BASEketball

1998 Comedy

David Zucker directed this slapstick sports comedy starring South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Competing two-on-two against some basketball jocks, goofballs Joe Cooper (Parker) and Doug Remer (Stone) attempt to win by devising new rules while they play. Thus is born the bizarre game of "BASEketball." Rules: Court position decides whether a sunk basket counts as a single, a home run, or whatever; the opposing team can retrieve missed shots. Verbal abuse is allowed. Ditto for gross-outs -- or anything to annoy the shooter. The game becomes popular in driveways, so sports promoter Ted Denslow (Ernest Borgnine) proposes a deal to form a pro league. Dallas Felons owner Baxter Cain (Robert Vaughn), hopes to increase revenues with product placements and pro endorsements, but he needs the okay of team owners. Ted dies during the season finals, leaving Cain to deal with his widow Yvette (Jenny McCarthy). However, Ted willed the team to Cooper, who must win the upcoming season or ownership goes to Yvette. Cameos by Bob Costas and Al Michaels. more..

Director: David Zucker

Starring: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Yasmine Bleeth, Jenny McCarthy,Robert Vaughn

Reviews

  • Essentially two movies stuck together like chewing gum on a subway platform. One is a dumber-than-dumb teen comedy crammed with farcical sight-gags and raunchy adolescent humor, the other a no-holds-barred satire of professional sports, and the greed, egotism and pomposity surrounding them.

    Stephen Holden - The New York Times

    29 November 2012

  • Not half-bad. It's about three- quarters bad, actually, but what's left offers some goof-off fun.

    Bob Graham - The San Francisco Chronicle

    29 November 2012

  • Sports-satire misfire.

    Mike Clark - USA Today

    29 November 2012

  • Starts promisingly as an attack on modern commercialized sports, and then turns into just one more wheezy assembly-line story about slacker dudes vs. rich old guys.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    29 November 2012

  • Exhibits none of the infectious offhand tastelessness of their hit show and all of the insistent overkill of a Mel Brooks joke gone horribly wrong.

    - Entertainment Weekly

    29 November 2012

Awards

  • Worst Actress

    Razzie Awards (1999)