Going Overboard

"This is a No Budget flick. Not a low budget, but a no budget!"

—Shecky Moskowitz

Going Overboard (also known as Babes Ahoy) is a 1989 No Budget comedy film starring Adam Sandler in his first ever movie role, even two years before he became popular on Saturday Night Live. In this movie, Sandler stars as Shecky Moskowitz, an Idiot Hero who dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian on a New Orleans cruise ship. Unfortunately, he discovers the ship's comedian is actually a notorious Jerkass named Dickie Diamond, who always gets the girls and is so jealous of Shecky. So Shecky struggles to become the ship's top comedian instead of Dickie.

Tropes used in Going Overboard include:

Animated Credits Opening: It features a cartoon version of Shecky, who stands at his microphone and spews out Speech Bubbles that consist of names of people who worked on the movie.
- The animated Shecky also appears twice at the end of the movie: One when he pushes the ending scene away and holds up a "The End" sign before he leans over and falls, and another when he briefly dances to the song "I Wanna Slap Your Cat" in the closing credits.
Big Bad: Dickie.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Shecky always does this by addressing the camera, talking about his events.
The Cameo: Milton Berle himself, who shows up in one scene and helps Shecky learn the power of laughter.
Camp Straight: Bob. Despite almost qualifying as a drag queen, he seems to have far more luck with the ladies than Shecky does, and even gets to hook up with Miss Australia.
Covers Always Lie: Happens twice.
Dope Slap: Bob does this to Shecky during the scene where panic ensues on the ship, because Shecky is Comically Missing the Point.
Dream Sequence: At one point, Shecky had a nightmare in which he's in a white room tied up in a straight jacket with an apple in his mouth a la Michael Richards while Dickie insults him. Afterward, Shecky wakes up and tells the audience he's going to have another dream. He sleeps and tries a much brighter dream in which he's on a beach and has sex with some ladies but it was disrupted by Shecky's mother, who turns out to be Shecky's best friend Bob waking him up.
Everything's Better with Bob: Shecky's lip-glossing, cross-dressing best friend Bob.
Funny Foreigner: Miss Australia.
General Ripper: There's General Noriega, a lazy general who stays at his house and blames anyone for their lame opinions.
Idiot Hero: Shecky himself.
Last-Minute Hookup: Shecky and Neptune's daughter Slimey.
Limited Animation: The animated sequences.
Locked in the Bathroom: Dickie Diamond locks himself in a bathroom because he felt like he's going to puke. After that, he just stays there locked, but later on, the door opens and Dickie is so happy to reclaim his job as a comedian.
Man Child: Shecky.
Medium Blending / Art Shift: At the end of Shecky's bad dream, Dickie suddenly becomes an animated version of himself when he rips his eyes out.
- Medium Shift Gag
New Orleans
No Budget
- Shecky lampshades this at the beginning (see quote at the top of the page), and then illustrates it by making the camera shake excessively.
No Fourth Wall
Pink Is for Sissies: In one scene, Shecky is determined to wear a green shirt and not a pink shirt, but then he was forced to wear pink instead of green. However, he later wears green at his stand-up.
- At the climax, when Shecky, Bob and Miss Australia were running away with the terrorists chasing them, Shecky's shirt changes to pink, then back to green, and this goes on and on. Shecky then lampshades it by realizing he's now wearing a pink shirt, saying that it's due to the film's budget.
Public Domain Character: King Neptune.
Show Within a Show: Most of the movie turns out to be one of Noriega's video tapes entitled The Unsinkable Shecky Moskowitz.
Slap Slap Kiss: Shecky and Miss Australia.
Tear Off Your Face: Dickie Diamond does this to his face at the end of Shecky's nightmare, when he becomes animated in a Non Sequitur Scene.
Toilet Humor: During the scene where Shecky is serving drinks to the ship's residents, he just stands there and looks at the sky. He then sees the seagulls fly and one of them drops diarrhea on the drinks.
Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Shecky.
Villain Song: At one point, General Noriega calmly sings "It’s a Sad, Sad World When Your Head Looks Like a Pizza" after he called Miss Australia a "leftover kangaroo vomit".
Vitriolic Best Buds: Shecky and Bob.
Wholesome Crossdresser: Bob.