Before Adam Sandler embarked on a movie career of dubious quality playing essentially the same character over and over again, he was a character actor of reasonable quality who really made Saturday Night Live fun. And that’s what we’re going to get here with Saturday Night Live: The Best of Adam Sandler, a copy of which the folks at Lions Gate sent me to cover.

Yes, all the great songs–the Christmas Song, the Hanukkah Song, the immortal classic Lunch Lady Land, and so on–all the great Weekend Update characters (both Cajun Man and Opera Man are here), along with the Gap Girls, are right here, and they’re still pretty funny.

Though time has done some unpleasant things here–for instance, the Schmitts Gay commercial had its musical score replaced with something instrumental, and that took a little bit out of it as I still remember the original score. It’s the same deal with The Denise Show, but at least they kept the Springsteen song with Courteney Cox’s appearance–many of the laughs are still here, as are some really nifty history lessons.

However, there are some problems here–as was the case with Eddie Murphy’s installment, much of the topical humor depends on an understanding of early nineties history, like the L.A. riots and Fergie’s topless photos. And some sketches have an unsettling tendency to drag on way too long and flog the dead horse of the joke–the Springsteen sketch is a perfect example, and Canteen Boy is a masterstroke of awkwardness–but still, there’s lots of great laughs here, and that’s a whole lot better than the alternative.

Actually, in an aggregate sense, Saturday Night Live: The Best of Adam Sandler may be the best of the lot so far.  I think I laughed at this one more than I did with most any other one, and while the sheer audacity of the Eddie Murphy collection (I still laugh when I think of Cill My Landlord) wasn’t here, it definitely outclassed Tracy Morgan’s version, and Will Ferrell’s paled in comparison.

The Screenhead Ten Scale recognizes a fun time when it sees it, and hands over an eight of ten for a series of cheap but terribly effective laughs.