Here Come the Tigers

Call it morbid fascination, like motorists slowing down to get an eyeful of a bad wreck on the side of the road, but I cannot to this day get over how fascinatingly awful Sean S. Cunningham's "Here Come the Tigers" is. For years I've wrestled over which is the worst film I've ever seen, "I Spit on Your Grave" or this, with "Ernest Goes to Camp" running a close 3rd. I finally came to the conclusion recently that despite it's amateurish look and sadistically glorified rape scenes, "I Spit..." was, at the VERY least, original (compared to "Tigers"). Don't get me wrong. That's the only defense the trashy, stomach-churning "I Spit..." will EVER get from me.

Come to think of it, "Tigers" is *such* a blatant Bad News Bears ripoff that it makes ANY film look original in comparison. I don't know how Sean S. Cunningman and AIP got away with it, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone got hold of a BNB script and went through it page by page and simply penciled in their characters' names over the Bears' names. The two films are SO alike (squatter's rights going to TBNB, of course) that for me to compose a laundry list of similarities would be futile. To see "Bears" but not "Tigers" is an impossibility, because if you have seen "Bears", you've also seen "Tigers". If this formula happens to be reversed for you, my condolences.

I remember when the film came out, back in March 1978. Oddly, its short-lived and subliminal theatrical run seemed limited exclusively to the drive-in circuit. Not knowing any better, I was curious to see it since, at the time, Bad News Bears flicks were all the rage amongst my 5th grade peers. My curiosity, however, quickly turned to disinterest when the majority of my classmates universally trashed the film. I knew it had to be bad, particularly since at that age kids tend to buy into and gobble up anything thrown our way.

It wasn't until 1985 that I finally saw the film on TV. Packing as many bleeps as a typical "Osbournes" episode of today, I sat with mouth agape, bewildered at how the word "plagarism" held such new meaning for me. I taped the broadcast and held onto it for many years, dusting it off every now and then and popping it in to satisfy any bad-movie urge I may have been craving at the time.

Then just the other day, I purchased a pre-recorded uncut copy off of Ebay. I tend to keep a soft spot in my heart open at all times for certain bad movies. "The Crater Lake Monster" and "Squirm" hold permanent residences, along with "Empire of the Ants" and the first "Police Academy". "Here Come the Tigers", however, is in a class all its own. Here is a film so sloppily made (continuity gaffes and sound-looping blunders at every turn), so lazily written, so contrived and intelligence-insulting, not to mention unoriginal... that I cannot get enough of it. Call it what you will, but perhaps my fascination lies in the fact that here is a movie so bad that it's actually, well, bad. Really bad.

Echoing back to my opening analogy, I am not a motorist who'll slow down in traffic to get a better look at some roadside carnage. I am, on the other hand, one who subjects himself to repeated viewings of stinkers like "Here Come the Tigers". And even though I have yet to see it, I eagerly await the arrival of my Ebay purchase of Cunningham's follow-up kiddie-sportster, the sure-to-be-a-dud "Manny's Orphans" (1978), with soccer the subject this time around, and featuring a good deal of the "Tigers" cast.

To quote a certain Linda Blair movie: "Mother? What's wrong with me?"

This is the worst film I've ever seen. Nothing but a "Bad News Bears" ripoff, tasteless and dull, with one of the most motheaten plots ever. This film was to juvenile sports movies what "Mac & Me" was to juvenile Science Fiction movies. Everyone concerned with it deserved to be blacklisted from H-wood and never permitted to work in movies again!

Have not watched kids films for some years, so I missed "Here Come the Tigers" when it first came out. (Never even saw "Bad News Bears" even though in the '70s I worked for the guys who arranged financing for that movie, "Warriors," "Man Who Would Be King," and "Rocky Horror Picture Show," among others.) Now I like to check out old or small movies and find people who have gone on to great careers despite being in a less than great movie early on. Just minutes into this movie I could take no more and jumped to the end credits to see if there was a young actor in this movie who had gone on to bigger and better things--at least watching for his/her appearance would create some interest as the plot and acting weren't doing the job. Lo and behold, I spied Wes Craven's name in the credits as an electrical gaffer. He'd already made two or three of his early shockers but had not yet created Freddie Krueger or made the "Scream" movies. Maybe he owed a favor and helped out on this pic. More surprising was Fred J. Lincoln in the cast credits as "Aesop," a wacky character in the movie. F.J. Lincoln, from the '70s to just a few years ago, appeared in and produced adult films. He was associated with the adult spoof "The Ozporns," and just that title is funnier than all of "Tigers" attempts at humor combined. Let the fact that an adult actor was placed in a kids movie be an indication as to how the people making this movie must have been asleep at the wheel.

Two years before cashing in on the great success of John Carpenters' "Halloween" with his own memorable slasher film, "Friday the 13th", filmmaker Sean S. Cunningham did a similar thing within the family-oriented sports movie genre. Capitalizing on the success of "The Bad News Bears", "Here Come the Tigers" tells of a hapless Little League team whom the coach (Richard Lincoln) tries to turn into contenders. Predictably, the kids are a colorful bunch who constantly spout colorful dialogue and include such characters as a nose-picker and another whose flatulence is clearly deadly.

Considering the formulaic nature of "Here Come the Tigers", and the fact that it has no good ideas to call its own, this viewer wouldn't dismiss it as readily as most movie watchers. At least the kids are reasonably appealing, and the adults reasonably solid. (James Zvanut plays Lincolns' bumbling, goofy partner turned assistant coach, and Fred Lincoln of "The Last House on the Left" infamy has a quick cameo as a drunken bum with key knowledge to divulge to the coach.)

Written by "Arch McCoy" (actually "Friday the 13th" scribe Victor Miller), this is obviously a shameless cash-in and not exactly a classic, but this viewer found it likeable enough. Overall, it's fairly harmless (with the exception of some of the language), and may entertain the less demanding members of your own family.

Cunninghams' son Noel plays one of the Tigers; longtime Cunningham friend Wes Craven was the stunt gaffer!

Followed by another Miller / Cunningham kids' sports comedy, the soccer film "Manny's Orphans".

Six out of 10.

as a long-time baseball fan who has seen many baseball movies, there have been many hits such as Field of Dreams, Major League, The Natural and my all-time favorite The Bad News Bears. But there have been a number of errors in the mix, including Here Come the Tigers.

First of all, almost all the common player stereotypes that were in the successful Walter Matthau movie, except for the fat catcher were in this one. The two additions were the Japanese home run hitter who can also hit balls with his fist, even though he only utters the sound "OOH!" throughout the movie since he doesn't speak English. The other was a deaf-mute pitcher who got into a fight with some members of the rival Panthers at an arcade and suffered a broken arm but recovered in time to pitch in the championship game.

Second, there are no name actors in the movie. Is Richard Lincoln a household name? I'm sure a lot of people have never heard of him. It seems that the producer didn't have the money to pay a "name" actor to play the Tigers coach, so they went with unknowns.

As for the movie, it suffers from predictability and a weak script. It also has the standard slow-motion cliché scene of the big hit and the end of the movie.

The only bright spot was that when the movie first appeared in theaters, the long time Voice of the Yankees Mel Allen did the promo. Other than that, it's a forgettable baseball movie that definitely goes down swinging.