The third, and thankfully final entry in The Bad News Bears trilogy begins with a nifty animated credit sequence -- but it is a bad sign that the best part of the film is over before you're two minutes in to the feature. *sigh*

We find our team of baseball misfits lounging at Stein's house, and as we pan around, we recognize most of them: Toby, Engleberg, Ahmed, Miguel, Jimmy and Kelly are all there, but several faces look unfamiliar. (And some others faces are disappointingly absent. More on this later.) One of those new faces, E.R.W. Tillyard III, watches Guadalcanal Diary on the tube with Toby. (I think this is supposed to be foreshadowing as we watch Anthony Quinn get killed by a Japanese sniper.) After the movie ends, the nightly news opens with a segment from their foreign correspondent over in Japan. He interviews the coach of the Japanese baseball team the Bears were supposed to play after winning the game in the last movie. (It must be a slow news day.) The coach, Shimizu (Tomisaburo Wakayama), is diplomatic, but his players think the Bears are too chicken to play them, bringing a patriotic surge of ethnic slurs from our heroes.

The film is kind of muddled as to why the Bears aren't going. Something is mentioned about their League refusing to send another team because the American representatives have lost nine in a row to the Japanese. And sending the Bears is a guaranteed tenth loss. Still, the Bears want to go anyway and start a barnstorming tour of the local TV affiliates to try and raise some money. An appearance with Regis Philbin brings them to the attention of Marvin Lazar (Tony Curtis), producer, promotional huckster and con-man (not necessarily in that order) with questionable scruples. Lazar's creditors are breathing down his neck but he believes that he can make a bundle on the game's broadcasting rights if he can just get the Bears over to Japan and play the game. He meets with the team and is overwhelmed by the eclectic bunch, but still manages to get everyone to sign a contract -- including the late addition of Ahmed's little brother, Mustapha. The young Mustapha takes an instant liking to Marvin, even though the other Bears don't really trust him. 

Lazar maxis out his charge cards to get the team over to Japan, where the opposing team greats them at the airport. Engleberg almost triggers an international incident on the tarmac when the Japanese kids marvel at his amazing girth. Shimizu and Lazar break them up and the Bears head for their hotel. Tillyard, the Bear's appointed spokesman (since Ogilve is nowhere to be found), changed reservations on Lazar moving them out of the Hilton and into a more traditional Japanese domicile to get a little culture (and a few cheap laughs at the expense of Japanese customs and bathroom fixtures.)

Lazar's plan, and financial future, hinges on an exhibition game for several network representatives who'll hopefully pick up the game and broadcast it nationally back in the States. The Japanese team takes the field to face the Bear's first batter, their lone superstar, Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley), who parks the first pitch over the fence. Lazar is impressed and thinks the game is in the bag. But after Kelly, the Bear's baseball ability is pretty bad. While Lazar schmoozes with the execs, Jose strikes out on three pitches, Engleberg grounds out, and Stein forgets that he isn't a lefty, switches sides, but still strikes out. (Well, at least he didn't get beaned.) When the Bears take the field, they promptly give up twenty runs and commit twice as many errors. 

There was something wrong with this scene that really bugged me, and I couldn't figure out why until I realized the soundtrack was all messed up. Again, more on this later. Geez this film has a lot of explaining to do.

The TV execs leave a shell-shocked Lazar in the dugout. No one in their right mind would broadcast a game between these two mismatched teams. Lazar is ruined. Returning to the hotel, they find that the manager has cut up all his credit cards. So they're stuck there and can't leave until they pay their bill. The other Bears give Lazar hell but Mustapha sticks by him, knowing, somehow, he'll get them out of this mess.

Lazar does manage to sneak out of the hotel and tries to meet with one of the TV execs (George Wyner -- who is third behind Ben Piazza and William Atherton at playing bureaucratic weasels) who is in Japan to film a fight between famed Japanese wrestler, Antonio Inuki, and the American Kung-fu bad-azz mo-fo, Mean Bones Beaudine (Clarence Barnes). While the film is padded out with a pre-fight demonstration of karate skills, the two combatants one-up each other until Bones tries to break one too many boards with his head, injuring himself. With Bones out, Wyner has no show. He panics, needing a replacement, and Lazar works his magic and tricks him into thinking he has a replacement fighter.

Fight Night arrives but the man Lazar hired to fight Inuki backs out once he sees his monstrous opponent. Extremely desperate, Lazar dons the masked costume, himself, and heads toward the ring. As the rest of the Bears watch from the front row of the empty auditorium (because no one wanted to see the fight locally after Bones withdrew), the cameras roll, trying to salvage the production. Marvin immediately tries to take a fall but the referee and Inuki won't let him. While Inuki gives him a pounding and several body slams, Mustapha realizes it's Marvin under the mask and comes to his rescue. The other Bears provide more reinforcements and mayhem ensues in the ring. Wyner loves the chaos and orders them to keep filming. (In one of the films few funny moments, the last second replacement announcer, Dick Buttons, who normally does figure skating, does the play by play.) The Bears manage to overpower Inuki and Mustapha does a flying piledriver off the top rope -- right into the wrestlers *ahem* "little rising suns." As he writhes in agony, the Bears drag Lazar over on top of him. The referee counts him out and the Bears are victorious. 

The fight is a huge hit back in the States, and suddenly, people are coming out of the woodwork to sponsor and telecast the baseball game. Lazar wheels and deals and milks it first with a cross-country promotional tour with both teams in tow. Kelly opts out to spend more time with Arika (Hatsure Ishihara), a young Japanese girl complete with Geisha outfit, who fell for the young American's charms. Together they form our romantic subplot for the evening.

While the others move from city to city, Lazar encourages Shimizu to help liven things up, rivalry wise, because it will help sell more tickets. Shimizu doesn't really trust Lazar, in fact, I don't think he likes him all that much. Other friendships do blossom between members of the two opposing teams, but Lazar does his best to discourage that; no fraternizing with the enemy. Then things get a little bizarre when the Japanese team must perform on some Karaoke type game show. I assume this is to help promote the game, but it really doesn't make much sense. A little explanation of what the game show is about might have made this sequence fun, but instead, it's just kind of weird and disjointed. 

As the day of the big game draws near, Lazar is approached by some old gambling buddies. They want a piece of the action, and to guarantee a win, they've brought over three talented ringers: an all-star pitcher, short-stop and second baseman. To encourage Lazar's cooperation, they've placed a large bet, in his name, on the Bears to win. The greedy Lazar happily agrees, not realizing that Mustapha is spying on him. And then the film takes another strange and outright lurid turn as Mustapha follows Lazar to a "massage parlor" -- if you know what I mean. After he's finished, Lazar finds Mustapha waiting for him and they have a unnatural conversation about sexual urges and "having babies" that had me shaking my head in shame when it was all over. 

Meanwhile, Kelly is having troubles of his own. Arika's father doesn't want his daughter dating an American. She must honor her father's wishes and tells Kelly to leave. 

When the big game finally arrives, Lazar springs new uniforms and the super-subs on his team. The other Bears aren't happy at all with this development, so Lazar tries to work his magic sales pitch on them, about fame and fortune when they win, but it's no sell. The team refuses to play until Lazar brings up the contracts they signed. The Bears feel betrayed but take the field. Marvin is left alone in the dugout as the team treats him like a leper, constantly moving away from him, except for Mustapha who, again, stands by him. Lazar's super-subs, who I've dubbed Thug, Lug and Earl, lead off the game, and with their help, the Bears score two quick runs. In the other dugout, Shimizu watches, disgusted. Lazar's actions are not honorable, and he's losing face because of it -- a very bad thing in Japanese culture. 

In the bottom of the first, the Bears take the field and their new pitcher, Earl, is so overpowering he sends the Japanese team down in order. Before his players take the field again, Shimizu gives them a pep talk. They respond with some dazzling defensive plays for a 1-2-3 inning. Then the next inning, the Japanese team has a few better hacks at Earl's pitches. The gamblers warn that they're timing him, so Earl responds with a couple of knock-down pitches; but this backfires, resulting in a tie score. 

The Bears come up to bat again, and Ahmed gets hit with a pitch. (I thought that was Stein's job?) Thug think the Japs are retaliating, but Tillyard says the Japanese don't play that way and almost gets his teeth knocked in for it. Kelly steps in to defend him but Lazar breaks it up. Two batters later, trying to break up a double play, Lug wipes out the opposing team's second baseman, sparking a bench clearing brawl. Things quickly get out of hand as fans storm the field to join the melee before security can restore order. Upon returning to their dugouts, an announcement comes that due to the ugly events on the field, the game has been called off. 

Wyner works fast to get it back on and tracks Lazar down, but his team has abandoned him. Wyner offers that he'll leave the cameras set up, and if Lazar and the new Japanese coach can get their teams back on the field, they can still finish the game and beam it back to the States. Lazar stops him. What new Japanese coach? Wyner reveals Shimizu resigned in disgrace over the debacle.

Lazar and Shimizu quickly reconcile (off camera?!?) back at the hotel over several belts of saki -- judging by the empty bottle. Room service brings their meal, and when Shimizu takes his steak knife, Lazar worries that he's going to commit Hari-Kari. Shimizu is insulted that he'd even think of such a thing. They continue to argue when Shimizu spots something outside the window: their teams are playing the game in a sandlot outside the hotel. The managers quickly join them and realize that baseball is better without the spotlight and money ruining things. 

The Bears need a big hit and Kelly is at bat; but he's been in a funk since Arika dumped him. He sits with a two strike count when Arika arrives and waves to him, calling his name. He parks the next pitch, rounds the bases, and embraces Arika at home and gives her a big old smooch. 

Who wins? I have no clue. Surely not the audience.

Wyner finds them and threatens to sue, for breach of contract, when they refuse to play for the cameras. Lazar threatens to slug him and swears off promoting until Wyner leaves. After he's gone, though, he schmoozes up to Shimizu with the brilliant idea to take both teams to Cuba. As he spells out his master plan to have Castro throw out the first pitch, the camera zooms out as the Bears and their Japanese counterparts exchange versus of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" which mercifully brings us to...

The end

It's amazing how fast a successful franchise can be completely ruined in just three short years. After The Bad News Bears opened big in '77, Breaking Training cashed in on that success by leaving most of the biting commentary behind and kept the cussing in, in '78. Then Paramount milked the cash-cow dry by sending the Bears to Japan and basically stranded them there in '79. It's aggravating what these sequels have done because everyone seems to remember the Bear's franchise as a whole, tarnishing the reputation of the original film, and that's just not fair.

Egad, what a crummy, plot-less, pointless film. There's nothing more irritating to me than a movie where 90% of it is dedicated to kids yelling and screaming and bandying about like a bunch of spazzes. This is not comedy. This is the cinematic equivalent of getting a metal pail put over your head and having a couple of monkeys whack on it with hammers for an hour or so.

The script, here, is a real mess -- and that's surprising with the return of screenwriter Bill Lancaster. (He wrote the first film.) Once it gets the Bears over to Japan, the script can't really decide what to do with them or who to focus on. So the film meanders along, grinding gears, with a schizophrenic plot leading up to one of thee most anti-climatic climaxes in screen history. This movie doesn't end...it just kind of peeters out. You definitely get the sense that something is missing while watching this movie. Several transition scenes appear to have been omitted because there are too many jarring cuts and fast-forward plot-leaps that I kept losing my bearings. This only adds to the film's disjointed and schizophrenic feel.

As with all sequels, the Bears fell victim to the same pitfalls of other franchises as the Roman numerals at the end of their titles increased. Loss of cast and characters, continuity thrown out the window, smaller budgets, less talent behind the cameras, and pressure from the studios to bring it in, quality be damned, before audiences turn fickle and find something else to entertain themselves with. And that's what really hamstrings this film, from the get go, is that it's missing several key players from the previous films. Most notably absent is Chris Barnes, meaning no foul-mouthed Tanner. Barnes opted out of this one because his family didn't like where the character was going, all the cussing, and the notoriety it brought the young actor. In fact, Barnes kinda fell off the face of the Earth after that and no one really knows where he is. Even Sports Illustrated and TV Guide couldn't find him for their 25th Anniversary features. Also opting out (or not asked to come back?) and sorely missed was Alfred Lutter, meaning no Ogilve, and no more booger-eating from Quin Smith's Lupus, either, and Jaime Escobedo's Jose left leaving poor Miguel all by himself.

No explanation is given for their absence, as the film hits the ground running from the beginning -- hoping we won't notice. What's even more puzzling (and irritating) is the inclusion of several new characters and the audience is asked to pretend that they've been here all along. Matthew Anton's lisping E.R.W. Tillyard III comes off as the team's new ringleader and appears to be an attempted amalgamation of Tanner and Ogilve, but he can't quite pull it off. You kind of forget Bernstein's Abe because I think he had one line and he's only here because they needed nine people for the team.

In Breaking Training, Jimmy Baio's character, Ronzonni, was a blatant attempt to cash in on the Happy Days phenomenon by giving us a miniature Fonzoreli. Here, we get a surrogate Gary Coleman clone with Scoody Thornton's Mustapha. The late '70s was plagued with cute and sassy black kids playing off older white people for laughs, and here, we have mixed results. Thornton is pretty young and he visibly has troubles with his lines. But Curtis, to his credit, helps him along. The chemistry between the two seems genuine, but the film relied on these two for too many laughs and went back to this well way more than it should have. All the rest of the Bears are back. They're another year older, bringing into question the age limitations for the North Valley League. Haley has gone from thug with a heart of gold to a David Cassidy wannabe. The romantic subplot with the geisha girl is submarined because, frankly, puberty wasn't very kind to Mr. Haley. Would this girl really fall for him? (There's about a big a chance that she'd fall for an ugly mook like me.) In the first two films, the other players were pretty one-dimensional, so the script decided to add a little character development. If you can call turning Engleberg into a racist, Jimmy into a Jesus freak and Ahmed into a Black Panther character development. Only m'man Stein remains a constant, a rock, that I clung to, to get me through this movie.

Which brings us to our leading man, Tony Curtis. Curtis's career wasn't resurrected as he'd hoped it would be after turning in a great performance, against type, as Albert de Salvo in The Boston Strangler. His career was pretty much in the crapper at this point, which was why he took the money and appeared in films like this and The Manitou (and later Lobster Man from Mars.) Curtis has never been one of my favorite actors. He's a little too vain and, well, prissy for my taste. Check out his form-fitting bell-bottom jersey pants and you'll see what I mean. 

The Bad News Bears was a big hit in Japan. Smelling more success there might explain why the movie kind of stalls in the middle, putting more focus on the Japanese team while the Bears linger on the fringes. The film is one big travel brochure for the Land of the Rising Sun, and there are all sorts of items of culture and customs presented with no attempt at an explanation -- like the karaoke game show, that are dumbfounding. There was plenty of comedy gold to mine with the clash of cultures, but it's totally squandered. 

There's also one very important element missing from The Bad News Bears go to Japan. THERE'S NO BASEBALL! There's an aborted game, and another played off screen (that for the most part we don't get to see.) That's the whole damn point of The Bad News Bears -- life lessons learned between the chalk lines on the diamond. Here, Curtis's Lazar is supposed to be taught his lesson and see the error of his ways. Instead, the damn game fizzles out before he can! The movie tries to remedy that by showing a sandlot game that's supposed to represent how the game should be played but it just rings hollow. *bleaugh*

They even mess up the music. Most of the action is set to selections from The Mikado. The Mikado? Who the hell is going to recognize music from The Mikado? Where's my Bizet fix? The Bears should flub to selections from Carmen and that is a universal constant! So, the cosmic balance of the film is way off kilter, and even bringing in some John Phillips Sousa at the end can't mend this karmic infraction. 

By most accounts, The Bad News Bears go to Japan was a troubled production and doomed to failure. Most of the actors involved admit, unlike the other two films, that it wasn't a very happy set and marred with problems. I've gotten a tip (thanks Greywizard!) that Curtis's biography goes into some detail on what went wrong that I look forward to exploring. And over at The Bad News Bears Tribute Site, an interview with actor David Pollack states he wished he'd backed out of the production, like Lutter and Barnes, but doesn't elaborate too much on why. He is happy that the studio decided to pull the plug on yet another sequel, where the Bears would have invaded Cuba. (I think most of the actors who signed on for this one were locked into an option, requiring them to appear in the next sequel.) 

So the Bear's were done on the big screen but the franchise had one more card to play. It doesn't happen very often anymore, but back in the old days, when a film series had staying power, a TV spin-off was inevitable. (Most were pre-destined to end shortly after they began, though.) M*A*S*H is the exception that proves the rule, but most had a short run like The Planet of the Apes and Logan's Run. Hell, even Animal House had a short lived life in syndication with Delta House. Some TV shows are actually better than there big screen originators. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Weird Science immediately spring to mind. The Bad News Bears does not fall into that later category.

If a production was lucky, several actors would make the transition to the small