In the Magical Galactic Kingdom of Nottingham, Skeeter Bronson (Adam Sandler) is an unappreciated warrior from Greece. Well, not really.
In reality: Skeeter Bronson is a handyman in a hotel where he's been working for 25 years. Once upon a time, his dad Marty Bronson (Jonathan Pryce) owned and ran it. However, due to financial troubles, Marty sold the hotel to Mr. Nottingham (Richard Griffiths), who then transformed it into a hotel empire. Skeeter was promised to one day run it, but despite being a fabulous worker for the same hotel (well, two different buildings, but that's beside the point) he has been recently passed up to be the manager of the third building in that specific hotel's lineage within the empire in favor of the snotty Kendall Duncan (Guy Pearce), simply because he is dating Nottingham's daughter Violet (Teresa Palmer).
Meanwhile, Skeeter's sister, Wendy (Courteney Cox), needs to travel to Arizona in order to find a job. She asks Skeeter to watch over her two kids Patrick (Jonathan Morgan Heit) and Bobbi (Laura Ann Kesling) during the night, while Wendy's friend Jill (Keri Russell) takes the day shift.
With nothing to do at the kids' home, Skeeter starts to tell bedtime stories in order to entertain the kids. These stories vary in theme, from Ancient Grome to Sci-Fi. The kids often throw in events to mix up the story, coming up with better stuff than Skeeter's Real Life events. When the events the kids throw into Skeeter's story affect Skeeter in real life, Skeeter uses this to his advantage.
This film is entirely unrelated to the 1979 Game Show produced by Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley. Nor does it have anything to do with the Madonna album of the same name. And most especially not related with the similarly named YouTube series, which is definitely not for children either. Also unrelated to the David Niven and Marlon Brando film, Bedtime Story (1964).
This work provides examples of:
- Aerosol Spray Backfire: In a fit of fire-fueled paranoia, Skeeter starts spraying himself with flame-resistant Christmas tree spray, but he accidentally sprays a store clerk in the process.
- Adaptational Nonsapience: There's an In-Universe example meant to exploit a literal Life Imitates Art, in a subversion that involves an already normal beast turned into an inanimate object. Skeeter tries to abuse the power of a bedtime story (an alternate interpretation of the words of the story will happen in Real Life) by telling a Western where someone gives his Cowboy Author Avatar a red Ferrari (the horse) for free so that someone in real life would do the same for him but with a red Ferrari car. It doesn't work the way he expected.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: In the "Jeremiah Skeets" story, set in the Wild West, Skeeter tries to use the kids' reality-altering storytelling to get a Ferrari for free, which he represents in-story as a bright-red horse.
- Ancient Grome: The setting of one story, supposedly in "Ancient Greece" yet having clear Coliseum and Roman Emperor knockoffs, while his character's name is close to that of Spartacus, the famous gladiator turned slave revolt leader against the Romans.
- Ass Pull: Invoked. Being children under 10, Bobbi and Patrick constantly add outlandish hijinks to Skeeter's stories for no other reason than because they can. All of which translate to the real world in some form and are always Played for Laughs.
- At the end of the first story, Patrick has it start raining gumballs, just 'cuz.
- In the next one, when the hero is supposed to get a kiss, an angry dwarf shows up out of nowhere to kick him in the shins.
- In the next after, when all the girls who were mean to Skeetacus (Skeeter's character) in school see him with the fairest maiden, they start doing the hokey-pokey. This is one that counts for the real world too, as when the same thing happens, the mean girls don't know why they did it.
- During their final bedtime story with Skeeter, the kids have Skeeter's character die at the end by having a random person throw a fire ball at him for no reason.
- Bathroom Control: At the beginning, Skeeter's father asks the audience if they need to use the bathroom, then tells an imaginary man at the back of the crowd to hold it in.
- Betty and Veronica: Blonde, sweet heiress Violet vs. the practical brown-haired teacher Jill.
- Big Bad: Kendall Duncan is the newly-promoted hotel manager and arrogant rival of Skeeter Bronson, who wanted the position and spends the movie trying to get it from him, eventually culminating in Skeeter trying to stop him from demolishing the school of his niece and nephew to build a new hotel.
- Big Damn Heroes: Skeeter becomes this, twice. First, when he saves Violet from a bunch of obnoxious papparazi who won't leave her alone, although he never enters a relationship with her. Later on, he arrives just in time for Kendall to do the school's demolition countdown by maneuvering with a stolen motorbike he used as a means of transportation and tackling the arrogant would-be manager of the new hotel to the ground, to the delight of everyone present, including Wendy and Jill.
- Brick Joke: Skeeter tells Kendall that when he gets the job as manager of the new hotel, he will keep him on as an employee. At the end of the film, Skeeter, who got over his ambition and opened a motel as a way to honor his late father, employs Kendall and Aspen as a waiter and housekeeper respectively.
- Catapult Nightmare: Mickey does this every time he falls asleep, complete with screaming. Justified as a sleep panic disorder.
- Cloudcuckoolander:
- Skeeter. Just watch the scene where he introduces Mr. Nottingham to the audience.
- It only makes sense that another of these, Mickey, has to "translate" for him after his tongue gets stung by a bee at Mr. Nottingham's party.
- Company Cross-References:
- During one of Skeeter's bedtime stories, a costumed Buzz Lightyear appears.
- In another story, someone is given tickets to see The Lion King.
- One scene shows the kids watching The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
- Cool Uncle: Skeeter tries to be this to his niece and nephew.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Kendall. Seriously, the guy wants to blow up a school to make a new hotel, going over the foreman's head to check the building when Wendy can't find Bobbi and Patrick, who were in said school that was going to get blown up, and taunts Skeeter repeatedly throughout the film just because his dad's hotel wouldn't have stayed open without Mr. Nottingham's intervention.
- Creepy Crows: Invoked in the first bedtime story. When the kids introduce their teacher, Jill, in the story as "Jillian, the Fairy Queen", Skeeter objects to it and replies that if she should be in the story, she must appear as a grumpy crow, with Jill's character turning into a crow-human hybrid until the kids propose she'd be a mermaid teacher, to which Skeeter relents.
- Derailed Fairy Tale: The kids interrupt Skeeter's stories with their own wild ideas— with the added twist that everything they suggest actually happens.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Happens In-Universe in Skeeter's last story. After he wins in his story, the kids add that he gets incinerated, because, apparently, it's more real, much to his frustration.
- Disappeared Dad: Bobbi and Patrick's dad has left the family (why or where to isn't explained). At one point Bobbi plaintively asks if he'll ever come back, at which Skeeter says he doesn't know, but that their mom will always be there for them both (along with him).
- Disgusting Vegetarian Food: Skeeter's health-nut sister hosts a birthday party for her daughter Bobbi, with donkey rides and a gluten-free wheatgrass cake that nobody wants to eat. When he walks in and asks what smells so bad, some kid says, "It's the cake." He quips, "What did she make, donkey cake?"
- Downer Ending: Two In-Universe examples within Skeeter's stories.
- He ends the "Sir Fixalot" story with the titular character being passed up for promotion in favor of his rival, Sir Buttkiss. From there on, Fixalot spends the rest of his life living inside a giant shoe until he developed "athlete's face" and plunged into the nearby river to be eaten by alligators. However, Bobbi and Patrick objected to the ending and convinced Skeeter to give it a happy one.
- After finding out the stories altered reality when told by the kids, he tries to defy it in his last story by having his character, Skeeto, win against Kendallo in a zero-gravity fight so he can become manager of the Sunny Vista Mega Nottingham hotel in the real world. However, while Skeeto wins and becomes ruler of the new planet in the Nottinghamian system, Patrick renders it moot by having Skeeto be incinerated by a fireball coming out of nowhere. While Skeeter does get promoted to manager, however, his victory against Kendall is short-lived when he accidentally splatters Mr. Nottingham with foam while putting out the volcano candle of his Hawaii-themed birthday cake. This results in Nottingham firing him on the spot, giving an angry "Bronson, you're fired!". Even Skeeter quickly connects the dots.
- Eye Scream: After Bobbi and Patrick end the "Skeeto vs. Kendallo" story in the former getting turned to ash by a fireball, Skeeter goes to Home Depot to buy fireproof supplies in preparation for what he thinks will be his fiery death. He then applies some flame-resistant pine spray on himself only to accidentally spray a clerk on the face, causing his eyes to sting. Skeeter tries to make it up by spraying his own eyes and doubles over in pain as well.
- Famous for Being Famous: Violet Nottingham is a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Paris Hilton (young, blond 20-something hotel heiress celebutante notorious for partying and winding up in the tabloids). As such, she fits this trope quite well.
- Friend to All Children: Violet turns out to be really friendly to both Bobbi and Patrick, who in turn return her kindness, when Skeeter asks her to temporarily look after them while he goes to fix her father's TV.
- Happily Ever After: Skeeter not only successfully arranges to have the Sunny Vista MegaNottingham moved to a coastal lot and foiling Kendall's plan to blow up the Webster Elementary, but also opens his own hotel in his father's honor (with Kendall and Aspen working in room service).
- Hates Being Touched: Barry is a germophobe and hates being touched, and fires Skeeter after getting cake all over him. However, he eventually gets over this, and in the epilogue, it's said that he became a school nurse.
- Head-Turning Beauty: Violet is described as being "hot" by almost every character in the film.
- Healthy Eating Fanatic: Wendy is a vegetarian obsessed with making sure her two kids eat healthily and thinks things like chocolate chip cookies are "sugary chemical-filled crud". She serves a gluten-free wheatgrass cake at Bobbi's birthday party that smells so terrible that nobody wants to eat it.Wendy: Hey, I notice no one's eating the gluten-free wheatgrass cake. Come on! Trust me, you just gotta get past the smell!
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Subverted in the first story. In other stories Skeeter keeps trying this, but the kids keep interjecting, up to "ruining" his final story.
- Hero Stole My Bike: Near the climax, Skeeter and Jill steal a motorbike in order to stop Kendall from blowing up Bobbi and Patrick's school along with them inside.Skeeter: This is for a good cause!
- Idea Bulb: Skeeter is fixing the wiring on a lamp, and it just happens to come on when he realizes that the kids control the stories.
- Ironic Echo: When Bobbi and Patrick object to the original ending of the "Sir Fixalot" storynote , Skeeter replies that there's no happy endings in the real world. Later on in the fourth and last bedtime story, Patrick is the one who ends it on a low notenote . When Skeeter objects to it (having realized the stories alter reality), the kids throw his "no happy endings in the real world" response back at him before going to sleep, with a terrified Skeeter futilely trying to wake them up.
- It's Been Done: Kendall's theme for the new hotel was going to be rock and roll, but when Skeeter points out how the Hard Rock hotel has run on this theme for years, Mr. Nottingham gives Skeeter a chance to think up a better theme that can get him in charge.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Skeeter has shades of this; although he's sarcastic, rude, selfish and defiant, he's still a hard worker, kind to his niece and nephew, helps Violet when she's mobbed by paparazzi, and ultimately saves the school and rescues the kids.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Kendall and his girlfriend, who relentlessly taunt and mock Skeeter throughout the film, end up as the staff of Skeeter's new hotel at the end.
- Licked by the Dog: In the last bedtime story, the kids introduce a scene in which King Barrakto releases a booger monster, which starts beating and eventually licking Kendallo, especially after Skeeto defeats both. Said scene is paralleled in the real world by Mr. Nottingham's dog, named Boogie, licking Kendall after he faints at Skeeter being made manager of the Sunny Vista Mega Nottingham.
- Malaproper: Patrick, being a young child, has some gems like "incineratated" and "underdemeciated". The first clue that the stories are affecting events in the real world is when other people start using the same malapropisms.
- Match Cut: The transitions into the bedtime story sequences make prominent use of match cuts.
- Meaningful Name: Bugsy the guinea pig got his name because of his big eyes. Skeeter was so shocked over seeing him for the first time that he screamed.Aspen: Oh my God! Did you see that thing?!
Kendall: Those eyes. They were…they were staring into m-my very soul. - Meat Versus Veggies: Skeeter's sister Wendy raises her kids on a strict vegetarian diet, e.g. a gluten-free wheatgrass cake that nobody eats at Bobbi's birthday party. Skeeter has trouble making them breakfast using various foods from her kitchen, asking "Doesn't your mother have taste buds?", and later gets them burgers for dinner. This was actually their first time eating burgers, something that even shocked Mickey. They didn’t even know what bacon even is until Mickey explains it.
- Mocking Music: After the kids finish a story that has Skeeter's character set on fire and disintegrated, all the songs on Skeeter's radio have to do with fire: "Disco Inferno," "Eternal Flame," "I'm On Fire," and others.
- Ms. Fanservice: Violet often wears revealing outfits that expose her cleavage, both in the stories and in reality.
- My Beloved Smother: Wendy. She’s insanely strict with keeping her children on a vegetarian diet, doesn’t want them to go camping so that they won’t take a risk at catching poison ivy, rejects Skeeter’s offer to take them fishing because Patrick can’t swim, forbids them from watching tv to the point of not owning one, and bans them from riding skateboards and playing video games because she thinks it the latter will rot the brain.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Skeeter finishes his first tale with his character getting eaten by alligators.
- Never Trust a Trailer: A minor case: several trailers depict that the strange, real-world events caused by the kids' stories as being fantastical in nature, taking them out of context from the actual film, where the events do have a logical/realistic basis. For example, the trailers show Skeeter underneath gumball rain entirely at face value, not showing the immediate reveal that it was the result of a crashed gumball truck that was driving on the highway above him.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Skeeter telling the kids that there are no happy endings near the beginning gets him fired near the end after the kids make a story with a bad ending, saying they want their story to be "real".
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- Teresa Palmer plays Violet Nottingham: a young, blond 20-something hotel heiress celebutante notorious for partying and winding up in the tabloids.
- Her father, Barry, too: a hotel billionaire with an extreme fear of germs.
- Nose Nuggets: In the last bedtime story, in which characters Skeeto and Kendallo fight over an unclaimed planet, King Barrakto orders to release a monster made of boogers into the fight (one of the kids' ideas). Skeeter is disgusted by the twist but keeps narrating so that the story ends in his favor.
- Parental Hypocrisy: Wendy is such a dedicated Straw Vegetarian that she forbids her own children from eating meat and following with her diet, to the point of serving only a gluten-free grass wheat cake for Bobbi's birthday party. Her kids are utterly shocked when Skeeter reveals that Wendy had no problem with eating burgers when they were growing up.
- Parental Substitute: Bobbi and Patrick's dad has left them. Their uncle Skeeter essentially fills the role for them in the film.
- Pet the Dog: When Violet watches the kids for a minute early in the film, she is very nice, treats them well, and takes an interest in their romantic life. It is an early sign that Violet isn't a bad person, just a bit of a spoiled Daddy's Girl with tabloid issues.
- Posthumous Character: Skeeter's father, Marty Bronson, who acts as The Narrator.
- Punched Across the Room: After Skeeter changes the "Sir Fixalot" story's ending at Bobbi and Patrick's request, he not only ends it with a dance party at the royal castle after Fixalot (Skeeter) is promoted, but introduces a scene in which Friar Fred (Mickey) kicks a jeering goblin out of the premises, sending him flying into a fruit vendor.
- Rain of Something Unusual: Patrick and Bobbi interrupt Skeeter's first story with gumball rain. Because the stories supposedly come to life, Skeeter is caught in the middle of a gumball rainfall when he's driving home. The camera reveals that it's the result of a gumball truck crashing into a pillar on the road above him.
- Reality Warper: The kids are this, to some degree. The changes the stories make to real events only work through things that are physically possible or reasonable. Gumballs can't actually rain from the sky, but a truck full of gumballs can spill its load over the edge of a tall bridge.
- Romantic False Lead: Violet, who Skeeter spends a lot of the movie pursuing. She ends up with his best friend Mickey, whereas Skeeter ends up with Jill.
- Runs on Ignorance: The stories can only affect Skeeter if the additions are from people who don't know that it affects his real life.
- Sexy Surfacing Shot: During the Hawaii Themed Party, we see Violet getting out of the pool, dripping wet and in a revealing bikini.
- Shout-Out:
- In his story set in Ancient Grome, Skeeter shouts "Can you dig it?!".
- In his last, sci/fi-themed, story, Barry Nottingham is dressed like Ming the Merciless, and Skeeter is dressed like Han Solo while Mickey's character spoofs C-3PO.
- During Kendall's musical number at Barry's conference pitching his "Nottingham Broadway Mega Resort" idea, it's mentioned there's a pool for both the Sharks and the Jets., and the hotel takes pets, so you can bring your cats.
- Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: Kendall, the film's Big Bad, and Mr. Nottingham are absent from the trailers, apart from their doppelgängers seen on some of the stories Skeeter tells Bobbi and Patrick.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Kendall is an egotistical jerk who thinks he's above everyone else just because he got on Mr. Nottingham's good graces and thus became engaged to the old man's daughter. He also looks down on Skeeter for being a repairman who dared to compete against him for who becomes manager of the upcoming Sunny Vista MegaNottingham.
- Speaking Simlish: The kids invoke this in the last bedtime story, in which they decide Skeeter's self-insert, Skeeto Bronsonian, should "talk like a goofy alien" since the story is in outer space. Cue Skeeto speaking gibberish for the rest of the story.
- Straw Vegetarian: Wendy refuses to let her kids have any junk food and forbids them from eating meat, serves a gluten-free wheatgrass cake at her daughter's birthday party, and does other stereotypical hippie parent stuff like not having a TV or video games in the house and reading her children bedtime stories like "Rainbow Alligator Saves the Wetlands" and "The Organic Squirrel Gets a Bike Helmet." When Skeeter brings chocolate chip cookies to said party, she asks why he has to bring "sugary chemical-filled crud" to her house every time he visits.
- Suspiciously Apropos Music: In one of Skeeter's stories, the six-year-old Patrick makes the main character of the story catch on fire. Skeeter worries that the incinerated character represents him (probably because his name, Skeeto, was similar to his own name) and becomes paranoid that he's going to catch fire. When listening to the car radio, all the songs have fire-related lyrics (Disco Inferno, I'm on Fire, etc).
- Terrified of Germs: Barry Nottingham is a perfectly nice, friendly authority figure, but is utterly terrified of germs, and this is a roadblock that comes up several times. When Skeeter needs to talk with him in his hotel suite, Nottingham insists they converse in near-total darkness simply because germs produce 80% faster in light. By the end of the film, Skeeter manages to help him out of it, to the point where in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, Nottingham had decided to go to medical school and became a school nurse.
- Tomboyish Name: Bobbi, Skeeter's niece. This may be a nickname (for Roberta?) though it's never said. She isn't a Tomboy otherwise.
- Tongue Trauma: Played for Laughs — Skeeter gets his tongue stung by a bee that landed on his spoon while eating ice cream at Mr. Nottingham's birthday, which makes him unintelligible because of the swelling; Mickey has to translate for him when it's his turn to present his ideas to improve the hotel.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: The unattractive, unkempt Mickey marries attractive rich heiress Violet at the end of the story.
- Waking Non Sequitur: Mickey screams "I'm innocent!" after waking himself up with an attack of his "sleep panic disorder".
- Wealthy Ever After: Skeeter's Best Friend Mickey who was a hotel waiter and ends up marrying hotel heiress Violet and becoming the 9th richest person in the world.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Skeeter gets this at least thrice towards the end of the second act:
- Jill gives him one after finding out that he's been appointed the manager of the hotel that will replace the school. (unaware that he had already been fired from the job and hadn't known it was replacing a school anyway.)Jill: Don't destroy the sliver of respect I still have for you by making lame excuses. Just go away and stay away.
- Shortly after Jill leaves, Patrick and Bobbi also give their uncle a minor one over the same topic (mentioned above Jill's), whether it was because they ruined his "perfect story", with a saddened Bobbi adding that they thought he was the good guy.Patrick: Uncle Skeeter? Do you want to incineratate our school 'cause we incineratated you in the story?
Skeeter: No, I wouldn't do that.
Bobbi: We thought you were supposed to be the good guy.
Skeeter: [Beat] So did I. - His sister, Wendy, calls him out for telling the kids that there are no happy endings in real life.
- Jill gives him one after finding out that he's been appointed the manager of the hotel that will replace the school. (unaware that he had already been fired from the job and hadn't known it was replacing a school anyway.)
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue:
- Barry Nottingham becomes the new school nurse for Webster Elementary after going to medical school.
- Mickey and Violet get married, taking over Barry's hotel empire.
- Skeeter and Jill officially get married and have a child together.
- So does Bugsy the guinea pig, who goes on to have a lot of big-eyed babies.
- Kendall and Aspen end up working for Skeeter at his hotel.