BASEketball

Joe Cooper and Doug Remer are two unemployed friends living in Milwaukee. Unable to hold their own in conventional sports, they invent a game of their own: basketball played under baseball's rules, with shooting replaced by an improvised flick of the wrist. What begins as a pastime in the neighbourhood grows into a national craze, and with backing from a billionaire named Ted Denslow, the two men help establish a professional league built on equal pay and rules that keep teams from relocating. When a rival owner pushes for changes that would overturn those principles, Coop and Remer and their Milwaukee team become the main obstacle.

David Zucker directed and co-wrote the film, which sits in the middle of a run of comedies that includes Airplane!, Top Secret!, Ruthless People, the two Naked Gun films, and later Scary Movie 3 and 4. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, co-creators of South Park, star as Coop and Remer; the cast also features Dian Bachar, Yasmine Bleeth, Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg and Ernest Borgnine.

Released in July 1998, the comedy cost about 25 million dollars and returned roughly 7 million worldwide, a poor result against its budget. On IMDb it holds 6.5 out of 10 from over 65,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.1 out of 10 from a much smaller group of voters. A critics' rating of 5.3 out of 10 from 51 reviews places it below the audience scores.