Fellman's Movie Reviews

Baseketball is a 1998 comedy directed by David Zucker and starring Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park. This is the only project involving Matt and Trey that was neither written, directed or produced by them. They worked on this at the same time as they were working on South Park because they didn’t expect South Park to become a success. It obviously did. This movie, however, was a box office flop, receiving mixed reviews from critics, and making back less than half of the budget used to produce the movie. It has, however, become something of a cult film over the years.  

I rank this as #3 in my list of favorite movies. Not because it’s a great movie. Which, obviously, I think it is, but because it knows what it’s trying to do. Baseketball is stupid humor. It’s not trying to be smart and witty. It’s not trying to make social commentary. It’s not trying to impress you with intelligent banter and long diatribes from the characters. It’s a parody. It’s toilet humor that even makes fun of itself in the midst of making fun of the category that it’s making fun of. It’s kind of meta when you get it. 

And that’s what I think a lot of people who don’t really get comedy miss when they watch this movie. They’re looking for things that aren’t there. Or, looking for things that weren’t even supposed to be there in the first place. This movie wasn’t made to impress you. This movie was made to turn out exactly how it turned out. Whether you like it or not, is completely up to you. But the jokes are stupid for a reason. They’re blatantly absurd on purpose. The effects are bad so you notice the bad effects. It’s like an Uno reverse card on your senses, but in movie form.  

Comedy is a form of art that is lost to a lot of creators today. It’s not done well anymore. There was so much comedy done back in the era of Baseketball that it was fresh and new and you could make movies like this and people would see it and think “this is too weird for me…” Whereas now, you can’t be weird without being offensive. And then people protest your comedy. And it stifles art and creativity. It’s detrimental to what comedy really could be.  

So, yeah. Go and see Baseketball. Maybe it’s not your kind of comedy. Maybe it is your kind of comedy. Either way, it’s meant to make you laugh. And if you’re lucky, it just might. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…