Films That Time Forgot: The Kinky Coaches And The Pom Pom Pussycats (1981)

By Noel Murray | July 3, 2008 | 5:49pm

Film Features Film

Director: Mark Warren

Also Known As: Crunch; Heartbreak High

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Tagline: "Winning isn't everything… a guy needs to score!"

Plot: It's the time of year when the City High Moose and the Johnson High Eagles renew their annual rivalry on the football field, and play for the trophy named for local legend Chester W. Hick. (That's right: The Hick Cup.) But first, the Johnson boys, led by coach Robert Forster (a Kyle Chandler type), engage in an escalating prank war with the City boys, led by coach John Vernon (a Dean Wormer type). City sends their A.V. nerd "Weasel" Wexler to pull a Belichick and shoot surreptitious video of the Johnson practice, but he gets distracted by a flirty Johnson student, has his equipment stolen, and comes back with video of the whole Johnson team mooning the camera.

In retaliation, the City quarterback bets his teammates that he can have sex with the Johnson quarterback's girlfriend, an earnest activist inclined to ask people if they're boycotting lettuce, and known to grill her sexually frustrated social-studies teacher about her placard-waving days at Berkeley. ("I haven't had a good one since college," the teacher says, referring to… protests.) While that's going on, two Johnson players break into Vernon's office and steal his lucky underwear, and a pair of City cheerleaders trick a couple of other Johnson players into losing their clothes in a strip poker game. (Though since the cheerleaders lose most of their clothes too, it's unclear how this qualifies as a "prank," aside from one girl's crack that when the boys drop their pants, "We'll see who has the joker.") And in the background throughout the film, Norman Fell skulks around with a microphone, doing his best Marty Moon impression as the host of The Cavalcade Of Sports.

Pretty much the entire last third of the 90-minute Kinky Coaches is taken up by the big game, with all the attendant dirty plays, disputed calls, and stirring martial music that a movie made under the auspices of Canada's lax tax laws could afford. And, naturally, there's a stirring halftime speech, mostly inspired by Vernon's missing underwear.

Key scenes: At the soda shoppe where both high schools gather, City's grunting, Belushi-esque linebacker "Pigger" Petersen whips the students into a frenzy when he sits on a cream pie and makes it gush like a firehose:

Elsewhere, Coach Forster gets himself whipped into a frenzy when he engages in some football-themed sex play:

And then, at last, the big game, packed with slapstick violence and wacky sound effects:

When the action heats up, the actors forget that they're supposed to be in the American heartland rather than in Montreal, and the accents slip a bit:

Can easily be distinguished by: The proliferation of parted-down-the-middle, excessively blow-dried-and-feathered hair, which makes every person in the film—male and female—look like a walking mushroom.

Sign that it was made in 1981: The opening credits resemble a ribald, Three's Company-esque sitcom:

Timeless message: Canadians love American football.

Memorable quotes: In order to underline just how shallow the activist girl's commitment is to "the cause," she tells her suitors, "I guess the turning point in my life was when I saw Jane Fonda host The Mike Douglas Show." Also, during Forster's football-helmeted bedroom romp, his girlfriend taunts him with sporty double entendres like "Why don't you just put it on a tee and sink it deep?" and "Are you ready to lick the opposition?"

Available on DVD from Image Entertainment.