The Bad News Bears (series) 
“Look, Buttermaker, you're not my father and I'll not move an inchto play baseball for you anymore. So why don't you get back into thatsardine can of yours and go, go vacuum the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.I've got business to take care of. You're blocking my customers withyour car.”
Written by Bill Lancaster (Burt’s son) and directed by Michael Ritchie (who had helmed adult fare like The Candidate and Smile),this winning 1976 film worked on a lot of levels—and not just the "hey,those naughty kids are cussing" level either. There was the underdogtriumph story at the movie's core; there was the satire of the uniquelyAmerican institution of Little League and its overly-involved benchparents (in the year of our country's bicentennial, no less). There wasalso a redemptive character piece at work, as Buttermaker, via hisgroup of misfits, tried to get his shambled life together once and forall.
Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau) is a former minor leaguebaseball player, and currently, a disheveled drunk and a not-so-devotedpool-cleaner. And if you think he's mastered the fine art of uncouthand offensive language, wait until you meet the kids on his futureLittle League Team.
Morris takes the eager dollars of local parents who are tired ofwatching their kids lose. The only chance he’s got at winning are twovery un-Stepford new additions: Amanda Whurlitzer, wonder-pitcher andwiseacre tomboy kid of an ex-girlfriend, and Kelly Leak, acigarette-smoking, motorcycle-riding all-star athlete. The Cubs startwinning but are consumed by priorities not quite as noble as just thejoy of the game. Despite their less-than-stellar sportsmanship, theyget to the Championships and face-off against the impressivelyoutfitted Yankees, who are coached by the comedically intense RoyTurner.
Bad News Bears definitely paved the way for a slew of otherkids’ sports team movies in the 80’s and 90’s. But none of what offollowed spoofed our national obsession with sports and winning aseffectively, or had the eccentric audacity to have kids who talked likesailors and still endeared themselves to us. Though Amanda talks a lotof trash, she’s pained by not having a dad and yearns for someone tofill the void. Coach Buttermaker is clearly trying to drown his demons,demons of the bad relationship and bad career choice variety, in thecopious beer that he drinks (which he's known to lace with the strongerstuff). It's also fair to say there will probably never be anothersports movie to use actual music from Bizet’s Carmen throughout.
Two Bears sequels followed. The Bad News Bear in Breaking Training,in 1977, gave the kids a chance to play in the Houston Astrodome undercoach Mike Leak (William Devane). This movie takes a step back from thefirst movie’s patented cussing and takes one big step forward into theworld of scatological humor instead. It also boasted a handful ofreal-baseball-player cameos.
Next came The Bad News Bears Go To Japan in 1978. In thisfinal feature installment, Marvin Lazar (Tony Curtis) is a money-hungrymanager who brings his team to Tokyo for the Little League WorldSeries. A TV show based on the film ran from 1979 to 1980, and theBears' legacy lives on in kiddie sports movies like The Mighty Ducks and The Big Green. To be sure, The Bad News Bears has become a much used model over the years but never have the immitators gotten anywhere near the original. Bearshad a quality consistent with the culturally wild nature of 1970's thatallowed it to roam free of today's more restrictive kiddie content,ultimately painting an unflinching, complicated, boisterous and, mostimportantly, authentic portrait of childhood. It's a reasonablecertainty that if it had been filmed in French with subtitles, The Bad News Bears would have been called an art film.
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