Black Sheep

Black Sheep existed because Tommy Boy had made money in 1995 and Paramount wanted the formula again, fast. Producer Lorne Michaels later called it "an act of desperation by Paramount," saying the studio had under-promoted Tommy Boy and then demanded another Farley-and-Spade buddy comedy, even though Farley's agent had lined up roles in The Cable Guy, for which he was offered $3 million, and Kingpin. Fred Wolf, who had done an uncredited rewrite on Tommy Boy, was told to deliver a finished script by midnight on a Sunday, the last day Farley was contractually allowed to walk away, or be sued. He wrote 45 pages in a few days and dropped the script at Paramount fifteen minutes before the deadline. Farley "wasn't crazy" about it and only signed on after Spade coaxed him.

The plot has Mike Donnelly (Farley), a good-natured loudmouth, wrecking his brother Al's campaign for governor of Washington by crashing an ad truck into a movie theater, so Al's team assigns aide Steve Dodds (Spade) to keep him out of sight in a shack in rural Garfield County. Their neighbor is Gary Busey's Drake Sabitch, a crazed Vietnam veteran living in a school bus rigged with land mines. A boulder rolls down the mountain and knocks the cabin off its foundation, a storm takes the roof, and Mike sneaks into an MTV Rock the Vote concert, gets mistaken for his brother by Mudhoney, and ends up onstage yelling "Kill whitey!" It ends with Mike exposing the incumbent governor's fraud after noticing that Garfield County cast 1,882 votes with only 1,502 registered voters. Behind the camera it was miserable. Director Penelope Spheeris, of Wayne's World, fired Wolf three times (Farley rehired him twice, Michaels once), then banned him from the set, and feuded with Spade, who left her a message saying she had spent the whole movie trying to "cut my comedy balls off." The bright set lights and sun permanently damaged Spade's eyes; he has been light-sensitive since.

Paramount released it on February 2, 1996, to a $10.6 million opening weekend and a $32.4 million domestic total, against Tommy Boy's $32.7 million. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 29 percent, though audiences gave it a B+ CinemaScore. Gene Siskel said it was one of only three films he ever walked out of and declared that Farley was "no John Belushi or John Candy"; Roger Ebert called it "one of the worst comedies I've ever seen," then defended Farley a week later while reviewing Happy Gilmore. It was the final Farley-and-Spade movie, and it lived a long second life on VHS with the kids who quoted it anyway.