YMMV / DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Peter really the unmotivated slacker that people make him out to be, or is he just the kind of guy who gets really easily bored with the drudgery of work? Note that despite his supposed laziness, he still owns and manages his own small business, and he's ultimately willing to travel all the way to Las Vegas to save it when the chips are down.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The Mayans did play ball sports with severed human heads, but not the Chinese.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Many studios, including DreamWorks SKG and MGM, passed on this movie. As of March 2005, the movie grossed over $124 million, when it only cost $23 million to make.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The 1950s educational film about the origins of dodgeball. According to the documentary, the sport was invented in a Chinese opium den by drug-addled "Chinamen" who found it amusing to throw severed humans heads at each other. After his little history lesson, the young Audience Surrogate "Little Timmy" gets curious and takes a hit of opium.
  • Lance Armstrong's cameo can be seen as an unintentional example nowadays. In another film the scene would be completely ruined, but having one of the most infamous athletic cheaters of all time saving the day by giving the hero an inspiring speech actually feels somewhat fitting for a movie this ridiculous.
  • Patches's death. He's unceremoniously killed off with no foreshadowing by a "Luck of the Irish" slot machine sign falling on him.
  • Pretty much all of the tournament commentary by Cotton and Pepper qualifies, making heavy use of Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Patches and Steve the Pirate, the former having excellent comedy scenes (with the "dodge a wrench" skit being a notable highlight), and Steve being an endearingly weird character, even by the film's standards.
  • Cotton McKnight and Pepper Brooks, for their excellent and hilarious commentary during the Average Joes' rise through the tournament. Being played by Gary Cole and Jason Bateman respectively helps.
  • Martha Johnstone, the cheerleader from Justin's flashback, for both being played by Lori Beth Denberg and being a complete BBW. Some people have even suggested Justin should've hooked up with her instead of Amber.
• Epileptic Trees: Many believe that White is in fact Stiller's earlier fitness-obsessed character Tony Perkis.
• Fair for Its Day: This film is notable for its (fairly) relaxed attitude towards bisexuality as a whole. Despite Kate fitting the Lesbian Jock stereotype (which is why several characters believe her to be a lesbian) and having a girlfriend, she still doesn't identify as a lesbian, but rather bisexual, and this is accepted as fact in the story. Considering this was in 2004, it's remarkably progressive; even in the following decade, many female characters in same-sex relationships were not just automatically assumed to be lesbians (like in this film), but when they tried to correct people by saying they were bisexual, many people flat-out dismissed it as a valid sexual orientation. However, there are a few aspects of the film that wouldn't fly today. Nowadays, assuming someone is gay because they are in a same-sex relationship (which Peter does near the end) is a form of bisexual erasure (Kate has to tell Pete point blank that she's not a lesbian just because she has a girlfriend). Making this assumption based on somebody's hobbies (which several other characters do), even more so. Secondly, while Kate and her girlfriend are open to a polyamorous relationship with Pete (who eagerly accepts), today this would be seen as perpetuating the "bisexuals are greedy" stereotype, especially considering that Kate and her girlfriend barely know Pete, and is more just using her bisexuality as a vehicle to get Pete two girlfriends.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Many fans preferred that Justin ended up with Martha Johnstone, the Big Beautiful Woman cheerleader from his flashback. He instead ends up with a traditionally attractive cheerleader.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: An additional clip in the ending scene has Kate's girlfriend Joyce being properly introduced to Peter and flirting, to give the implication that Peter might end up in a polyamorous relationship – which would certainly be a unique ending for the male protagonist of a romcom.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: The Average Joes team don't look that bad in the leather bondage uniforms they have to wear. Naturally, Kate's is incredibly flattering.
• Fridge Brilliance: It makes sense why they went into sudden death in the end. White was disqualified because he stepped over the line, causing a double elimination since Peter would have been eliminated fairly otherwise. Why would White be disqualified? He already had a warning for hitting Kate despite already being eliminated, he broke another rule and it cost him dearly.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The trope namer itself is invoked in universe, as the German Blitzkrieg team worship the 'Hoff as a source of motivation. And then the real deal shows up as their coach after they lose to Average Joe's.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Lance Armstrong being stripped of his all his past Tour de France winnings for blood doping (which is considered cheating) in 2012 and his subsequent confession of the fact in 2013 changes the implications of the scene he appears in, making it much harder to watch for former fans of his.
  "I'm sure this decision won't haunt you forever."
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • It was funny enough when ESPN renamed its streaming service (which primarily airs overflow coverage and events that are too niche for television) ESPN 3 (only five more to go until a "real Ocho"), but in reality, a much smaller, independent network beat them to the concept.
  • Then ESPN announced that on August 8, 2017, it would actually rename its college sports-oriented channel ESPNU to ESPN 8 for the day (a relatively easy proposition, given that college sports are generally off at this time of year), airing an all-day marathon of obscure sports, including kabaddi, darts, arm wrestling, Street Fighter V (the EVO 2017 finals), and yes, trampoline dodgeball. They have since reprised the stunt on ESPN2 multiple times.
  • Chuck Norris's cameo became funnier after "Chuck Norris Facts" gave him a larger renewed pop culture boost, as the movie came out just around a year before those became a thing.
• Jerkass Woobie: White, believe it or not. Despite being an asshole, he also struggles with very poor body image (from being Formerly Fat) and inflates his ego as a means to hide his low self-esteem (if his statement about how he began losing weight once he realized how much he hated himself is any indication). His zeal for being healthy physically hits unhealthy levels psychologically like depriving himself of food, going as far as electrocuting himself to resist the urge of eating a donut. Although his defeat at the end is very well-deserved, it still is rather sobering to see him become Formerly Fit.
• Love to Hate: White Goodman, an egotistical gym owner with Delusions of Eloquence that is still one of the funnier characters.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The most infamous: "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball."
    • Followed up by Patches' creed of the 5D's of Dodgeball: Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and Dodge!
  • "That's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em/him/her." when someone does something risky or stupid, especially on Imgur. The use in-context was Cotton pointing out that Average Joe's was forfeiting the match.
    • Particularly in 2015, when US senator Tom Cotton penned a letter to Iranian hardliners telling them to not believe President Obama, which horribly backfired by angering Americans and Iranians alike.
  • Chuck Norris' thumbs up for the Average Joes. Couple this with the Chuck Norris Facts and bam! Instant ultimate approval icon.
  • Lance Armstrong's cameo became circulated as a joke around the Internet due to the athlete being stripped of his athletic titles in 2012.
  • "The Ocho".
• Misaimed Fandom: Despite being the clear cut villain of the story, White has a contingent of supporters who earnestly support him for his fitness focus and charismatic demeanor. This is ignoring the fact that he's an elitist, smug scumbag and attempted sexual predator. In a blink and you miss it moment, he also tells Me'Shell to manipulate the women's scales which further emphasises how he only cares about profits and not about his clients' health.
• One True Threesome: Implied between Peter, Kate and her girlfriend Joyce as they're shown in the ending embracing each other side-by-side inside Average Joe's gym. Foreshadowed earlier in the film as Peter expressed his wish to find that special someone, maybe even two special someones or as he nicknames them "a two-for-one jackpot".
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Jason Bateman's role as Pepper Brooks was shot just as his career was coming out of a long slump – thanks to Arrested Development – and audiences were starting to notice him again.
  • This was one of Joel David Moore's first movies. He'd come to wider recognition a few years later as Norm Spellman in Avatar.
• Rooting for the Empire: Youtube comments for the alternate ending suggest that some viewers would've preferred that White and Globo Gym won. They cite his successful business philosophy and fitness regime, comparing both favorably to Peter's laziness and slobbiness regarding both aspects of his life. This is in spite of the fact that White is a petty, egotistical douchebag who resorts to foul play and acts like a total creep towards Kate, who makes it very clear she's not interested.
• Squick:
  • White and his sexual appreciation of the pizza slice. Also, his reversion to being fat by the end of the film. Ew.
  • Owen and Fran in bed and literally licking each others' faces after Peter wins…
  • Martha the obese cheerleader telling Justin that she's not wearing panties, then falling crotch first on his face.
• Values Dissonance: Already hailing from an era where executives were still trying to push the envelope on the crass humor they could get away with in comedy films, several of the film's jokes would not be included if the film were made in the 2020s:
  • The movie uses a lot of Queer People Are Funny jokes, which fell out of favor in popular media thanks to changing attitudes towards the LGBT community.
  • The film's depiction of the Kamikazes team, a group of stereotypical Japanese men who wear mawashi and act like martial artists, would be considered offensive if the film were released today.

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