Kelly Leak was 11 or 12 in the Bad News Bears, which most of us older GenXers remember clearly. Can you imagine a movie being released today in which a lead character is smoking at age 12?
Posted by RedditIsAGranfaloon@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 105 comments
anarkust@reddit
Just looked it up. This movies 50th anniversary was 5 days ago. Apr. 7 1976.
AZPeakBagger@reddit
Grew up in the Midwest in that time period. By 10 most of the guys on my block had snuck a cigarette or two out of their old man's pack and lit one up behind the school. At 13 I was regularly buying packs of cigarettes by hitting the cigarette vending machine down at Friendly's Ice Cream. Wasn't too uncommon for guys to be pack a day smokers by the middle of high school in my area. Even today the area has an unusually high number of adult smokers.
spartygw@reddit
Metro Detroit by any chance? This comment reminded me of home.
AZPeakBagger@reddit
South Detroit aka Toledo Ohio
spartygw@reddit
😂
kimdkus@reddit
Sadly, I can still taste my cigarettes and I haven’t smoked since I was 24 years old and I’m 61 now and I can still taste that cigarette
Scared-Ideal-1483@reddit
Why Buttermaker never put Kelly on the mound is a mystery.
MachineGunTeacher@reddit
Totally. Running poor Ogilvye out there was unfair to him and the team. Even putting Ahmad or Tanner on the mound would have been better than Ogilvye.
MachineGunTeacher@reddit
Edit: Correction, Stein pitched. Oglivye kept stats.
Scared-Ideal-1483@reddit
It was Stein who pitched. Badly. Oglivie somehow drew a big walk in the last inning.
spred5@reddit
I like the original Bad News Bears. I have never seen the 2005 remake. Do the kids smoke, drink and curse in it.
TankApprehensive3053@reddit
They didn't smoke in the remake. I don't remember them cussing, but cussing is not seen as a big deal today either.
Riklanim@reddit
There’s some cursing… definitely worth a watch.
drammer@reddit
That's crazy. I didn't start smoking until I was 13.
MasterChiefette@reddit
It's crazy but that's how it was. Different times. Luckily I quit 12 years ago.
drammer@reddit
Good for you. I quit 9 years ago and what a difference.
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rjlynn68@reddit
Mid 70s, our neighborhood mailman (Lenny) would smoke as he walked around and delivered the mail. Kid next door to me whose parents were hardcore smokers would follow him around and smoke his butts. Was 7-8 years old. If he didn't smoke them we were definitely starting fires with them.
stromm@reddit
My mailman smokes in his truck while he’s driving around the neighborhood. We have mailboxes at the street. Still makes our mail stink. USPS just denies it happens.
Same with UPS, FedEx and UberEats.
A couple of the DoorDash drivers also smoked pot.
Totally ruins the food when it stinks of pot or cigs.
415erOnReddit@reddit
This is nonsense. Jackie Earle Haley (dob July 14 of ‘61) was 14, playing 14 year old Kelly Leak. For ‘76, having a motorcycle and smoking was more common than one would think, even moreso in Europe. Summer of ‘76 was so much fun. 4th of July shit was wild. In the U.S. and the bases overseas.
Badmoto@reddit
It came out in '76, but it was likely filmed in '74 or early '75
415erOnReddit@reddit
Filming started on August 4, 1975 and ended mid to late October. Jackie (Kelly) was 14 before the shooting started. All of this information is easily searchable on the internets.
Shoddy_Tour_7307@reddit
I dont think a 14 year old can play Little League even in '76
Shamus-McNasty@reddit
I started at 9 didn't quit for good until 2020 at 49.
MasterChiefette@reddit
Yep. My first cigarette was around that age. In a tree house with my sister, and our friend from next door. We grew pot there too.
Reasonable-Marzipan4@reddit
Congrats! 🎊
I intermittently smoked from 13-42. It got really hard to put down the older I got.
TankApprehensive3053@reddit
Not very many movies show adults smoking now either. It still happens just not near as much as pre-1990.
Brading105@reddit
Same actor that played in The Watchmen. Yeah, that’s Rorschach.
twistedcreature07@reddit
YOU'RE on this baseball field with ME!
SomeAreSomeAreNot@reddit
Not only can I not imagine a movie being made/released today in which a child character is smoking, I can barely believe an old movie is being released uncensored with those kinds of scenes intact. (Cf. Revenge of the Nerds, which has been more or less banished due to its 80s-ness, and E.T., which has been “updated” to reflect today’s lame and decidedly non-GenX sensibilities.)
ThatOtherOtherGuy3@reddit
Wait… what? They changed ET?
HailLeroy@reddit
Spielberg did it for the remaster and then said he regretted the change.
NotReallyJohnDoe@reddit
They changed the government guys from having guns to having Walker talkies.
ThatOtherOtherGuy3@reddit
That’s just so lame.
iftheygivinitaway@reddit
How has ET been edited? Haven't seen it since the original time in the theater.
SuspiciousChicken@reddit
Wow, I though he was such a badass back then. Scary but cool.
Pirlovienne@reddit
It seems to me that there’s almost no smoking in movies any more aside from period pieces. Kelly Leak is a particularly bad case because he was super cool and kids would want to emulate him. Not everyone could cut school or cruise around on a motorbike but almost everyone could get access to cigarettes.
How amazing it is that Jackie Earle Haley has a successful career as a character actor after all these years? He has found his niche and he is terrific.
TheJenerator65@reddit
crashin70@reddit
I had been smoking for 6 years when I turned 12... Thank God it's a different world now
Well thank God in some ways, in some ways this world just sucks now.
Goodrun31@reddit
My life
thorneparke@reddit
Now they're the Bad Knees Bears
Diarygirl@reddit
My kids used to live watching Jackass, and I'd tell them those guys would be sorry later when they all have arthritis. Even worse, Johnny Knoxville broke his penis once.
Frozty23@reddit
But is Butterbean OK?
allegate@reddit
Successful-Winter237@reddit
PaperbackBuddha@reddit
Everything was better when smoking was cool and good for you, and sugar was a nutrient. Gas was 60 cents, Coke was 50, you could still light a bag of poop on fire on Ricky’s porch. Concussions were milder, lead paint was sweeter, the hyperactive kid got sent to another school, there was that trash can of dirty magazines in the woods, you could explore abandoned smokestacks and put bactine or mercurochrome on whatever would you inflicted. Man those were the days
ThatOtherOtherGuy3@reddit
And sunscreen was only for lifeguards.
iftheygivinitaway@reddit
I know you're trying to be sarcastic, but you still manage to come up not wrong. Way better childhood than kids these days. I was a late bloomer to having kids, (53 with a 10 year old and an 8 year old), and man, childhood today is pretty soft. My wife and I try to push the limits on our kids' independence, but even the laws have changed regarding what's acceptable for that.
YourGuyK@reddit
I can barely imagine a new movie with an adult lead character smoking.
LastOneSergeant@reddit
It still constantly occurs.
So much so, it's almost like big tobacco is paying for it.
Even in the series For All Man Kind, there is a scene where two genius pilot astronauts sneak cigarettes into a moon base with limited oxygen.
RepliesOnlyToIdiots@reddit
Difference is it’s a period piece, and an alternative history one at that. Anything like that from 60s to 80s should have smoking everywhere.
Diarygirl@reddit
I forget what show I was watching that took place in the 1960s where a pregnant woman was smoking and drinking and nobody cared! It was shocking but that was normal because they didn't know those things were harmful to a fetus.
reddaddiction@reddit
Probably Mad Men
ChronoMonkeyX@reddit
I'd make them smoke outside.
thespillover@reddit
Ya’ll see Kids, or nowadays it’s Euphoria.
reddaddiction@reddit
Good point, Euphoria even more because Kids wasn't exactly mainstream, but Euphoria was one of the biggest shows on HBO with millions of viewers.
concerts85701@reddit
I tried. I trued so hard to like cigarettes at 12yrs old. Steal em from my brothers or from the grocery store (cuz they were right there in the check out lane like candy). Just never stuck.
Now pot and beers. Well those were a totally different story.
KrasnyRed5@reddit
When I was about 6 one of my friends got a hold of some chewing tobacco. We all tried a little bit of it and just about puked. That was the first, last and only time I have used it.
I did smoke cigarettes for a few years but gave that up over 20 years ago and haven't looked back.
concerts85701@reddit
I think we all got sick from chew at least once. Smell if it still makes me gag
trashk@reddit
To be fair these were hood kids so this was unacceptable at the time too.
chontzy@reddit
and the kids celebrating a win with beer! unfortunately chico’s bail bonds was not a real socal business
spartygw@reddit
Jackie Earle rode a motorcycle to the audition for the part. No parents, just rode his dirt bike to the audition by himself. Dude was made to play the role.
chimpyjnuts@reddit
Even back then he was working on that gravely Rorschach voice.
acecoffeeco@reddit
My middle school had a smoking section. Teachers would bum smokes off kids and hang and smoke together. In high school we’d sell teachers acid. Times were different.
WordleFan88@reddit
I was going to watch that with my kids years ago, but decided to watch it in advance, because I had selectively deleted a few things in it from my mind over the years.... kind of glad I did. We skipped it as a family because I just didn't want to have to constantly stop the movie for question and answer sessions.
general-illness@reddit
kimdkus@reddit
Best movie ever made!
lottalitter@reddit
I friend of mine watched this with his kids recently. He’d kind of forgotten about all the drinking and smoking but the kids seemed to take it in stride. The scene that made them gasp out loud in shock? Riding in the convertible without seatbelts
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
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MyCatsHaveTheZoomies@reddit
This was one of my fave movies as a kid. I recently watched it for the first time in 40+ years with my husband, who is 6 years younger than me and Canadian (his family is pretty old world Ukraine/Czech). He was especially shocked at Tanner’s language. Then I had him watch Blazing Saddles for the first time and his eyes almost popped out of his head. He said, “how old were you when your parents let you watch this??”
Ahh, the kids today will never know how it was to be raised by wolves.
mickthomas68@reddit
I was stealing pot and Winston lights from my mom in 1979 when I was 11. I totally related to this character.
FantasticStooge@reddit
Andy Pages has taken ownership of baseball
Open_Gur_6204@reddit
I said he’s Kelly leak out loud yesterday when pages took that fly ball from Teoscar.
FantasticStooge@reddit
And more famously, he did that to Kike in 2025 World Series game 7. Seems that’s Pages’ new name is “Kelly Leak,” and Dave has told him to “catch everything you can reach”
Open_Gur_6204@reddit
For sure that catch was incredible - knee to kike’s face notwithstanding. I yelled at the tv the other day when LA was playing Toronto in the rematch series and they didn’t show that catch in the highlight package.
kimdkus@reddit
I was smoking at age 12!
HighSeasArchivist@reddit
I started smoking pretty much a pack a day at 12 due to my mom keeping several hundred dollars in $1 bills in her chest of drawers for us to "buy lunch money." Oh it bought us lunch money, and all kinds of other shit. Smoked like that until one night when I was 20 I was driving around and thinking about someday having a family, and I didn't want to be a smoker with a family. Tossed a full pack out the window and never bought another one. Best decision of my life.
VeryLowIQIndividual@reddit
If anyone has watched Euphoria I can pretty much imagine young people doing anything.
funkympc@reddit
Was it really common in the 70s to give kids beer after winning a little league title?
PoxyMusic@reddit
No. I played Little League in suburban CA at this exact period and there was no beer at any time.
I remember seeing this in the theater with a bunch of other 10 year olds. When the coach walked up to the pitchers mound and clocks his son, the audience gasped, but it wasn’t like that was unthinkable. It was like “what an asshole!!”.
Today of course people would call 911 and he’d be arrested on the spot. Back then, the reaction would be exactly what you saw in the movie.
Jack_Stands@reddit
80s, but...
"We're all going to Pizza Hut, guys, after the game if you win or lose!"
Parents would buy pizza for the team, pitchers of beer for themselves. Hand out quarters occasionally for the jukebox and/or video games to stop us from talking.
What they didn't know, while they weren't looking, beer looks exactly the same in the dark red cups we had for cokes.
Pitchers of beer went empty, and was assumed to be the fault of other parents.
Fun drives home.
BonScott3@reddit
No. But the parents drank beers at every game.
slowtreme@reddit
no.
this was Bad News Bears - not Healthy Childhood Bears.
anarkust@reddit
Because Kelly Leach is a BadAss!!!
Administrative-Egg18@reddit
Es un bandido!
pigeyejackson66@reddit
Leake
Soledaddy873@reddit
back around '83 my theater teacher brought the class off Broadway to see the show Slab Boys a friend of hers was involved with. the class had a meet and q&a session with the cast afterwards and they were fantastic. kelly was happy someone recognized him and happily recalled his time on BNB. another cast mate laughed when I called out "remain calm! all is well!" and commented that I wasn't old enough to know that movie
the movie? animal house the actor? kevin bacon
sean penn and val kilmer rounded out the cast. penn pretty much ignored Spicoli references
93195@reddit
Impressive. Including previews, only ran for two months and starred actors that would go on to be huge. All in a 400 seat theater. You’re one of the lucky few.
sageguitar70@reddit
I told my kids, if you want to know what life was like for me growing up in the 70s, watch this movie!
shitposter1000@reddit
My mom started nicking smokes at 8.... youngest of six. She is 75 now. Still smoking.
lovepony0201@reddit
My dad started when he was 8 as well. He used to steal cigarettes from my grandparents and hide in a ditch to smoke.
Overall_Lobster823@reddit
Jackie Earl Haley was about 15, yeah.
Different times.
Leather_Network4743@reddit
My uncle started smoking at age 8. He died of heart disease in his 30s.
93195@reddit
Smoking at 12 wasn’t the norm even then. That, the bail bond sponsorship, their attitudes in general, was the whole point.
bastardofdisaster@reddit
That and the motorcycle were the safest ways of showing that he was a "juvenile delinquent."
lewisfairchild@reddit
Such an excellent movie.
Available_Leather_10@reddit
Only if it were set in the 70s.
If set in the 2020s, it would be vaping, possibly vaping thc carts.
Which would be 100% accurate in much of the USA.
You_Must_Chill@reddit
He played Rorschach!?! I didn't recognize him!
RedBaronSportsCards@reddit
Also Freddie Krueger.
dethb0y@reddit
Bad News Bears indeed.
kperry1270@reddit
UM, nooooo!
SnowblindAlbino@reddit
Watch The Institute, the Stephen King book turned into streaming feature, on Amazon. There are kids who are 9-10 years old smoking in the book. Can't recall exactly which smoked on the show, but they were quite young.
PotPumper43@reddit
I was smoking at 12… crazy times
Bookofdrewsus@reddit
No, I can’t. But I’ll still laugh when Kelly does it in a rewatch.