Always in the background pushing chess pieces (and an odd cutout of Billy Madison’s face with black lipstick and punched out eyes) throughout most of the movie, Eric puts it in overdrive when he blackmails Principal Max Anderson (Josh Mostel) with the August 1983 edition of Wrestling World.
When that plan fails, he threatens to take Brian Madison (Darren McGavin) to court before the climatic academic decathlon.
From the first time we meet Eric Gordon in the opening act of the 1995 Adam Sandler classic, we know we’re not going to like this guy (I mean, my brothers and I were sending gifs of Bradley Whitford while I was writing this and they were all from the opening dinner scene) and it only gets worse from there.