Beware Of Plastic Fruit And Fake Sports

OK. No movie review here. I just need to get this one off my chest:

Last Thursday's Final Jeopardy category was "Sports". The clue was "In 2010 they introduced the 4-point shot, 35 feet from the basket".

Well, I am a big basketball fan, but for the life of me I couldn't come up with the correct answer (or question, in the case of Jeopardy!)  I knew it wasn't the NBA or NCAA, and I was pretty sure that they wouldn't go with some Euro league or a lower level league like the NBA G league. The only thing I could think of was the WNBA (which I do not watch). Even so, I had serious doubts that it would be them. I was stumped.

And the question-style answer was, "Who are the Harlem Globetrotters?"

The Harlem Globetrotters!!!!????  Seriously? The freakin' Globetrotters? Sports? That's worse than calling Hamilton a "musical". It would be akin to calling Cézanne's "The Basket of Apples" "food", or defining plastic fruit as "tasty nourishment."

Warning: Do not eat, regardless of how hungry you are.

Warning: Do not watch, regardless of how starved for sports you are.

The Jeopardy clue states, "they introduced the 4-point shot." Sure. They also introduced the confetti in a water bucket trick. Both have been an integral part of any serious basketball game since. Right.

Perhaps the most laughable claim comes from the Globetrotters themselves. Their web site states, "...the Globetrotters have lost 345 games over the course of nine decades. However, with 27,000 wins, the Globetrotters do own the best winning percentage (. 987) in the history of professional sports."

HA HA HA!!! Sure, you stage a series of shows against a team of stooges that has been paid to let you win, purport your victories to be legitimate, then brag about the whole charade as being some sort of sports milestone. If we allow that, then the baseball team from the play "Take Me Out", the Empires, won 355 World Series titles - on Broadway alone! Suck it up, Yankees.

Let's get this straight once and for all; the Globetrotters are entertainment, not sports. Much like professional wrestling, they should never be mistaken for serious sports competition. 

In fact, these "basketball players" would lose to ANY NCAA Division1 men's team, let alone an NBA team. The latter scenario, my friends, would be decisive and humiliating. It would be a Globetrotter slaughter. 

The Trotters played twenty-two games against college teams from the year 2000 to sometime in 2003. Surprisingly, they finished by winning thirteen and losing nine. But this wasn't their usual entertainment team. This was a team (featuring some battle-hardened ex NBA dudes like Cedric Ceballos, Olden Polynice, and Todd Day) that was specifically put together for serious competition. They would have provided nothing but disappointment to little kiddies coming to see them, expecting the familiar slapstick antics and shenanigans. However, this squad would have surely beaten their perennial patsies and deliberate doormats, the Washington Generals (who, by the way, are also not a real basketball team).

If the flashy theatrical team shown in the above photo had played in that series, they would have certainly finished with zero wins and twenty-two losses. I doubt that the current Globetrotters could even defeat a top level boys high school team. 

And while I'm at it, since this is supposed to be a movie review blog, I'll mention the 1981 effort(?) "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island."

But be advised, not unlike how the Globetrotters are not really a sports team, this is not really a movie.

And here is a heads-up for the Jeopardy researchers: Bob Denver was an actor. He wasn't really shipwrecked on an island.