The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973)

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire illustrious career!” – Howard Cosell

Number of Times Seen – Between 3-5 times (a few times as a kid on cable and 23 Feb 2022)

Brief Synopsis – The coach of a failing sports program, finds a super athlete in Africa and does all he can to get him to return to California with him.

My Take on it – This is a film that I recall seeing on the Disney channel as a kid and was curious to revisit it.

The cast is great with Jan-Michael Vincent, John Amos and Tim Conway in the main roles.

The story itself is a bit bland, but they find ways to keep things moving along the entire time.

Things are a bit simplistic, but that is part of why it is relatable to both kids and adults.

The scenes where Conway is miniaturized are really funny and it’s too bad it was cut down due to budgetary reasons since it is among the very best of the gags in the movie (see Trivia Section below).

I’m quite impressed that they managed to get so many real sports announcers to partake in this including Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The scenes where Milo Jackson (Tim Conway) is shrunk to miniature size were extremely expensive to shoot during the time the film was made due to then big cost of constructing such very enormous props. The gigantic telephone itself cost US $7,900 to make whilst the woman’s handbag and its chattels totaled to US $15,000. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)