White Men Can't Jump Is Great, But Wesley Snipes And Woody Harrelson's '80s Sports Comedy Is Just As Funny

Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson set the box office on fire with their 1992 sports comedy White Men Can’t Jump. However, there is another sports comedy from even earlier in their careers that I think is just as funny: Wildcats from 1986, which you can watch for free on YouTube. It doesn’t hurt that the star of the movie is the legendary Goldie Hawn, who plays a high school football coach who is discriminated for her gender and takes a job at a rundown high school with a team full of misfits, led by Harrelson and Snipes’ characters.

Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson Are So Young!

Wildcats is the first credited movie role for both Harrelson and Snipes. It's, well, wild that two soon-to-be superstars debut together. It was also only the third credited role for the great Mykelti Williamson, who would break out many years later as Bubba in one of the best movies of the ‘90s, Forrest Gump. If that’s not enough, future SNL star, the late Jan Hooks, also pops up in one of her first roles (after Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, of course). LL Cool J even has a cameo as a rapper just as his career was taking off. They all seem like kids, even if both Snipes and Harrelson were in their mid-20s playing high school students.

The young cast is joined by some serious comedy veterans. Along with Goldie Hawn, there is also Swoosie Kurtz as Hawn’s sister, Bruce McGill as Hawn’s ex-boss and rival coach, and the late, great Nipsey Russell as the inner city school’s loquacious principal. Russell is especially funny here, and his recurring joke about selling peanut brittle as a fundraiser for the school is something I still quote all the time, all these years later.

Goldie Hawn Is Wonderful

The star of the movie, in every way, is, of course, Goldie Hawn. Her take on a talented, yet under-appreciated football coach is simply hilarious and fantastic. She has just enough toughness offset by her vulnerability that her character is completely believable. She walks the line between confidence and doubt brilliantly. Like every great Hawn role, though, it’s her comedic timing that makes the movie so damn funny.

Wildcats kicked off another high point in Hawn’s stellar career after working selectively in the early ‘80s as she took time from work to raise her young kids, Oliver and Kate Hudson. Her next movie would be Overboard a year later. How this one gets lost in her filmography, I’ll never know, because it was truly one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. If there is one legitimate complaint about Wildcats, it’s Hawn’s character being a “white savior,” but that really doesn’t take away from the humor of the movie.

It’s rare that a movie that features a cast of up-and-comers like Wildcats doesn’t get a lot of attention, but with the movie streaming for free, now’s a good time to revisit this underrated comedy. It might not be one of the best movies of the ‘80s, but you can decide for yourself if it should be more lauded like I do.