Sad News: Rob Schneider Is Not Dead

For a few bright moments today, the world was Rob Schneider-free: God heard a nation's prayers and delivered a bout of heatstroke and food poisoning to the star of The Animal, The Hot Chick, and The Stapler, temporarily postponing production on his new minimalst arthouse comedy about a con man who's afraid he'll be raped in prison. Because, ha ha, prison rape is sooooo hilarious — I can't wait to see how Schneider's comedic subtlety will illuminate the taboo. I'm sure this time, he'll definitely win an Oscar.

Unfortunately, Schneider was taken to the hospital, and since L.A. remains Adam Sandler's Quality-Free Neverland, his sweaty, vomiting body wasn't immediately discarded with the rest of the biohazardous waste but rather treated while forty-two million more deserving Americans lack health insurance. Schneider is reportedly back at work, presumably sucking at his job, so next spring when you're at the movies trying to enjoy the previews and Movie Trailer Guy is selling you a cringe-worthy Schneider flick ad, you'll know you have the Los Angeles medical establishment to blame. The only silver lining in the story is that Schneider's set typically reaches a hundred degrees or more, and summer's just beginning, so I think if we convince his caterer to only deliver week-old sushi and gin for the cast's lunch every day, there may still be hope that Schneider won't be much longer for the silver screen.... No, Paramount will probably find something there that'll appeal to twelve-year-old boys and the kind of parents who raise twelve-year-old boys to like Rob Schneider films: "Rob Schneider had it all, until one day he ate some bad seafood. Now he'll show everyone how that being deathly ill can be loads of fun...."