Thoughts on The Bad News Bears on this Fourth of July

[Dpd174]

3. I think a lot of the bad behavior in the movie was intended to be shocking.

Even for the era.

The humor was more of the "shock" genre than mainstream comedy. We're a lot more used to it now, but at the time, hearing kids talk that way, a baseball coach that was a chainsmoking drunk, and other things we take offense to now were somewhat new at that time, especially in a mainstream movie with (at the time) an A-list actor.

I think it's more like "Bad Santa" was more recently...the shock of seeing characters talk and act in a way we'd never seen before on screen is what made it popular.

That said, I'm commenting from memory, and haven't seen that movie since...probably the '70s. I remember my mom forbid us to watch it (which, of course, meant that was the number one priority to my circle of friends, lol).