Eight Crazy Nights/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Base Breaking Character: Either you hate Whitey for his voice, or you find him sympathetic (and maybe find his voice funny). Or some combination of the two.
  • Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: The movie is awfully mean-spirited for a holiday special. If it weren't actually a holiday special, it wouldn't fall as much into this, but it is.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Eleanore got some praise for having a less annoying voice than her brother Whitey and not being afraid to attack Davey.
  • Older Than You Think: Whitey Duvall originated from a 1999 audio sketch by Sandler and also appeared in Little Nicky, played by Dana Carvey in that film.
  • Tear Jerker: Davey's past and the mall scene where he finally reads the Hanukkah card his parents where going to give him before they died.
  • The Scrappy: Davey is hated for his actions and for being a jerkass in general, which don't befit the main character of a holiday special.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Davey Stone spends most of the movie's running time acting like an unlikable, unapologetic asshole. We're then asked to sympathize with him when it's revealed that his parents died when he was a boy on Hanukkah and it caused him to emotionally shut down and bury his own pain through acting like a jerk and causing grief to others. But even after we learn this, Davey still comes off as far too crude and mean-spirited for the audience to feel anything but contempt for, and even following his last minute turnaround, he doesn't make nearly enough amends for his past behavior and is technically still in a lot of legal trouble that he's yet to face up to by the time the movie ends!
    • As Roger Ebert put it: "If there was ever a movie where the upbeat ending feels like a copout, this is the one."
  • What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: Yes, it's an animated wacky holiday musical rife with toilet humor, but it is most definitely not for children. Doesn't help that in Canada, the movie's rated PG. 14A would have been more like it. Also, the film was on the YouTube Kids app.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The animation is actually quite good. It doesn't exactly save the plot, though.
  • The Woobie: Whitey, for those who don't hate him as for his voice.
    • Jerkass Woobie: Davey was meant to be this after you learn that his parents died when he was a boy on Hanukkah. But his Jerkass side far outweighs his Woobie side as an adult, and as a result he becomes Unintentionally Unsympathetic because there doesn't seem to be anything redeemable about the person he is now. At the very least, the death of his parents doesn't justify how he treats Whitey, though he at least apologizes for doing that.