Dan Fogler as ping pong hero Randy Daytona in the comedy Balls of Fury.
Ah, yes, the end of summer. Sure, everyone has to go back to school soon, and the ocean waves are feeling a little bit cooler. But this is also the beginning of prime time sports season. Football is only weeks away, baseball's finally closer to playoffs and basketball will be back in just a few months.
Next week, too, marks the debut of a first in sports movie history: a major studio comedy about ping pong called Balls of Fury. Woohoo! Let's hear it for the titans of table tennis! While we're at it, here's a rundown of cinema's top 10 greatest in that tried and true genre, the revered sports comedy...
Number 10:
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
Time will tell the tale of this instant classic from Will Ferrell and company, which skewers (and celebrates) the uber-popular sport of NASCAR. John C. Reilly would be funny simply standing in line at the DMV. Throw in Borat's Sacha Baron Cohen as French driver Jean Girard, a prime Ferrell at the top of his game (we especially love his mock promo clip for Big Red gum), and this is one fast and furiously funny first-place finisher.
Number 9:
Bull Durham (1988)
Any baseball movie with characters named Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) and Calvin 'Nuke' LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) already has its foot in the right door. This is a funny, honest flick about the ups and downs of baseball from opening day to the final at-bat. Although it's also part drama and romance, every scene with Robbins' dunderheaded pitcher (plus Costner's classic monologue to Susan Sarandon about his 'beliefs') is pure comedy gold.
Number 8:
Happy Gilmore (1996)
Adam Sandler and his Frat Pack contemporaries have been hard at work in the sports comedy genre for a while now, ranging from from The Benchwarmers to Blades of Glory to the remake of The Longest Yard. Happy Gilmore is the best of the lot, starring Sandler as a man-child who hits the golf ball with a hockey stick and makes lots of good fun of his nemesis, Shooter MacGavin (a hilarious Christopher MacDonald)., Co-starring Apollo Creed himself, Carl Weathers, and The Price Is Right’s Bob Barker (who gets the tar beat out of him on a golf course), it doesn't get more entertainly juvenile than this one.
Number 7:
Major League (1989)
Wild Thing Charlie Sheen pitches one helluva fastball in this favored '80s comedy that tracks the season of a new Cleveland Indians ballclub. It's hard to remember when Blade star Wesley Snipes used to crack a smile, but here, he's all wiry, comic energy, playing the soon-to-be superstar Willie Mays Hayes. This movie, featuring a carousel of additional goofy characters, works even better when accompanied by a hot dog and an extra large beverage.
Number 6:
The Longest Yard (1974)
No offense to Sandler's remake, but Burt Reynolds and the original '70s gang of inmates-turned-football players is still the gold standard. From this story of a ragtag group of incarcerated jocks came the template for every playful, semi-mocking sports comedy that followed (basically, all the other movies on this list).
Number 5:
The Bad News Bears (1976)
All hail Walter Matthau's “Coach Morris Buttermaker.” For those of us who were tiny tots in the '70s, and for those who caught it on video, there's nothing more fun than seeing this grumpy old boozer trying to whip an ornery and loveable group of misfits into proper little-league shape. It’s a classic that even non-sports fan can enjoy.
Number 4:
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
Just the idea of a movie about dodgeball is a funny one. But the movie itself delivers – and gets better and better upon each cable viewing. Vince Vaughn is in great deadpan shape as laidback gym owner Peter LaFleur, and Ben Stiller is his perfect complement as the preening, mustachioed rival White Goodman. You won’t soon forget the spectacle of various players getting hit in every way imaginable by rubber balls, and metal wrenches.
Number 3:
Kingpin (1996)
The Farrelly Brothers' best comedy is not There's Something About Mary. Go back and check out this tale of bowling prodigy-turned-has-been Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson). There are more laughs per minute in this irreverent send-up than any three Frat Pack comedies. Bill Murray and his immortal hairpiece score big as the odious villain Ernie 'Big Ern' McCracken.
Number 2:
Slap Shot (1977)
This is the Animal House of sports comedies. Anything goes, including striptease ice hockey, cussing and constant fighting, and...ummm, more fighting. Paul Newman's as charming as ever as the veteran Reggie Dunlop, future Twin Peaks star Michael Ontkean has no fear taking his clothes off on the ice, and the three ‘Hanson Brothers’ (the original bespectacled moron goon squad) have no problems at all kicking butt and creating happy, happy anarchy.
Number 1:
Caddyshack (1980)
This movie really does have it all: Chevy Chase as the quick-witted, smart-aleck golf pro Ty Webb; Bill Murray as the unforgettably incomprehensible groundskeeper Carl; comedy legends Rodney Dangerfield and Ted Knight trading blows all the way to the 18th hole; and in the spirit of R rated comedy, some gratuitous teenage tomfoolery. Heck, there’s even a classic Kenny Loggins theme song. Throw in a dancing mechanical gopher, and it adds up to the crude, rude and entirely winning king of sports comedies.
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