A fictional children's baseball team, the Bad News Bears, was the focus of three films and a CBS Television series between 1976 and 1979. The first of these films, The Bad News Bears (Paramount, 1976), struck an unexpected chord in both children and adults and became a hugely popular and profitable box-office hit. Although vulgar, raucous, and without intrinsic worth, The Bad News Bears became culturally significant in the 1970s, thanks to the unmistakable broadside it delivered against the values of American suburbia, and the connection it forged between adult and child audiences. In juxtaposing children and adults, slapstick comedy, and social commentary, the film demonstrated that it was possible to address adult themes through entertainment ostensibly designed for, and made with, children.

Directed by Michael Ritchie from a screenplay by Bill Lancaster (son of actor Burt), the plot of The Bad News Bears was...