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April 7, 2016 2:59 PM   Subscribe

The Good News: While slight in stature and short on talent, Tanner Boyle brings a feistiness that any championship club requires. Anyone who picks a fight with the entire seventh grade won’t back down come crunch time in the playoffs ... Underpinning all his actions is a pure love of the game. When asked if he wanted to quit, Boyle replied: “Crud no, I want to play ball.” He can also use the word “crud” as a noun, adjective, or verb, which, while irrelevant to baseball, is linguistically impressive.

The Bad News: The pint-size shortstop doesn’t get along with Jews, Hispanics, blacks, gays, or women (for starters) — attitudes complicated by the fact that he plays for the only team in the North Valley League that boasts any real diversity on its roster ... It’d also be safer to pass John Rocker a microphone than to let Boyle tackle any post-game press conferences.

The Bad News Bears Turns 40: A Complete Player Scouting Report
posted by Atom Eyes (20 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
This TV show was in reruns on Nick when I was little and I was inexplicably fond of it, even though I never saw the movie and could barely manage the rules of the game.

Amanda inadvertently taught me that young ladies can get cars to pull over and give them rides by pulling their clothes above the knee and flashing some leg on the roadside. This was an obvious joke to the writers, but at 8 or 9 I tried it, and was swiftly corralled by a grownup.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:31 PM on April 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's mind boggling to me that this movie was rated PG when it came out in 76. I was 9 years old - saw it at the Saturday matinee for probably a dollar. I'm not sure it could made it all today - kids smoking probably wouldn't be allowed in an R rated flick.

I rewatched a few years ago when I stumbled across it on HBO or something. Still funny.
posted by COD at 4:57 PM on April 7, 2016 [5 favorites]


In some ways, this is one of the most accurate depictions of what it was like to be a child in the 1970's. It least it felt like it to me when I was 10.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:02 PM on April 7, 2016 [13 favorites]


Smoking nothing, these kids drop the n-word in the TRAILER.
posted by incomple at 5:42 PM on April 7, 2016 [6 favorites]


The outstanding podcast The Incomparable did a re-watch of this movie a few months ago, and they were all agog at the vices. I am on my phone or I would paste in a link -- definitely worth a listen!
posted by wenestvedt at 5:43 PM on April 7, 2016




It's amazing how little respect this film gets. It stacks up against any movie from it's time. It's a classic in every sense of the word.
posted by Beholder at 5:56 PM on April 7, 2016 [6 favorites]


I loved the Bears. They were so much more like real 70's and early 80's kids than other movie of it's time. Dan Epstein gives it a loving tribute in the intro to this book.
posted by jonmc at 6:00 PM on April 7, 2016 [3 favorites]


He can also use the word “crud” as a noun, adjective, or verb, which, while irrelevant to baseball, is linguistically impressive.

Right! He's really streets ahead with that crud jawn.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 6:56 PM on April 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


The sequels suffered greatly from sequelitis, but the original BNB was one of the very few kids' movies where I thought that I almost literally knew some of those kids.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:05 PM on April 7, 2016 [3 favorites]


I actually did go out on a date with Chris Barnes in the 90's at some point. His brother was my cross the way neighbor.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 7:25 PM on April 7, 2016


The greates post game reaction from a losing team ever, oh to only see this happen in real life!
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 8:03 PM on April 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


Another movie, along with the turning point of Human Civilization, Blazing Saddles, that could never get made today.
posted by mikelieman at 12:49 AM on April 8, 2016 [6 favorites]


Well fuck. Turns out I'm nostalgic for a movie I haven't thought much about for the past 39.75 years. I never would have guessed. I hope it's on Netflix.

And I had the exact same thoughts as mikelieman ... that a movie like this could never be made today.
posted by kanewai at 2:27 AM on April 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


I love the part where Buttermaker runs out of fucks to give, and just lets the kids play and have fun. The tone of movie shifts from drama to almost cinéma vérité - the grotesque characters resolve back into ordinary children and a caring adult at a little league game. What an amazing movie.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:02 AM on April 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


I haven't seen these films since they were shown on TV in the earliest of '80s.
I'm still spun out by the idea of baby Rorschach.
posted by Mezentian at 6:13 AM on April 8, 2016


For anyone considering a rewatch, do it. I don't think it's free anywhere and I think if it's on broadcast now, they'll censor the shit out of it. I recall seeing it as a kid (what the fuck?, my parents) but I don't recall it being received as anything other than a cute kids' film. In retrospect, it's a masterpiece. Perfectly cast, perfectly scored with the music from Carmen, perfectly written with kids saying things that scrappy kids from the suburbs in the 70s actually said.

The sequels suck ass, because what makes Bad News Bears work is that is a grand epic tale of a bunch of nowhere kids who don't even really like baseball, playing on a shitty ass little league team, coached by an alcoholic failure in a nothing league, in Nowhere, America. And they find meaning and success in the struggle. And that moment where they throw the second place trophy in the dirt and tell the others to "shove it" is punk as fuck. No one cares about these kids playing in the Astrodome or going to Japan. I just want to watch them struggling and rebelling against the ugly emotionally dead suburban American environment that created them.

Walter Matthau driving a convertible drinking a beer with a carload of kids without seatbelts. Yeah, this movie could never be made today. But I'm pretty sure I was one of those kids at some point in my life and that shit really happened.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:39 AM on April 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


For anyone considering a rewatch, do it. I don't think it's free anywhere

Heh.
Pirate Bay laughs at you.

Walter Matthau driving a convertible drinking a beer with a carload of kids without seatbelts. Yeah, this movie could never be made today. But I'm pretty sure I was one of those kids at some point in my life and that shit really happened.

Yeah. It was a different world.

I recall the 'Bears' went to Japan, was there a TV show? Yes, there was.

I well recall watching this, maybe on the Wonderful World of Disney on an early Sunday evening?
Was there a gag with toilet paper?

Anyway, CBS was looking good.
posted by Mezentian at 7:49 AM on April 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


"Pirate Bay laughs at you."

But I don't wanna be a pirate. (Could not resist.)

"Jimmy Feldman #8 - Feldman should continue to develop into a reliable outfielder, but he appears to have more Marx Brothers than Bash Brothers in him."

Feldman was played by Brett Marx, grandson of Gummo Marx and great nephew of Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo. He really looks like Harpo in the photo in the linked article. I remember reading this right after I saw the movie in 1976. I loved this movie and tried to read about it as much I could back then.

This movie is such a gem. Pairs well with "The Sandlot" for a summer movie viewing party that features beer and chewing tobacco for all the children.
posted by narancia at 12:41 PM on April 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


The thing that struck me most about the final scene that BozoBurgerBonanza linked above was the reaction of the parents. Look at their faces once the celebration starts. They're all very excited that their kids were in the championship game. The kids may feel like their parents don't understand them, and they're probably right. Kids were far more autonomous in the late '70s American suburbs, but the parents — many of them Anti-Anti-Utopian and Blank generation children trying to make sure they don't make the same mistakes their Partisan and New Gods parents did — loved and supported their children even in defeat.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:34 PM on April 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


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