BASEketball

BASEketball
Directed by	David Zucker
Produced by	Cleve Landsberg Robert LoCash Gil Netter Kathryn Takis Jeff Wright David Zucker
Written by	David Zucker Robert LoCash Lewis Friedman Jeff Wright
Starring	Trey Parker Matt Stone Dian Bachar Yasmine Bleeth Robert Vaughn Ernest Borgnine Jenny McCarthy
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	July 31, 1998
Running time	103 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

BASEketball is a 1998 David Zucker comedy feature film starring Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of South Park) along with Dian Bachar. Robert Vaughn, Yasmine Bleeth, and Jenny McCarthy co-star. The movie follows the history of the sport (created by Zucker years earlier) of the same name, from its invention by the lead characters as a game they could win against more athletic types, to its development as a nationwide league sport and a target of corporate sponsorship.

In the film, BASEketball is a mix of baseball and basketball played by two teams of three players each. Meant as a game suitable for people of all ages and abilities, it is played on a relatively small diamond-shaped court with a basketball hoop at the second base position. The ball is roughly basketball sized, smooth, and sewn like a baseball. Players wear little or no protective gear. Referees travel the court on roller blades.

The rules of the game are not made entirely clear, as it is merely a plot vehicle and not an actual game. However, if you watch the movie the rules are pretty simple to understand. The game itself was described by Matt Stone as "boring," hence the need for a constant stream of jokes and distractions in the screenplay. For the purposes of the movie, an "at bat" player stands at home plate holding the ball, preparing to shoot at the basket above second base. An opposing player stands at roughly the pitching-mound position, where that player has one attempt to "psyche out" the shooting player. A psyche-out is a verbal or visual trick meant to disturb the shooter enough to lose their concentration and miss the shot. If the shooter makes the basket, he then runs the bases, and points are scored.

BASEketball Teams

All of the teams represent stereotypes and include references to their respective areas:

• Milwaukee Beers: reference to the numerous local beer breweries and the Milwaukee Brewers; the fans wear beer mug "foam heads" and perform "the chug" (similar to the Atlanta Braves "tomahawk chop").
• Miami Dealers: the players appear to be Cuban drug dealers.
• New Jersey Informants: the players are Italian-American stereotypes (one of their failed psych-outs was "Your mother's a terrible cook"); the cheerleaders also perform some Italian hand gestures.
• San Francisco Ferries: the players wear white and pastel pink uniforms, and have the only all-male cheerleader squad. Of course, "Ferries" is meant to be a play on "fairies," an impolite term used to mean "homosexuals".
• Roswell Aliens: a reference to the location where a UFO supposedly crashed and the surrounding conspiracies; the team has an alien mascot and an "Anal Probe Night" promotion.
• L.A. Riots: a reference to the 1992 Los Angeles/Rodney King riots (and possibly Watts riots); the players appear to be angry Latinos.
• Dallas Felons: huge muscle types who are probably ex-convicts (a reference to the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, a team on which numerous players had legal problems in the mid-1990s).
• San Antonio Defenders: rednecks who chant slogans like "1,2,3, FUCK THE MEXICANS!" Their home field includes a giant recreation of the Alamo Mission.
• Detroit Lemons: a reference to the home of American auto makers that supposedly produce inferior and defective vehicles (to which "lemon" is a reference)

Trivia

• David Zucker invented BASEketball years before the movie as a game that everyone could play and held games in his driveway. It became so popular a small league was created. By the fifth season championship game, the event was so big that the city shut down the street and two local Los Angeles TV stations came to report on it.
• Original BASEketball players from Zucker's league appear in the movie.
• Matt Stone and Trey Parker were given the main roles in BASEketball before South Park became a success, evidently as a result from their work in the movies Orgazmo and Cannibal! The Musical (both of which also feature Dian Bachar, the actor who portrayed Kenny "Squeak" Scolari).
• Sports stars Reggie Jackson, Dale Earnhardt, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar make cameos, as does Robert Stack, parodying himself in a spoof of his program Unsolved Mysteries. Abdul-Jabbar and Stack previously worked with Zucker on Airplane!, while Jackson appeared in Zucker's The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!. Earnhardt was a seven time NASCAR Winston Cup Champion and was defending Daytona 500 champion at the time of this movie's premiere. Sport announcers Al Michaels of ABC and Bob Costas of NBC were also cameos when they were rival/counterparts at the time of the film. Currently, they are both on NBC Sunday Night Football with Michaels as the play-by-play man with John Madden and Costas as the studio host.
• Trey Parker shows off his South Park voice talents in the film, speaking once in the tongue of Mr. Garrison, once as the voice of Mr. Hankey, and once in the voice of Eric Cartman, the latter being the most obvious of the three characterizations. Several minor South Park characters are also heard when Parker uses an Australian voice during a psych-out that sounds much like his voice used for a character based on Steve Irwin in the episode "Prehistoric Ice Man" and his generic Canadian accent when ever he says 'buddy'. Additionally, his normal "soft" speech patterns illustrate that he also provides the voice of Randy Marsh.
• The South Park episode "The Passion of the Jew" makes a reference to this movie, in which Stan Marsh, after having seen The Passion of the Christ, tells Kenny McCormick they will demand their money back: "This is just like when we got our money back for BASEketball."
• The main characters play in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is David Zucker's birth town.
• Trey Parker and Matt Stone invented the word "derp" on the set of the film to describe a joke that was obviously going to happen, i.e. someone running into a wall. The term was later used in South Park in episodes such as "The Succubus" and became popular usage after the airing of "The Biggest Douche in the Universe". Remer (Matt Stone) can be heard saying it quickly at the very end of one scene in the movie.
• Parker and Stone have mentioned in an interview [1] that the two most unpleasant and annoying things ever said to them are being compared to Family Guy and being recognized only as "those guys from BASEketball."
• Reel Big Fish, who performed Take On Me and Beer on the soundtrack, released a video clip to Take On Me featuring the band playing a game of BASEketball interlaced with clips from the film.
• This is Robert Vaughn's 100th film.

See also

• BASEketball Soundtrack
• Beersketball

External links

• The Unofficial Official Site
• BASEketball at the Internet Movie Database
• Things to learn from Baseketball
• Baseketball Summary
• BASEketball League on Yahoo Groups
• BASEketball cast and script

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