There are a few subgenres to sports movies and TV series. You have the classic underdog story like “Rocky.” There’s also the “coach learns about life from his players” story as we saw recently with the film “The Way Back.” And then, on a more lighthearted path, there’s the “misfit team led by a grouchy coach” story that was classically shown in “The Bad News Bears” and now, the upcoming Netflix series, “Hoops.”
As seen in the new teaser trailer for “Hoops,” the series showcases a hapless team of misfits that are being coached by a foul-mouthed loser that probably shouldn’t be around impressionable children, let alone teaching them things on a basketball court. But considering it’s an animated series with no real children harmed, you can’t help but think it’s pretty damn funny watching a coach try to instill some knowledge on his young charges but ends up looking like a complete asshole.
“Hoops” is created by Ben Hoffman, who has a long history of comedic offerings, including a couple of Comedy Central series including “Sports Show with Norm Macdonald.” He’s joined by executive producers Christopher Lord and Phil Miller, as well as Seth Cohen and M. Dickson.
The animated comedy stars Jake Johnson as the hapless basketball coach that can’t seem to score points if his life depended on it. He’s joined by Rob Riggle, Natasha Leggero, Ron Funches, Cleo King, and A.D. Miles in the voice cast.
“Hoops” debuts on Netflix on August 21. You can watch the teaser below.
Here’s the synopsis:
Hoops is an animated comedy sitcom that centers on a hot-headed, foul-mouthed high school basketball coach (Jake Johnson) who thinks turning around his god awful team will take him to the “big leagues” and turn his miserable life around.