The Bad News Bears is a 1976 film directed by Michael Ritchie. It stars Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal. 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. Also notable was the score by Jerry Fielding, which is an adaptation of the principal themes of Carmen. The title of the movie has become a popular expression to refer to bad news or the bearer of bad news. As in, "Those are the bad news bears."
A remake of the movie, directed by Richard Linklater with Billy Bob Thornton taking the role of Morris Buttermaker, was released on July 22, 2005.
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Bad News Bears is a 2005 comedy film, which is a remake of the 1976 film The Bad News Bears, produced by Paramount Pictures. It is directed by Richard Linklater and stars Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden, and Sammi Kane Kraft.
The writers are also the writing team behind another Thornton movie, Bad Santa. Bad News Bears received mixed reviews. It received a score of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Bad News Bears was a short-lived television series that aired on CBS from March 24, 1979 until July 26, 1980. It was based on the 1976 hit movie The Bad News Bears, that was followed by two sequels in 1977 and 1978. In the television version, Jack Warden portrayed former minor-leaguer Morris Buttermaker, the coach of the Hoover Junior High Bears, a sorry bunch of youthful misfits and bumblers. Catherine Hicks played Hoover Junior High principal Dr. Emily Rappant. Phillip R. Allen played Roy Turner, the coach of the dreaded rival Lions.
Corey Feldman, Billy Jayne (then credited as Billy Jacoby) and Meeno Peluce were cast amongst the team's players, and Tricia Cast played Amanda Wurlitzer, the Bears' star pitcher.
In the late 1980s, the show was occasionally rerun on Nickelodeon. In the early 1990s, it was rerun on Comedy Central.
Morris Buttermaker (Thornton), an alcoholic pest removal worker and former professional baseball player (for a very short time), is recruited to coach and train a failing baseball team of 12 year olds which is about to be thrown out of the league. Although the team does not win the first place in the next championship, it does achieve a great comeback. Written by Marcos Eduardo Acosta Aldrete
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
