’ instead of ‘oh this could be funny.’ It makes you laugh from a real place, then it has the chance to make other people laugh.”

His big break came in the late 1980s when he was seen on HBO’s “13th Annual Young Comedians,” which was hosted by another “Saturday Night Live” alum, Dennis Miller. That show landed him a job as a writer for “SNL.”

He said after the “Young Comedians,” he and Miller would meet for coffee just to chat. Then one day, Schneider said he had Miller laughing so hard, “he couldn’t breathe for awhile.”

By 1990, Schneider was a regular cast member at “SNL” playing a slew of characters, including Tiny Elvis and the Richmeister. He continued with the cast until 1994.

Rob Schneider

When: 8 p.m. May 27

Where: Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, 750 Hollywood Drive, Charles Town, W.Va. Tickets: $30 to $55 (21+) Info: hollywoodcasinocharlestown. com those movies. When my dad died [in 2000], I went right from my dad dying to the movie set, and I was not OK,” he said. “When I did ‘The Animal,’ I look at that, and that’s not me. I mean, I did the best job I could, but I was not there. I don’t remember anything about that movie.”

To possibly rectify that situation, Schneider is back filming “The Animal 2,” which he’ll star in and direct. His Mexico trip was for the Paramount+ film “Amor es Amor,” which was written by his wife, Patricia Azarcoya Arce. He’ll also star in and direct that.

But Schneider had faith in himself and knew that the more experience he gained, the better his material would be. At 19, he started dressing up as a rockabilly artist and built his act around a character.

“Then I had an epiphany,” he said. “I was always looking for the comedy, like it was out there to find, like it was some archaeological dig or some excavation of some strange, uninhabited planet. … They say write about what you know, but ` even more [true] in comedy. Write what’s in your face. Write about your mom, your dad, your car, your apartment, your shoes, or the coffee shop that you go to.”

He started reading the newspaper and observing people, and his comedy writing took a turn. When he

Moving from the writing room to the stage wasn’t a difficult transition for Schneider, whose standup helped to pave the way because his material was already in sketch format.

One of his fellow cast members who he continues to keep in touch with was Adam Sandler, who he knew before performing on “SNL.” Schneider has appeared in 15 movies and counting with Sandler, often as a character that audiences come to love. Last month, he was able to present Sandler with Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which included an emotional song about their 30plus years of friendship.

Schneider said his biggest regret after leaving “SNL” was not giving himself a break before jumping into acting in films.

“I should not have made

In addition, his Netflix TV show “Real Rob,” an exaggerated version of his life, is gearing up for another season. He writes, directs, produces and stars in the show. He just made a deal with Fox Nation to do a comedy special with the material he’s created over the past three years. Oh yeah, and in his spare time, Schneider is writing a book.

No matter what he’s working on, Schneider’s main objective is to make people laugh. And when they come to his standup shows, he wants it to be a total escape.

“When people come to see me, I try to get them to forget about their problems for an hour, or 40 minutes of that hour, and make them laugh.”

Crystal Schelle is a journalist whose work has been published locally, regionally and nationally. She enjoys trivia, cats and streaming movies.