The Bad News Bears (1976) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error The Bad News Bears ( 1976 ) PG | An aging, down-on-his-luck ex-minor leaguer coaches a team of misfits in an ultra-competitive California little league. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 29 titles created 07 May 2012 a list of 24 titles created 13 Feb 2013 a list of 25 titles created 08 Oct 2013 a list of 45 titles created 24 Oct 2013 a list of 25 titles created 14 Apr 2014 Title: The Bad News Bears (1976) 7.3/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin.

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win. See more awards » Photos Edit Storyline First of a trilogy of films takes an unflinching look at the underbelly of little league baseball in Southern California. Former minor leaguer Morris Buttermaker is a lazy, beer swilling swimming pool cleaner who takes money to coach the Bears, a bunch of disheveled misfits who have virtually no baseball talent. Realizing his dilemma, Coach Buttermaker brings aboard girl pitching ace Amanda Whurlizer, the daughter of a former girlfriend, and Kelly Leak, a motorcycle punk who happens to be the best player around. Brimming with confidence, the Bears look to sweep into the championship game and avenge an earlier loss to their nemesis, the Yankees. Written by Rick Gregory <rag.apa@email.apa.org> A classic comedy about growing up! See more » Genres: 7 April 1976 (USA) See more » Also Known As: La chouette équipe See more » Filming Locations: Did You Know? Trivia Corey Feldman starred in the Bad News Bears TV show, which was a sitcom spinoff of the movie.

(It was a filmed show with a laugh track, like a lot of sitcoms in the 70s). See more » Goofs When the Bears are playing the Yankees in the championship game, you can hear the announcer state that the bears are leading 1-0. However, a later shot of the scoreboard shows that the Yankees were actually the first team to score. See more » Quotes Engelberg : [helping Buttermaker clean pools] When we're through, can we go swimming? Coach Morris Buttermaker : No! Don't jump in Engleberg, you'll flood the valley. See more » Crazy Credits When the Paramount logo turns blue, the "Paramount" text extends beyond the dark blue area instead of staying inside the dark blue. See more » Connections Cutthroat Little League--in all its sprinkler-system, sun-&-Schlitz-drenched glory 22 June 2005 | by moonspinner55 (las vegas, nv) – See all my reviews Scrappy pool-cleaner (and former ballplayer) in Southern California gets talked into coaching Little League to a bunch of no-talent boys.

I don't think I've ever seen another movie that captured this bit of Americana so vividly: you can almost smell the freshly-cut grass and the cigar smoke in the air! One of Walter Matthau's many triumphs, and Tatum O'Neal as the pitching ace is also terrific (especially in the dug-out scene where she tries involving Matthau in her life and he cracks, sending her away in tears: "You don't wanna go, fine, no big deal."). The young boys are mostly all wonderful: Alfred Lutter, from "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", as the nerdy brain; Jackie Earle Haley as the cool kid with shades and motorcycle; Brandon Cruz, from "The Courtship of Eddie's Father", as the pitcher for the enemy-team. The film has some overacting and is occasionally sloppy (with the boom-mike showing, as well as O'Neal's stand-in in a wig), but is otherwise extremely well-written and designed and directed. In 1976, this had kids and adults lining up to see it, so I wouldn't consider the picture a 'sleeper' or an underrated film.

It was a big commercial box-office hit and there is an audience for it wherever there's a DVD player and a screen. ***1/2 from **** 23 of 26 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes View All Critic Reviews (26) Audience Reviews for The Bad News Bears I swear that it is purely coincidental that I happen to watch this merely a day after watching its remake. And honestly, that might not have been such a good idea to see that one first. Morris Buttermaker is a boozy pool cleaner and has-been minor league player who gets roped into coaching a lousy baseball team of misfits. This set the standard for countless sports movies, and, while it's not so revelatory now, I'm sure it was quite shocking/refreshing to have a kids movie have such an edge to it what with the swearing and politically incorrect nature. It's less vulgar than the remake, but while it's more family oriented, it's still got some racial epithets that wouldn't fly now a days if said by white characters. I did like this movie, but I think I liked the remake more.

Again, I probably should have watched them in reverse order, but I can't change that. Watching either movie happened quite by chance anyway. This is a fun movie though, and what ultimately makes it worth it are Walter Matthau as Buttermaker, Tatum O'Neal as Amanda, and Jackie Earl Hayley as juvenile delinquent/star hitter Kelly Leak. If not for these three, then the remake would be a superior film. Give this one a watch. It's pretty good. Chris Weber Super Reviewer One of the classic examples of sports movies, for its time "Bad News Bears" was vulgar, petty, and included obvious misfits. Baseball films hadn't been quite so forthcoming with their vulgarity by the mid-seventies, and this especially was shocking because the words themselves came from the mouths of children. Even by today's standards some of the profanity that these kids spew forth is considered vile and hate filled, as well as simply ludicrous in nature. Bears was the template for all later sports films with an underdog team put up against inscrutable odds and find ways to win. Like many films that came after it, the team starts rather badly in the season, beaten by teams by a twenty point margin.

Though the team gets better as the season goes along, they don't start winning games until they bring in ringers to help them. The kids are your usual brand of misfits including the fat kid, geek, shrimp, immigrants, and gawky pre-pubescent saplings. The one distinguishable aspect of the film is the lead coach, portrayed by a very gruff Walter Matthau. Throughout the film he is shown as an alcoholic, and is deranged, and oddly revered. His alcoholism is never presented as a serious problem within the film in a way where he is shown to go through a general change or intervention. Amanda (played by Tatum O'Neal) does confront her mentor and father figure but is far more concerned with him being present in her life and fairly responsible rather than sober. Even in the end the Bears are drinking down beers though they are underage. A young Jackie Earle Haley shows up as a renegade dirt biker who comes onto the team as a ringer, along with O'Neal. It's a rather engaging movie, even with the drunk driving, child endangerment, and the general displeasure of watching children mock each other. Spencer S.

Services pending for 'Bad News Bears' actress Sammi Kane Kraft | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times Services pending for 'Bad News Bears' actress Sammi Kane Kraft October 11, 2012 | 8:48 am Services were pending Thursday for Sammi Kane Kraft, whose real-life baseball skills landed her the role of the pitching ace in the only film she ever made, 2005's "Bad News Bears." Kraft, 20, died early Tuesday in a car accident on the 10 Freeway near Crenshaw Boulevard. She was a passenger in an Audi that was speeding on the westbound freeway about 1:30 a.m. when it rear-ended a big rig and was then struck by another car, according to the California Highway Patrol. Kraft was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said her brother Frankie Kraft. Molly Kate Adams, the 21-year-old driver of the Audi, was treated for moderate injuries and arrested on suspicion of felony drunk driving, the CHP said. The two other drivers escaped without major injury.

As a 13-year-old, Kraft was chosen to play pitcher Amanda Whurlitzer in "Bad News Bears," the remake of the 1976 hit comedy about a coach of a hapless Little League baseball team. The role had been made famous by Academy Award-winning actress Tatum O'Neal. O'Neal played opposite Walter Matthau in the original while Billy Bob Thornton starred in the role of the gruff, hard-living coach Morris Buttermaker in the remake. Kraft, who heard about the role from a friend, had never acted professionally before "Bad News Bears” but knew a lot about sports, having played baseball and basketball where she was often the only girl on the team. "I throw a knuckleball, a knuckleball curve, a curveball, a changeup, a 70-mph fastball, a two-seam fastball and a four-seam fastball -- the whole thing," Kraft told Times staff writer Susan King in a 2005 interview. Kraft was discovered on a baseball diamond in Los Angeles, where her family had moved from New York so she and another brother could play ball year-round.

She secured the part of Whurlitzer after throwing a 75-mph fastball during a casting call in Encino, the Daily News of Los Angeles reported in 2005. "Amanda is such a character that you can't 'out-Tatum' Tatum O'Neal, so we wanted to get a real girl who could do it," "Bad News Bears" director Richard Linklater said in the 2005 interview. "I didn't want to keep cutting to some boy with a wig on who could throw." Only 13 years old when the film was released, Kraft portrayed the sole girl on a misfit baseball team coached by Thornton's character. After graduating high school in 2010, she studied at San Francisco State and started a folk-country-rock band called Scary Girls. After returning to Los Angeles this year, Kraft enrolled at Santa Monica College and often performed as a solo singer-guitarist at small venues. On the last night of her life, she attended a show and was trying to network with bands, her brother said. For the last year, Kraft had collaborated with her brother on a musical called "Funerals" that was inspired by their grandmother's death.

She had spent a week in January in New York work-shopping the production with actors. ALSO: Good news, we found The Bad News Bears for their 40th anniversary BY CHRISTIAN RED SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2016 The year America celebrated its bicentennial, Bears right-hander Amanda Whurlitzer had her curveball breaking two and a half feet; the team’s slugger, Kelly Leak, was batting .841; foul-mouthed shortstop Tanner Boyle led the North Valley League in base runners tripped and inciting bench-clearing brawls; and Morris Buttermaker, the irascible but lovable beer- and Jim Beam-swilling Bears manager, guided his band of Little League misfits to the title game against —- who else? —- the Yankees. Gerald Ford was the incumbent president, Derek Jeter had not yet turned 2 (in age), and the real-life Bronx Bombers were a day away from embarking on their World Series run -- that ended with a Big Red Machine thumping -- when "The Bad News Bears" movie hit theaters across the country, April 7, 1976.

There were numerous Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning movies released that same year -- "All the President's Men," "Network" and "Rocky", the latter winning Best Picture and a film still enjoying a shelf life to this day, thanks to its six sequels. But the Stanley Jaffe-produced, Michael Ritchie-directed film about the Little League culture in California cemented its place alongside other sports movie classics with what Jaffe calls "a terrific script," a forever cast led by Walter Matthau (Buttermaker) and Tatum O'Neal (Whurlitzer), and a director (Ritchie) who mostly maintained the sanity on set while guiding an ensemble cast made up of mostly children. But maybe the biggest reason why the movie remains as timeless in 2016 as it did 40 years ago is because, in actor Erin Blunt's (who played Bears right fielder Ahmad Abdul Rahim) words, "It was honest." "I wasn't sure if it was the 30th (anniversary) or the 40th.

It's the 40th right?" says Tatum O'Neal, the Oscar-winning actress who caused a million teenage and pre-teen crushes when she played Whurlitzer. "It can't be right." Paramount Pictures/Getty Images Walter Matthau (c.) as Bears manager Morris Buttermaker Yes, it's right, Amanda. Forty years have elapsed since a washed-up minor league pitcher-turned-pool cleaner named Morris Buttermaker first pulls his convertible Cadillac (no trunk cover) into the parking lot of a Little League baseball diamond early in the morning in the movie's opening scene, pops open a can of Budweiser, pours some Jim Beam bourbon into the beer for good measure, smokes a cheap stogie (courtesy of a light from Kelly Leak), and agrees to manage the lowly Bears in the ultra competitive North Valley League, at the urging of a city councilman and much to the disgust of Roy Turner (Vic Morrow), the Yankees manager, and the league organizer, Cleveland (Joyce Van Patten).

What unfolds on the screen from there is a journey equal parts hilarious and profane, irreverent and shocking, heart-tugging and authentic -- a film that never feels dated, even if Amanda Whurlitzer is seen wearing bell bottom jeans on the mound during a practice. The movie blows the lid on the prototypical Little League parents and their children, and delves into such diverse issues as bullying, racism, sexism, birth control, even the dangers of overusing an ace pitcher's arm, all the while shifting seamlessly between comedy-- the Bears' team sponsor is Chico's Bail Bonds -- and drama. To peel back the layers behind the making of one of the great sports films, the Daily News talked with many of the "Bears" actors, as well as producer Stanley Jaffe, the film executive behind such classics as "Kramer vs. Kramer" and "Fatal Attraction." "I love the movie. I loved working with Walter. I loved working with all the kids," says O'Neal. "Great actors. Funny as hell. A tremendously wonderful film, and I was really honored to be a part of it.

Still am." Stanley Jaffe was a high-ranking Paramount executive -- he later ran the studio -- when he says Charles Bluhdorn, the head of Gulf & Western (Paramount's then parent company), came to Jaffe with a script called, "The Bad News Bears," and wanted Jaffe to produce it. "When I read it, I loved it, though we changed the whole last half of the picture from the script that I was presented with," says Jaffe, 75. "I brought Michael Ritchie in after talking to a number of people, and we agreed that the last third wasn't up to the first part of the picture." Jaffe says that he had loved Ritchie's earlier directorial efforts, "Downhill Racer" and "Smile", and that the two men immediately clicked when they worked together on "The Bad News Bears." Jaffe says the script, written by Bill Lancaster, the son of Oscar-winning actor Burt Lancaster, originally focused on the character Kelly Leak (played by Jackie Earle Haley) and Leak's troubles with the law around Los Angeles. "It had nothing to do with the Bad News Bears.

When we started working with Billy (Lancaster), he was great about accepting that and making the changes that ultimately resulted in the movie," says Jaffe. "I never talked to Billy about (the script) being autobiographical. I'm sure there were aspects of it that were, because that's how writers, especially writing about kids, draw from the best material there is -- themselves." Paramount was in the midst of a string of hits in the early 1970s -- "Love Story", "The Godfather" and "The Godfather: Part II", "Serpico", "Chinatown" -- but before "The Bad News Bears" began shooting in 1975, Jaffe says he and Ritchie needed to cast some big names because "the studio felt we needed help with this." SEE IT RANK 'EM: The Greatest Sports Movies "This was not a big picture," says Jaffe. "It wasn't the biggest thing on their agenda. They were shooting "King Kong" and other pieces like that.

But we were this little picture that could at the end." Jaffe says Matthau was actually the third choice in mind to play Buttermaker, behind the late tough-guy actor Steve McQueen and Hollywood heartthrob Warren Beatty. "I knew Steve because he was then with Ali (MacGraw)," says Jaffe. "I brought him the project and he said, 'I can't do it.' He was going to make "An Enemy of the People". Our second choice was Warren, who for the most part said, 'Yes.' He later came to me and said, 'There's a picture I want to direct.' It turned out to be "Reds" and he departed the campus as they say." O'Neal, 52, says now that neither McQueen nor Beatty would have fit the bill, in her opinion. "I doubt (McQueen) would have done it. Not so funny, old Steve," says O'Neal with a laugh.

Matthau was already a veteran of film when he came aboard -- he won an Oscar for the 1967 film, "The Fortune Cookie" -- and Jaffe says he immediately "took to the kids," a group that included Matthau's real-life son, Charlie, who has a cameo and utters one of the funniest lines in the film. "I had my little part through pure nepotism," jokes Charlie Matthau, who still lives in Hollywood, and is a director and producer. "I did two movies with Walter, and he was singularly one of the best people I ever met," says Jaffe. "He's a curmudgeon but he's got a heart as big as this world. He was like the Pied Piper. The kids took to him and it was wonderful for the movie." Bettmann/CORBIS Tatum O'Neal as Bears star pitcher Amanda Whurlitzer Casting the role of Amanda Whurlitzer, a character that Jaffe says was always part of the script, required a little more work. Jaffe and Ritchie wanted a name with clout, but also a female actress who could throw some heat and the occasional curve.

O'Neal wasn't exactly an early version of Mo'ne Davis, and Jaffe and Ritchie had to get creative for some parts of the film after she was cast. A boy stunt double was hired to do some of O'Neal's pitching scenes, which were shot from behind and with the stunt double wearing a wig. "Finding a girl who could play baseball is not always something that's easy. Kristy McNichol, who was a young actress at the time, actually could throw the ball like a guy. She was really good and a wonderful actress," says Jaffe. "Walter and Tatum, of course, brought a lot of big-name value. (McNichol and O'Neal would later star together in "Little Darlings"). "We had to see if (Tatum) could throw a ball. She showed up at the bottom of Coldwater (Canyon), next to the fire station at the time," Jaffe continues. "There was a field. We made her pitch for us. She wasn't very good, but she tried. We decided we could get around it." O'Neal says she remembers going to the field to pitch, but that she had no idea it was for an audition.

Peter Bogdanovich, the director of the 1973 film "Paper Moon" -- in which Tatum O'Neal starred with her father, Ryan, and for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar -- was part of the group pushing for Tatum to get the part of Whurlitzer. "I remember that they took me out to a field. There was a script and my agent (Sue Mengers) wanted me to do it. But I didn't have to do any lines or anything. I just had to pitch. Then I did a lot of pitching after that, once I got the part. I pitched for three months," says O'Neal. "Being able to play it and look like you play it well is very different than being obsessed with the game itself or being a baseball fan.

What I do is just try to make you believe that I know how to do it well." Beyond Matthau and O'Neal, Vic Morrow and Joyce Van Patten (younger sister to the late actor Dick Van Patten) were film and TV veterans, and child actors Jackie Earle Haley and Brandon Cruz had acting experience prior to "Bears," including Cruz's star turn in the late '60s family-friendly TV series, "The Courtship of Eddie's Father." But the bulk of the Bears' roster was just starting out, and Van Patten thinks part of the genius of the film comes from Ritchie being able to coax great performances out of relative unknowns. "They were sweet kids, little troublemakers sometimes, but sweet," says Van Patten, 82, who has worked with everyone from Dean Martin to Elvis Presley to Adam Sandler. "Michael Ritchie, who I think is the hero of the movie, really just made a one-of-a-kind movie." Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News From l.

to r., actors Erin Blunt, David Pollock, Charlie Matthau (son of Walter) Most of the kid actors had to audition for the "Bears" roles -- casting calls were held in several cities around the country -- except for the Los Angeles-born Erin Blunt, whose path to the Ahmad role came about quite by accident. "We went to pick up my sister one day in Hollywood, and I was running around in the hallway, waiting for her to get done. This lady came up to me – in the '70s, you know, a little black kid doing bad things in the hallway at a prestigious modeling school, and an older white lady comes to you and says, 'Where's your mom?' – I thought I was in trouble," says Blunt, 52, who is now a DJ living in L.A. "The lady just liked my face, and she wanted me to do an audition for a commercial.

My mother said, 'He's a little quiet, but we'll go do it.' I got the lead part in the commercial and the rest is history." When Blunt's mother raced him to the set of Paramount one day, Blunt says he was less than thrilled to learn there were auditions for a baseball flick. "I'm like, 'Aw, man,' because at that time, I hated baseball. My mom says, 'Just go for the experience.' On the way there, she says, 'We need to buy you a baseball uniform?' I said, 'No.' We get to Paramount. There's about 20 million and one kids, all wearing baseball uniforms," says Blunt. "Here comes this kid with jeans and a T-shirt, a hat on backwards, sitting in a corner. I stood out obviously because Michael Ritchie came up to me and said, 'What's your name?' I said, 'Erin.' He said, 'You act like you don't want to be here.' I said, 'I don't. I hate baseball.' He said, 'Good.

I'm the director, and you just got the part.'" Cruz, despite his success on "Eddie's Father" (where he starred with Bill Bixby of "The Incredible Hulk" fame), says his young ego was on display when his agent sent him to audition for Ritchie. "I'd never really auditioned for anything since I was 6-years-old. My ego said, 'Don't you know who I am?' Michael Ritchie said, 'Yeah, I know who you are, but I want to see if you're right for this.' He actually gave me the part of Joey (Turner) based upon what I was looking and acting like at the time," says Cruz, who originally auditioned for one of the Bears players, but ended up getting the role of the bullying, smart-aleck Yankee pitcher Joey Turner, the son of Vic Morrow's character. Of all the kid actors cast, almost none had much baseball experience, except for David Stambaugh, who grew up in New Jersey after his father got transferred by AT&T to the New York area from Dallas.

Stambaugh, now a minister with Green's Farms Church in Connecticut, says after he auditioned for the part at a New York casting call, he put his baseball skills on display. Courtesy David Stambaugh David Stambaugh with original scoreboard, and on set as Toby Whitewood (r.) "Eventually we went out to Central Park, and we're hitting the ball around with Michael Ritchie. If I remember correctly, I was one of the only guys that played Little League. I was actually playing during the time of auditions. One of the callbacks I couldn't go on because my team was in the playoffs," says Stambaugh, who plays Toby Whitewood, the son of the city councilman who pays Buttermaker to manage the Bears. "I like to tell myself, (Ritchie and Jaffe) were probably like, 'We've got to have this guy. He's the real deal.'" Pollock, who is right-handed, says the Rudi Stein character was originally called "Lefty Stein" in the script. "I pointed out during our first rehearsal that not only was I not left-handed, I was a pretty bad pitcher with my right hand," jokes Pollock.

"Walter came up with the idea of naming the character "Rudi" and it stuck." Shooting began in 1975 after a baseball field was built on a park site in Chatsworth, California, in the Valley. Jaffe says a USC baseball coach was brought in to help teach the actors the baseball fundamentals. "He worked with Tatum. All we needed her to do was throw like three pitches that looked real, and then you could always find a way to use them again," says Jaffe. The actors in the movie all agree on at least two elements of the shoot -- working with Walter Matthau was a dream. And filming in Chatsworth might as well have been on the sun's surface. "Hot as hell," says Blunt. "What I remember mostly was that I was hot all the time, and that I hated the baseball outfit," says O'Neal. "With my tummy sticking out, and those high-waisted, funny (pants) – I just thought, 'Are you kidding me?' It was 100-degrees every day. But I got to work with Walter. How great was that?

Amazing." Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News Little League field at Mason Park, in Chatsworth, Calif., where movie was filmed O'Neal was fresh off her Oscar win in "Paper Moon," but she says that unlike the close bond she had with Bogdanovich, she found her "Bears" role much more challenging. "I remember that working with Peter Bogdanovich was like magic, because he basically tells you everything to do. So being on my own and having a director just say, 'Ok, do it,' was very hard for me," says O'Neal. "I had funnier lines, lines about my boobs, or 'I'm going to be getting a bra soon.' Geez Louise. I remember that being hard to say. I did like doing the pitching stuff. (Ritchie and I) didn't have the same rapport. I don't think he disliked me. Then it came down to Walter telling me, 'C'mon kid, you can do this.

Just read the lines like you are.' I was glad that it came out as well as it did because I remember being a little bit like, 'God, I'm really out on my own here.'" O'Neal has had a complicated relationship with her father, Ryan, over the years, and she says during the filming of "The Bad News Bears," her dad was on set only a few times, and that he was helping manage her career. "I don't remember what he was doing while I was doing ('The Bad News Bears'). Was it 'Barry Lyndon'? But I remember that we made a bet once – which movie was going to make more money, 'The Bad News Bears' or 'Barry Lyndon,' and I won," says O'Neal. "I think I got a 'Smart ass.'" Jackie Earle Haley, an L.A. native who now lives in San Antonio, calls Matthau "a real sweetheart," and someone who knew how to have fun on the set.

"There were actually some times where he'd pop a can of Olympia beer open, like mid-day, and if I was sitting next to him, he'd go, 'Here, you want a sip?'" says Haley, who was 14 when the movie was filmed. "Just like at the end of the movie. It was hilarious." Yes, plenty of scenes feature Matthau guzzling an array of cheap beer -- Miller High Life, Schlitz, Mickey's and Budweiser are some of his mainstays. In one scene, Buttermaker is driving his convertible with all the Bears players stuffed into the front and back seats (and with not a seatbelt in sight), waxing about when he struck out Ted Williams in the minors. Engelberg (Gary Lee Cavagnaro), the rotund catcher, pulls a Jim Beam bottle out of the glove compartment. "You're not supposed to have open liquor in the car. It's against the law," says Engelberg. "So is murder Engelberg. Now put that back before you get me into real trouble," says Buttermaker. But Brandon Cruz says there was liberal distribution of coldies on the set for the crew.

That was a perk of the job, and Cruz wasn't afraid to partake, especially if it helped him shed the squeaky-clean image of the Eddie character from "The Courtship of Eddie's Father." Hey, it was the '70s. "We were a rather crude bunch of kids unleashed on the baseball park. This was 1975 when we filmed it. A different time. They had trashcans full of ice and Heineken for the crew, because it was really hot. I guess that was the incentive of the crew to hang in there, deal with a bunch of crazy kids," says Cruz, another L.A. native who still lives there. "I can't really speak for other people, but I helped myself to the crew's freebies on a daily basis. I was between seventh and eighth grade that summer. I was 13, already off and running, smoking pot, drinking. I was into surfing and skateboarding. There were extras – people my age and older that lived around the park where we filmed – that liked to hang out with us. One older girl had pot on the set. We were happy to go across the street to her house. Nobody knew where we were half the time.

We just kind of ran wild. Some of us. Some of them were really good kids. And some of us were doing our thing. It was fun." That kind of rebel nature and irreverence embodied the language and tone of the script, but despite a heavy dose of racial epithets and profanity, none of the actors today say that they or their parents were overly shocked when they first read the screenplay. Not even when the character Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes) delivers his famous screed after the team's first practice is an unmitigated disaster. "If we keep playing like this we'll be the laughingstock of the league," says Bears pitcher/outfielder Rudi Stein. "Well what do you expect? All we got on this team is a bunch of Jews, Sp--s, n-----s, pansies and a booger-eating moron," says Tanner. The "moron" refers to perennial Bears benchwarmer Timmy Lupus (Quinn Smith). Tanner later adds a sarcastic "and now a girl?" to the sentence when Whurlitzer joins the team. "To tell you the truth, to us kids, it was just true to life," says Haley, 54.

"I'm sure everyone was giggling, 'Oh look, we get to cuss in front of everybody.' At the same time, zero shock. This is exactly what it's like at school. I'm sure it's that and worse now." SEE IT QUIZ: The Bad News Bears 40th Anniversary Trivia Erin Blunt says he was never offended by the liberal use of the "n" word in the movie, and that his mother told him at the time to look at the situation like "you have a job. You're playing a part." "One thing my mother didn't know about me, as a kid, I loved Richard Pryor. I used to sneak an 8-track that I found with Pryor, and used to play it when my mother was at work," says Blunt. "So I heard a lot of stuff. I was just shocked that my mother was going to allow me to use that language. I wasn't offended, because I knew it was a job. It wasn't like I was walking down the street and Chris (Barnes) called me a n-----. It was a different deal.

Plus, they paid me for it." The Bears' season starts off in humiliating fashion, a 26-0 drubbing by Joey Turner and the Yankees that mercifully ends when Buttermaker forfeits the game. The Bears players stomp off the field, dejected, while Ahmad Abdul Rahim seeks refuge in a tree, sans every piece of clothing but his underwear. Buttermaker scales the tree for a managerial chat. "There's nothing easy about those fly balls Ahmad. They were tough chances. The sun was in your eyes," says Buttermaker. "Don't give me any of your honky bull--- Buttermaker," says Abdul Rahim. "Let's not bring race into this, Ahmad. We got enough problems as it is," says Buttermaker. The Bears team nearly quits on their skipper -- Tanner takes on the entire seventh grade after being taunted at school -- before Buttermaker successfully recruits Whurlitzer (on a second try) to pitch for the team. The cost for Buttermaker? Paying for Amanda's ballet lessons and "imported jeans." "Who do you think you are, Catfish Hunter?" Buttermaker asks Amanda as they're negotiating a contract.

"Who's he?" she replies. With an ace aboard, and the team's fortunes starting to change, Buttermaker finds his slugger during a practice. Kelly Leak, the athletically-gifted local delinquent who chain smokes, rides a Harley-Davidson and hangs out at the field because "there's nice ass," rifles the ball back to Buttermaker from beyond left field foul territory. The only problem? Leak doesn't want to play for the Bears. "Oh, you call what you got a team? The baseball you guys play is for fa----s and old farts," Leak tells Amanda. She makes a bet for his services -- she has to beat him in air hockey -- only to lose and uphold her end of the agreement: going as his date to a Rolling Stones concert. "Boy you to take the cake, first you blow the game, then you get roped into a date with an ex-con," says Buttermaker. Off the set, Haley says he and O'Neal were good friends, and that he spent a couple afternoons at the O'Neal beachfront casa, where Tatum lived with her dad, Ryan, a notorious hothead. "I remember bits and fragments.

I remember it was morning. She and I were sitting on the beach, right under the house. I'm 14 and she's 12," says Haley, laughing. "Who knows what we're talking about, but I look up and her dad is just staring right at us. Totally eavesdropping. And I think it was talk like, 'You know when I get a car we should hang and go out. In a couple years I'll be 16…' Later on, we're out having fun, throwing the Frisbee back and forth, with Ryan and Tatum. I end up on Ryan's side. Ryan kind of playfully wrestles with me a little bit, and kind of whispers in my ear: 'You touch my daughter, I'll break both your f---g legs.' To this day, I never really took that as he was really going to break my legs. I was 14. But it was a little like, 'Whoa.'" Haley says one of the other cool perks about the role was having to attend motorcycle school to learn to ride the Harley, complete with instruction from CHiP officers.

When the Bears are on the cusp of sealing a spot in the championship game, Buttermaker takes no chances in the game prior, demanding Leak field every fly ball possible. "Hey Tanner, does he go to the bathroom for you too?" an A's player (Charlie Matthau) says to Tanner after Leak catches a pop fly the shortstop is perfectly positioned to snag. The title game brings out some of the movie's richest scenes, including a tender moment between Amanda and Buttermaker (whom she routinely refers to as "Boilermaker") the night before the Bears play the Yankees, when she tries to rekindle the romance between her mother and Buttermaker (who have dated in the past), while icing her pitching arm in a cooler of beer. Once the game gets underway, the full spectrum of Little League culture is laid bare -- with Buttermaker and Roy Turner leading the charge, trading profane jabs at each other, and Turner later channeling all his testosterone rage toward his son, Joey.

Paramount Pictures/Getty Images Walter Matthau as Bears manager Morris Buttermaker Cruz, 53, says that during the filming, Vic Morrow didn't exactly hold back when he smacks Cruz for throwing a beanball at the Bears rotund catcher Engelberg. "Vic was not an easy person to like. He was not an easy person to deal with. It seems to me he didn't even want to be there. He was very – 'Let's get this done. Let me get out of here.' I guess he had his demons," says Cruz, who also works in the drug and alcohol recovery field after being sober for nearly 20 years. "I think he kind of had a bit of a smile when he got to slap me. I noticed when he walked up, he was about a foot closer than he had been. And I went, 'OK, this is going to get a little tense.' And he slapped me. He put everything he had into it. Whatever. I can't guess 40 years ago what was going through his mind.

I just know that he was not a pleasure to work with." In a freak twist, both Morrow and Reid Rondell, the stuntman in "The Bad News Bears," were killed in separate helicopter accidents, on the set of a movie (Morrow) and TV show (Rondell). The Ahmad character lays down a perfect bunt in the last half inning of the title game after stepping to the plate and declaring, "This is for Allah, and it's going way out there sucka." Blunt says that to him, there was some deeper significance to that sequence. "When I said, 'This is for Allah,' there's a little young black guy, he's a radical, he's an irate kid, and it worked for the character I played," says Blunt. "It wasn't a bash on Islam. He needed to use that line to kind of drive in the point – he is a Muslim – so when (Ahmad) goes on those mad tirades, you can understand. That was my character, a headstrong little black kid. Just like Tanner – Chris (Barnes') part – I guess you would call him a bigot. He was Archie Bunker as a kid.

You had to have this melting pot to make the movie, which people are still talking about today." After Ahmad's bunt puts two runners on base, the Bears then load the bases trailing 7-3, and Leak steps to the plate. Only the Yankees elect to intentionally walk him. Buttermaker signals his slugger to hit, and well, if the ominous crescendo of Bizet's "Carmen" score doesn't spell the end of the Bears as Leak rounds the bases, the home plate umpire's call as Leak slides home seals their fate. Jaffe says that he was in the minority when it came to how the film should end. Then-studio head Barry Diller and other Paramount executives wanted the Bears to win, as did actor Warren Beatty. A separate ending was even shot where the Bears were victorious. "I felt strongly, as did (Ritchie), that there was no way that (the Bears) were going to win. At the end, when we had the previews, Barry said, 'I want them to win it.' I said, 'It's not happening. Just not happening,'" says Jaffe. "It's not about winning. It's about trying. One person wins.

But everybody can try and that's what this picture is to me – everybody trying." Only a manager like Buttermaker would celebrate a loss by handing out beers to his underage roster, but it's the perfect end to an imperfect team, complete with Tanner telling the Yankees to stick their apology and trophy where the sun don't shine (only in more colorful words). Jaffe says that three weeks after the release, he was at the famous (and long shuttered) Chasen's hotspot in L.A., when seated near him was the head of Warner, Frank Wells. "He yelled over, 'Stanley, you just defined what 'legs' means, in terms of box office.' The picture was a terrific success. It was a totally enjoyable experience," says Jaffe. David Pollock, who played Rudi Stein, says the actors did a lot of promotion for the film, and that the cast members even got to challenge the cast of "Annie" to a softball game in Central Park when the "Bears" cast was in New York.

Courtesy David Pollock David Pollock (l.) with Walter Matthau on set The film launched two sequels, although Haley jokes that he would rather not admit to being part of "The Bad News Bears Go To Japan." "I believe it is in several top 10 lists of worst movies ever made," says Haley. "So if you're wondering why there is no "The Bad News Bears IV"…" There was even a reboot "Bad News Bears" in 2005, but with apologies to Richard Linklater and his many other directorial successes, the 1976 original should have remained untouched. "Why try to make something better out of something great? It's already great," says O'Neal, who did not reprise her role in the two sequels. O'Neal is still acting, lives in Los Angeles and dotes on her three grown children with ex-husband John McEnroe. Her daughter, Emily, is trying to follow her famous mom's lead into acting. "My mother was an actress. My father is an actor. My grandmother was an actress. My grandfather was a writer. My uncle is a writer," says O'Neal. "I don't know, man. Is there anything else for me?

It's the only thing I love, and the only thing that I believe in. It's what I live for – great movies, great television. It's a passion." She adds that actor friends still inquire about "The Bad News Bears," including Jason Patric, who once made the mistake of asking her to wear her old uniform. "I've had people tell me, 'Do I have the costume, could I put it on?' Not dates or anything. Jason Patric once asked me, 'Can you put it on?' I was like, 'Really? Are you out of your freakin' mind?' Of course I don't have it," says O'Neal. "I'm sort of a very bad pitcher now, but who cares?" Haley bowed out of the business for a lengthy stretch only to return with acclaim, including an Oscar-nominated role in "Little Children." Most recently Haley was in "The Birth of a Nation," about Nat Turner. But Haley says he still gets recognized for his seminal role as Leak. On one occasion, he broke a male fan's heart with the reality of filming that role. "Ten years ago – there was this guy who was running a warehouse at this company that I was working for.

I was VP of communications," says Haley. "He was also a pro arena football player for, I want to say the Arizona Rattlers. When he met me, he was like, 'Oh my God, dude, you're Kelly Leak. I've got to tell you, you're the whole reason why I got into sports. And I'm now playing professional football. I wanted to be Kelly Leak. How did you guys do that stuff?' "What I went on to say is, 'Here's how it kind of worked. Remember that ball that I caught in mid-air, and I told Tatum to throw the pitch a little faster? That was a rubber ball.'" "And then I said, 'Every time I would hit a home run, they basically would pitch to me and I'd swing, making it look real good, but I'd kind of doof it over to second base and it would land in the field. They'd turn the camera around and some big, huge guy would throw the ball over the fence.' And this guy was standing there looking at me going, 'Oh man, I'm crushed.'" "I'm no Kelly Leak, let's put it that way," Haley says laughing.

Haley has a grown son and a teenage daughter. SEE IT GALLERY: The 25 Greatest Sports Movies Ever Cruz, meanwhile, says he got out of Hollywood altogether not long after playing Joey Turner, turned off by the industry. He was in a punk band, but has since circled back to the movie industry, while also raising his two kids, and doing his work with recovering addicts. Pollock, also a father of two, is running for state senate in California (as Democrat), and is currently a city council member in Ventura County. Walter Matthau died in 2000, and Michael Ritchie passed a year later. Bill Lancaster, the screenwriter, died in 1997. Chris Barnes, who played Tanner, has shied away from any media interviews since starring in the two "Bears" movies. Jaffe is still a producer living in the New York area, and Van Patten is still acting and lives in Manhattan. While working on "Grown Ups" with Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider and Kevin James, she had an unexpected shout-out. "We were together for a long time, for three months, on location.

When you work with those kinds of stars, they pretty much have a coterie of people around them. So you don't get to know them the way you get to know other people when you work with them. But at one point somebody told one of them that I had been in "The Bad News Bears." Just think about it, they were all kids when that came out. And they just piled around me with questions and wanting to know about it. It was so funny. So "The Bad News Bears" won me a little celebrity there," says Van Patten. It is a movie that someone like the late Philip Seymour Hoffman called his favorite, and one which resonates on many levels today, with all different generations. Pollock is hoping to organize a reunion with all the actors associated with the film, maybe even a pickup softball game as part of the agenda. But the task has been easier said than done. If the old roster reunites, that can mean only one thing: bad news for the opposing team. Buttermaker would approve.

Amazon.com: Bad News Bears: Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden, Sammi Kane Kraft: Amazon Digital Services LLC 3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but Unnecessary By Theo Logos on August 15, 2005 The original Bad News Bears is an absolute classic which has aged well. There was no need for a remake; the fact that this movie was made anyhow is a tribute to the lack of creativity and aversion to risk taking in Hollywood. That said, the remake is entertaining, and had it been an original film I would have rated it four rather than three stars. The primary reason to see the new Bad News Bears is actor Billy Bob Thornton. He is the logical successor to Walter Matthau's mantle. Thornton owns the character of Coach Buttermaker - a lewd, gruff drunk with no socially redeeming traits who still manages to exude a sleazy charm. Had he created this role rather than just expertly imitated it, it would have been pure genius, and as it is, it stands as a homage to the original. Oddly, the remake manages to be simultaneously both raunchier and more politically correct than the original.

Where the original film had Buttermaker getting endorsements from a bail bondsman on the kid's uniforms, the remake has the endorsement of a strip club, complete with dancers coming to the games as a rooting section for the team. Yet in the climatic scene of the aftermath of the championship game, where the original film had Buttermaker giving all the kids beers, in the remake he simply hands out near-beer, robbing the scene of all of its edginess and power with its unwillingness to take the risks of the original. The kids in the movie were well cast and did a nice job of recreating the original roles. Here once again, this movie has the feel of a homage. The only innovation was to make the ethnic mix of the team more diverse. This movie is a must see for all Billy Bob Thornton fans - his performance here will not disappoint them. And though this remake can never replace the original, it is entertaining and stays fairly true to the intent and feel of the film that it is imitating. I thus give it a qualified recommendation. Theo Logos The Bad News Bears (Film) - TV Tropes The Bad News Bears You need to login to do this.

Get Known if you don't have an account Share Film / The Bad News Bears × WMG The Bad News Bears is a 1976 film directed by Michael Ritchie. It stars Walter Matthau as Morris Buttermaker, an alcoholic former minor-league baseball player who becomes the coach of the Bears, a cellar-dwelling Little League baseball team with poor playing skills and little hope of ever winning. To bolster the team's abilities, he recruits Amanda Whurlitzer, a skilled pitcher who happens to be the eleven-year-old daughter of one of Buttermaker's ex-girlfriends, and Kelly Leak, the local cigarette-smoking troublemaker. And, miraculously, the notoriously chronic underdogs start winning under Buttermaker's careful coaching. Now all that lies between them and victory is the championship game... The film was followed by two sequels, The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training in 1977 and The Bad News Bears Go to Japan in 1978, and a short-lived 1979-80 CBS television series , none of which were able to duplicate the success of the original. A remake was made in 2005, starring Billy Bob Thornton as Buttermaker.

Not to be confused with Bears Are Bad News . This movie, and its two sequels, contain examples of: Accidental Misnaming : Buttermaker is variously referred to as "Boilermaker", "Butterworth", "Buttercrud", etc. Animated Credits Opening : The Bad News Bears Go to Japan has one. Fittingly, it was animated in Japan at Group TAC. Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking : Tanner drops this gem when Amanda joins the team: "Jews, spics, niggers, and now a girl?" The Bet : Amanda tries to get Kelly to join the team by playing air hockey against him at an arcade. But she loses, so instead she has to go out on a date with him. Covers Always Lie : The DVD cover ◊ shows Amanda standing on a box while talking to Buttermaker. Take a wild guess as to whether a scene like that appears in the actual movie. Down to the Last Play : This was perhaps the first underdog movie to have the protagonist team NOT win. Hypocritical Humor : In the first film, Amanda tries to invoke this on Kelly. But it backfires . Amanda: Whatcha got against baseball anyway?

Kelly: The baseball you guys play is for faggots and old farts who don't have anything better to do with themselves. Amanda: Well, you must like those kind of guys. You sure do hang around the field often enough. Kelly: There's a nice ass on the field. That's why I hang around. Amanda: * Death Glare * Jerk Ass Has A Point : Roy Turner might have gone too far by hitting his son however he was right to be mad at his son for intentionally trying to hit Engelberg in the head with a baseball which could have seriously hurt him had the ball actually struck him in the head. Mouthy Kid : Many of the kids have their moments, but Tanner loves throwing around racial epithets. Opposing Sports Team : The Yankees. Ordered to Cheat : Buttermaker orders his batter to lean into the pitch so he'd get hit, to get a walk. The player is against the idea, but does it anyway. Twice. Pet the Dog : Quinn Smith, who played Timmy Lupus in the first film, couldn't take part in the second.

They were able to get him for a brief scene at the beginning where they show him getting visited by some of his teammates while recovering from a broken leg, with the insinuation that he was a huge part of their second season. Positive Discrimination : The whole reason the Bears exist is because one of the players' parents is an attorney, and decided to sue the league. He also paid Buttermaker to coach the team. Cleveland: Goddamn class action suits are gonna be the ruin of this country. The Bad News Bears Play Basketball The Bad News Bears Play Basketball (1/31/2009) The Covenant School girls basketball team had quite a night against Dallas Academy: it won its game 100-0. Implying that Jesus would have handled the situation differently if he were coaching, the headmaster for Covenant School fired the teamï¿½s coach, even though Jesus is unavailable for the job.

The ex-coach was unapologetic, saying in an e-mail to the press that he refused to express regret "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity." Covenant issued an apology to Dallas Academy, and is seeking to get the game forfeited to the school, which hasnï¿½t won a game in two years. What exactly is the right thing to do for a team involved in a contest where its opposition is helpless? Was the coach wrong? Was the headmaster wrong to fire him? Or are the ethical offenders elsewhere? Running up the score is a controversial topic even in professional sports, where winning is the prime objective, few leads are safe, and the players are paid to take their medicine. At the point where victory is assured and the only question is the degree of humiliation that will be heaped on the losing team, professional coaches generally take measures like pulling their best players and avoiding aggressive tactics. Apparently the Covenant coach wouldnï¿½t even concede that much, and directed his players to keep taking three-point shots and to score as many points as possible.

(And, apparently, he was egged on by screaming parents in the stands, who wanted to see the score reach 100.) Okayï¿½the coach demonstrated a lack of sympathy, caring and responsibility, not to mention respect for the Golden Rule. His job is two-fold: first, to teach his girls the principles of teamwork, sportsmanship, and fair competition; second, to train them to play good basketball. Throttling a helpless opponent long after a contest is no longer in doubt accomplishes neither of these goals, and is actively antithetical to the first. What he should have done was to direct the girls to slow down the pace of the game. Pass off as often as possible; practice play-making rather than shooting. This isnï¿½t as easy as it sounds, for asking the team to play without intensity could easily lead to injuries. But thatï¿½s part of his job as teacher and instructor. He is supposed to be able to navigate unexpected situations, like being faced with hopeless opponents. The Covenant coach was not the only one who botched this challenge, however.

In the film ï¿½The Bad New Bearsï¿½ (the original version, with Walter Mathau, not the pointless remake with Billy Bob Thornton, please), the Bears coach, played by Mathau, sees that his awful Little League baseball team is being slaughtered by the aptly-named Yankees, and suggests to the other coach that they mutually agree to end the game early. When the ultra-competitive Yankee coach (Vic Morrow, in a disturbingly realistic turn as an obsessed Little League parent---he would have been one of the blood-thirsty spectators cheering for 100-0) refuses, Mathau leads his team off the field and forfeits rather than letting them suffer any longer than they have to. And he is exactly right. What was the Dallas Academy coach trying to do, teach his team the nobility of lost causes? To fight bravely against overwhelming odds? Punish them for being so inept? If what happened to the Dallas Academy team was so horrible that it warranted firing the winning coach, both coaches and the referees also had an obligation to try to solve the problem.

If the winning coach wouldnï¿½t direct his team to slow down, then the losing coach should have pulled his team off the court. And if the comatose losing coach wouldnï¿½t act, then the refs should have ended the game as an act of mercy. I think Kyle Queal, the headmaster for Covenant School, went overboard by firing the coach. It is not easy for a team to be faced with a scheduled opponent that has no business playing at your teamï¿½s level of competition. It is not ï¿½blaming the victimsï¿½ to suggest that Dallas Academy was negligent and irresponsible in subjecting its girls to certain defeat by playing far superior teams, ensuring boring games for spectators, and ordeals for the players while creating job-threatening dilemmas for opposing coaches. Are we to assume that the team was happy as long as it only lost by scores of 40-2 or 64-6? 100-0 is a massacre, but how much worse is that score than what Dallas Academy was used to, as it lost game after game? Imagine that a junior high school football team is scheduled to play against Ohio State.

Is that Ohio Stateï¿½s reponsibility? Clearly Ohio Stateï¿½s 250-pounders must not crush the boys and run up the score. But after there is a rout, Ohio Stateï¿½s coach shouldnï¿½t get all the blame. Nor should Ohio Stateï¿½s players. Covenantï¿½s attempt to have the game forfeited to Dallas Academy aims to punish its own students---for what? Being too good? Not missing those three-pointers? The players obeyed their coach, as they are supposed to; they excelled at the game. They did not cheat, and the fact that the game was a mismatch cannot be blamed on them at all. Dallas Academy has been sending its ill-prepared girls out to lose for two years, apparently without concern for their psyches. Now that the team has lost especially spectacularly, the school deserves a reward? Absurd. Perhaps Covenantï¿½s leadership believes that a Christian schoolï¿½s basketball team has a higher obligation in such circumstances than other school teams. Interesting theory. Perhaps, after being knocked on his butt by a rampaging tackle, a Notre Dame quarterback should turn the other cheek.

I donï¿½t see it. School teams ought to exhibit fair play and good sportsmanship, and Christian teams no more or less than any other. If Covenant cannot reconcile the concept of competition with its Christian values, perhaps it should leave organized sports to others. I would like to believe that it was the Covenant School coachï¿½s refusal to acknowledge that he mishandled the situation that got him sacked, and not just the lopsided score. It is unfair for him to take all the criticism. After all, Jesus might not have let his team throw in three-pointers if he were coaching, but he still might have been challenged by the task of finding the right way to balance his obligations to his own team with his empathy for the Dallas Academy players. And even he would have benefited from a little cooperation from the other adults involved. For frequently ethics, like basketball, is a team activity. Sports: Engelberg recalls 'Bears' fondly Engelberg recalls 'Bears' fondly Fill out this form to email this article to a friend Your name Published August 28, 2005 Does the name Gary Lee Cavagnaro ring a bell? Probably not. Okay, how about Engelberg?

Yes, that one you surely know ... if you've seen the original Bad News Bears (1976) that is. Engelberg was the Bears' portly and volatile catcher, the kid who ate candy bars at practice and cussed at his coach. He was played by Cavagnaro, a Dallas native picked for the part after attending - what else? - a cattle call. Today, Cavagnaro, 41, works for Phoenix Passive Components, an electronics company in Texas. He and wife Kimberly have four children: Matthew (21), Emily (14), Blake (12) and Gary Jr. (10). Engelberg ... err Cavagnaro ... recently kicked back with Times staff writer Keith Niebuhr. Let's start from the top. How were you picked to play Engelberg? My mother worked at the Apparel Mart in Dallas, and that summer, they were filming Logan's Run there. They put it out on the radio for children under the age of 13 to come audition. Everybody assumed it was for a part in Logan's Run. We found out after we got there it was for a new motion picture. They ended up liking me and spent 31/2 hours with me.

The director and the producer told me they wanted me to come back in a couple of days, but I was one of 15. I was either first or second to go in, and they ended up not seeing anybody else. After I got there, they spent the rest of the day with me. Doing what? They had me going through lines, running in place, eating fried chicken, candy bars with wrappers. At lunch, I had a burger and fries, and then they started feeding me again. I was like a stuffed pig. When we finished up, they said, "Don't call us. We'll call you." We went on vacation, and one day, the light was flashing on the hotel phone. They said I needed to be in the studio in L.A. the following Monday. The first couple of weeks, I still didn't know I had the part for sure. Later, (director) Michael Ritchie told me, "We did that so that you would be calm. I knew you had the part the day we sent for you." Okay, how fat was Engelberg? I was 5 feet tall and weighed 205 pounds. And I was only 12. Oh, my.

It was way too big as a matter of fact. We had a family doctor, and he kept telling me I needed to lose weight but never pushed it. He figured it was baby fat. When I got to California (for filming), I got bronchitis, and the doctor said, "You need to lose weight or you'll be in a wheelchair by the time you're 18 and dead by the time you're 21." Who was the coolest person on the set? Let me break it into adults and kids. Of the kids, Chris Barnes, who played Tanner. As far as the adults, Walter Matthau (coach Morris Buttermaker) was in a class by himself. As great as he was around the kids, he was even better around the moms. Behind the field, the tree-lined area between the field and the concession stand, the mothers would camp out there. And during off time, Walter would come out with Jack Lemmon occasionally and do an old vaudeville routine, which would keep the mothers in stitches. What was the most fun scene to shoot? I think the best for me was the Milk Dud scene, where I got chocolate on the ball, because of the one-on-one interaction with Walter.

Did you ever play any real baseball? Briefly, yes. But before the movie. Afterward, it was kind of anticlimactic. What position? Outfield. I was mediocre. I was much better as a batter than as a fielder. To anyone who ever played youth baseball, the movie seems so real. We all knew a coach who drank, a bratty kid who swore and a temperamental parent or two. Even today, the film still works. How did you guys pull it off? It was cutting edge. It was taboo. Michael Ritchie was really good at delivering a message to you without you knowing he was doing that. I defy anybody to find a movie prior to this where kids were told to act like you would if your parents weren't around. At the premiere, when there was the line where I (cursed at) Buttermaker, people gasped. Then they paused. Then they started breaking out in laughter. I think they all sat back and thought, "That's probably what they say when we're not around." Still keep in touch with the gang? We fell apart for quite a while.

But in 2001, when TV Guide and Sports Illustrated did 25th anniversary stories, we all started finding e-mail addresses and phone numbers. I think I speak for all of America when I ask, was Timmy Lupus really that bad? Quinn Smith (Lupus) and Jaime Escobedo (Jose) were younger than the rest of us by two years ... but yes, he was that bad. Does watching the movie ever get old? No. After 300 times, I can still find something new or just remember things. I still remember Walter up in the tree with Erin Blunt (Ahmad) like it was yesterday. At 40, what would Engelberg be doing? If he didn't lose the weight, I think he'd be dead. BAD NEWS BEARS: MEMORABLE QUOTES Engelberg: You're not supposed to have open liquor in the car. It's against the law. Coach Morris Buttermaker: So is murder, Englebert. Now put that back before you get me in real trouble. Engelberg: (helping Buttermaker clean pools) When we're through, can we go swimming? Coach Morris Buttermaker: No!

Don't jump in Engelberg. You'll flood the valley. [Last modified August 28, 2005, 01:14:15] Share your thoughts on this story

Question: Who played the part of the coach in the film The Bad News Bears
Answer: Walter Matthau