Shark Bytes

No Walter Matthau, no Tatum O'Neal, no Chris Barnes, no Vic Morrow. No cursing, name-calling, or fighting. No struggle between the top dog and the scrappy underdogs.

The Bears' story had already been told - brilliantly - in the movie and there was absolutely nothing left of interest by the time they got around to making the extremely watered-down and pointless network TV version.

This was bad, but for a 10 year old who saw the movie 5 years after it came out I was hoping it was a continuation of the movie. At least it was better than that sad Billy Bob Thornon remake. Don't mess with the classics!

When Tanner started bulking up with steriods ... oh, wait that was Barry Bonds! Sorry.

Horrible stuff. I remember one episode I tried to watch: A pitch comes in and bounces across the plate. The umpire ridiculously calls it a strike. The batter questions the call. The umpire says it was "at the letters." The batter replies, "Yeah, Addidas." If this happened at any level of real baseball, the umpire would surely be run out of the park for being incompetent.

Never any good from the beginning. I agree with the previous posters -- what the hell was the point, when the very things that made the movie good couldn't be done on TV? Who wanted to see a bunch of talentless wimps play baseball and get into stupid sit-com predicaments? Even Kelly Leak was so toned down for TV as to be unrecognizable (and even then, his character was written out of the 2nd season, to be replaced by some preppie creep). I'm just surprised this show lasted 2 seasons... when they turned "Animal House" into a dumb sitcom ("Delta House"), it lasted all of 3 months. But one other thing no one's yet mentioned -- no Walter Matthau! He was boozy, foul-tempered, and got the best of the kids with his put-downs. Without Matthau's great (and funny) presence, the movie wouldn't have amounted to much, either.

What booger-eatin' moron thought this movie could translate to television? The poster above who said that 70s kids loved this movie because the kids swore all the time is 100% on the mark. We loved it because it was one of the first movies to show kids doing things they did in real life (cussing, name calling) and doing things we wished were old enough to do in real life (smoke, drink, ride motorcycles, hustle adults at air hockey). Every little boy wanted to be Kelly Leak, and every little girl (like me!) wanted to grow up to have a boyfriend like Kelly Leak. I had completely forgotten about the TV version of this until I found this entry on JTS and for good reason. Hey TV producers! You can take this show and shove...oh, you know the rest. Go Chico's Bail Bonds!

When they thought they could take the great american movie, water it down, and put it on the small screen. Can't happen. The Bad News Bears without Tatum O'Neal and Chris Barnes (as the one and only Tanner Boyle) is completely pointless.

THE BAD NEWS BEARS was another shining example of why movies should not be made into TV series. The movie's primary appeal was the fun of having ten-year old boys using foul language and since that was taboo on television at the time, what was the point. It should be noted that Tricia Cast, who played the Tatum O'Neal role, went on to win a Daytime Emmy for her role as Nina on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS. This show jumped from day one.

Okay, let's make a show from a movie that barely had enough of a plot to go an hour and a half. The snot nosed ruffians make a helluva team motif just didn't do it for me.

I remember this show lasted two seasons. The first season, they were a baseball team and at least tried to recreate the movie. But the second season, they sort of became a family. There was no baseball. Everyone hung out off the diamond, and Buttermaker (jack warden) was like the father. Truly sucked!

Piece of crap. The movie rocked and was funny because the kids cursed and talked like truck drivers. Okay, you can't use that language on Network Television, so why even bother! To see the movie, you have to rent the ***** or catch it on HBO or something where it is uncut. I even remember some faggot movie critic bombing this very funny movie because he said that the "foul language" was an attempt to get a cheap laugh and no real teenager spoke like that. Yes, we did moron! That's why I liked the movie when I was a kid because the kids acted and talked like kids. All my friends cursed like that. We just weren't stupid enough to do it within earshot of our parents and another adult in authority.

Corey Feldman is in the cast!

This show jumped when they made it a TV show. All different actors (no Tatum O'Neil) and VERY watered down. I remember seeing the movie with my parents when it came out. It pissed off my parents to see kids talk like that. That impressed me, because I talked like that too. The TV show was just crap compared to the original movie.