Apart from being an obvious Bad News Bears rip-off and the movie director Sean S. Cunningham made before helming the highly successful first Friday The 13th flick, Here Come The Tigers has to be the only comedy aimed at kids that has our main character being forced to do something because somebody has threatened to commit suicide otherwise.

That's the ultimatum cop Eddie Burke (Richard Lincoln) is given when he's forced to coach the local little league team, "The Tigers", in order to stop one of his retiring fellow officers from jumping off the roof of the local baseball bleachers. After making a bet with his fellow officers that he can make the team into winners (seems Eddie played a little bit of ball in his past - and wasn't too bad at it), he teams-up with his bumbling partner Burt (James Zvanut, who's given the thankless task of being the main source of slapstick humour) to whip the Tigers into shape.

As if the Bad News Bears comparisons weren't already heavy, wait until Eddie meets the team for the first time. Basically a group of juvenile actors (who's character development for the most part consist of having first names to identify them), The Tigers are a ragtag bunch who upon introduction are a group who enjoy farting, mildly cursing, and eating "boogers". Oh, and they also like to scuffle with each other.

It's around this time that the police are also on the trail of eleven-year-old Buster (Xavier Rodrigo) who's been vandalizing cars around town (they're treating it like he's the biggest threat ever - forget about murders, muggers, and all that) which leads up to a sped-up chase scene a la Benny Hill before Eddie is forced to have Buster stay at his home and become part of the baseball team so he doesn't end up going to juvie.

From here, Here Come The Tigers, continues on its "meh" path giving us scenes of Eddie trying to teach the kids how to play baseball, many moments of game footage where the child actors get to bump into each other while wacky sound effects play, a bizarre moment where during a heart-to-heart talk with Buster about his home life Eddie basically condones Buster's father abusing him, and the expected final championship game against the "greaser"-like Panthers (who we know are no-good bullies because earlier in the movie they harassed the Tigers deaf pitcher when the team was hanging out at a pool hall).

With little inspiration behind it, a script by Arch McCoy that borrows from Bad News Bears almost down to the note, and an annoying overuse of the phrase "Hum Chuck", Here Come The Tigers is a pretty skippable and mediocre cash-in effort from legendary B-movie studio American-International. It's generally harmless and it could've been a lot worse, but it's still about as passable as they come and is only of interest for movie buffs (like me) who are curious about Cunningham's earlier efforts.

Using a few of the people he would later employ on his Friday The 13th films, Cunningham gets Harry Manfredini to do the score (he did the music for all the Jason flicks except part eight) and it was edited/co-produced by Steve Miner who would direct the second and third Friday entries as well as go on to a steady career doing horror sequels, TV shows, and some Hollywood fare (he's most recently been attached to the Day Of The Dead remake). (Chris Hartley, 7/21/06)

Directed By: Sean S. Cunningham.
Written By: Arch McCoy.

Starring: Richard Lincoln, James Zvanut, Samantha Grey, William Caldwell.