I was quoting the famous “Let Them Play” scene from this film (which, amazingly, STILL hasn’t been selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry (and they best hurry, before POTUS eliminates it).
(My use of it was related to the end of last night’s GW/VCU game, in which, following what should have been game-winning 3 pointer hit by GW with less than a second left, a blind pick set by a VCU player on the ensuing inbounds play resulted in a foul, 2 shots, ballgame, my response: “Let them play.” But I digress … again.)
RE: The Bad News Bears, if you’ve no idea what I’m speaking of, watch the video below … I’ll wait …
Hey, how’s it going? Glad you saw that.
So here’s my question — the naming scheme of the film is confusing: “The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training.” Why not “The Bad News Bears II,” “The Bad News Bears Go to the Astrodome” or “The Bad News Bears II, Electric Bugaloo?”
As I see it, one of three scenarios played itself out back in 1977:
- The producers couldn’t secure use of the term “Astrodome” despite securing use of the actual Astrodome.
- In the early 1970s, someone wrote a spec script called “Breaking Training” and, following the success of the original “Bad News Bears,” decided to merge them in.
- Much like the “Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island,” the film was written to feature someone else (Houston Oilers cheerleaders? Vehicle for launching J.R. Richard’s post-baseball career?) and at the last minute, hastily rewritten for the Bad News Bears. (By the way, that is in and of itself a great story — check out Inside Gilligan’s Island from Sherwood Schwartz for that great story, a portion of which can be found here. Basically, he banged out a script featuring the Cowboys cheerleaders going to the resort the castaways opened in their second post-rescue reunion, then, when faced with the Cheerleaders’ scheduling issues, did a search-and-replace featuring the Harlem Globetrotters, a team of evil robots AND … Martin Landau. Wow.)
Personally, I’m picking 3.
Harrison3 