You remember the 90s, right? Baggy pants, "Ice Ice Baby," and that distinctive blonde pompadour. Fast forward to 2015, and Robert Van Winkle—better known to the world as Vanilla Ice—showed up in one of the most polarizing Western comedies ever made.
He played Mark Twain.
Yeah, you read that correctly. In Adam Sandler’s first-ever Netflix original film, The Ridiculous 6, the man who once dominated MTV was cast as the legendary American satirist. It sounds like a fever dream or a bit of weird trivia you’d find on a late-night Wikipedia spiral, but it's very real.
Why Mark Twain?
When Sandler and his team at Happy Madison were putting together the script for The Ridiculous 6, they weren't exactly aiming for historical accuracy. The movie is a parody of The Magnificent Seven, following six half-brothers (played by Sandler, Terry Crews, Jorge Garcia, Taylor Lautner, Rob Schneider, and Luke Wilson) on a quest to save their deadbeat dad.
Among the laundry list of cameos—which included Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo, and Harvey Keitel—Vanilla Ice stood out. Why? Because the visual of him in a white suit, sporting a thick mustache and a wig, is jarringly funny.
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According to reports from the set and interviews on Jimmy Kimmel Live, when the role was first pitched to him, his reaction was reportedly a very "Van Ice" response: "Who dat?"
He eventually leaned into it. He didn't just play Mark Twain; he played a version of Twain that basically combined 19th-century literature with 1990s hip-hop swagger. It’s the kind of meta-casting that Sandler loves—taking a pop-culture icon and dropping them into a completely absurd context.
The Performance: "Make it Rain Like Twain"
Vanilla Ice appears during a high-stakes poker game scene. He’s sitting alongside David Spade (who plays General Custer) and Jon Lovitz.
It is chaotic.
While Spade plays Custer as a narcissistic jerk, Vanilla Ice’s Twain is surprisingly chill but uses modern slang. One of the most-cited lines from the film is his declaration during the game: "Make it rain like Twain." He even manages to slip in some dance moves and "drop a beat" while wearing the full Victorian-era getup.
Was it a "good" performance? Well, critics didn't think so. The movie famously hit a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes shortly after its release. But for fans of the specific brand of Happy Madison absurdity, it was a highlight. In a film filled with donkey diarrhea jokes and Taylor Lautner playing a "simpleton" with horse-sized teeth, a rapping Mark Twain felt strangely at home.
The Controversy Behind the Scenes
You can't talk about The Ridiculous 6 without mentioning the massive controversy that hit the production.
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During filming in New Mexico, about a dozen Native American actors and a cultural consultant walked off the set. They were protesting the script's portrayal of Apache culture, specifically citing offensive character names like "Beaver's Breath" and "No Bra," as well as scenes where a woman urinated while smoking a peace pipe.
Vanilla Ice actually became one of the primary voices defending the movie.
He told TMZ at the time that he is "part Choctaw Indian" and that people were taking it too seriously. He argued that it wasn't Dances with Wolves—it was a comedy. He basically told everyone to relax and realize it was just a joke.
"I don't think anybody really had any ill feeling or any intent... they're just making a funny movie."
That defense didn't necessarily age well with everyone, but it kept his name in the headlines as the movie prepared for its Netflix debut. Despite the walk-outs and the scathing reviews, the film was a massive hit for Netflix's metrics, proving that people will watch almost anything with Adam Sandler's face on the thumbnail.
How to Spot Him Now
If you’re curious enough to go back and look for the Vanilla Ice Ridiculous 6 appearance, you don't have to sit through the whole two-hour runtime.
- Fire up Netflix.
- Search for The Ridiculous 6.
- Scrub to the poker scene roughly halfway through.
- Look for the guy who looks like a steampunk version of the guy from the Cool as Ice poster.
It's a weird piece of film history. It marks the transition of Vanilla Ice from "disgraced rapper" to "lovable reality TV carpenter and occasional character actor."
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Key Takeaways for Your Next Trivia Night
- The Role: Mark Twain.
- The Quote: "Make it rain like Twain."
- The Co-Stars: He shares the screen primarily with David Spade and Jon Lovitz.
- The Makeup: He wore a full white wig and mustache, making him almost unrecognizable at first glance.
If you’re planning a movie night, honestly, keep your expectations low. This isn't high art. It’s a loud, messy, often offensive Western that happens to have a rapping 19th-century author in it. If that sounds like your kind of Friday night, you know exactly where to find it.
To see more of Robert Van Winkle’s actual career evolution, you might want to look into The Vanilla Ice Project on DIY Network, where he shows off his legitimate skills in home renovation—which, strangely enough, has been much better received than his take on Mark Twain.