The Cheerleader Films of the Mid-1970s:

The original 1973 film, a soft-core sexploitation classic, led to a three-part series of "Cheerleader" films, forerunners of the high school-based teen sex comedies prevalent in the 1980s. The first film in the group was inspired by the sexploitation, soft-porn 3-D movie The Stewardesses (1969), although now, the profession of the group of females had changed.

The second film was writer/director Jack Hill's The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974), followed by Revenge of the Cheerleaders (1976).

The sophomoric, drive-in sexual romp by director Paul Glickler was originally rated with a self-imposed X, and predated the similar hard-core porn film Debbie Does Dallas (1978). The film's poster invited the viewer: "Come and Huddle with the Cheerleaders." The narrator on the film's trailer also stated:

"Statistics show that the more active the cheerleader, the more successful the team...It's fair to assume that if three cheerleaders can lead a team to six victories, imagine what six cheerleaders can do...Come huddle with the cheerleaders. They will do anything to make their team win."

Its simplistic tale was about the strategy of the Amarosa High School (known as The Bears) cheerleaders - they planned to sleep with their opponent football team members from Central High the night before the game, exhausting them so that they wouldn't perform well on the field. The many fake actress' names who portrayed the six cheerleaders were:

• well-tanned Bonnie (Jovita Bush)
• Suzie (Sandy Evans/Clair Dia)
• sultry brunette team captain Claudia (Denise Dillaway)
• redheaded Debbie (Brandy Woods)
• blonde pot-smoking lesbian Patty (Kimberly Stanton/Hyde)
• the newest recruit - baby-faced Jeannie (or Jennie) Davis (Stephanie Fondue) - chosen because she was less apt to get pregnant like the previous squad member

Jeannie's Initiation

A subplot involved the newest replacement cheerleader Jennie (Stephanie Fondue), a virgin whose initiation into the squad included showering in the boy's locker room, where she tried to accomplish the feat, but was discovered and chased:

Guy: "Hey, who are you?"
Jeannie: "I'm a cheerleader."
Another Guy: "What are you doing here?"
Jeannie: "I'm being initiated."
Guy: "Far out!"

Her biggest challenge was losing her virgin status after numerous botched attempts (she was told: "You must be the last one in California!") The cheerleaders had failed to weaken the opposing football players when they mistakenly found themselves sleeping with their own team during a wild sleepover orgy scene the night before the game. The film culminated with Jeannie's successful attempt to bed the fourth string quarterback in Central's locker room during halftime - he hadn't been present and incapacitated the night before - and her efforts won the game.

The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974) (aka Locker Room Girls, H.O.T.S. II)

Director Jack Hill, already well-known for directing a pair of blaxploitation films, Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), helmed this R-rated sequel film that progressed from high school to college coed sexual antics. It offered these taglines: "They gave their all for the team," and "Not all the playing was on the football field. They live their fantasies on & off the field." Compared to the other two entries, this one featured the least nudity and had a more realistic plotline.

Mesa State campus activist/feminist Kate Cory (Jo Johnston) infiltrated the cheerleading squad in order to write and publish an expose in the radical underground campus newspaper about the demeaning aspects of cheerleading. She discovered something more sinister - the fixing of football games by corrupt school officials (including an alumnus, a coach, and a professor).

The Swinging Cheerleaders Squad
Cheryl (Rainbeaux) Smith as Andrea	Rosanne Katon (future September 1978 Playboy Playmate) as Lisa	Colleen Camp as Mary Ann	Jo Johnston as Kate

Revenge of the Cheerleaders (1976) (aka Cheerleaders: The Musical)

This third film in the series of Cheerleaders teen-sex comedies again followed the antics of the cheerleaders - of Aloha HS, this time including disco-dance musical numbers. Sex-crazed Boner (David Hasselhoff in his feature film debut), a star basketball player (who was having sex in a stall of the girl's bathroom with one of the cheerleaders in an early scene), added to the film's notoriety.

The film's tagline was: "It's High School the Way We Remember It ... Although It Never Happened Quite Like This!" Cutting class, changing tops while riding in the back of an open convertible, having sex with teachers, and acquiring a bad reputation for the school - these were just a few examples.

Cheerleader Sesame (Patrice Rohmer)

Aloha High School was threatened with closure because of a supposed "morality crisis." The school board had decided to merge Aloha with its competing inner-city rival Lincoln HS. [The subplot was the real reason for the consolidation - a greedy developer was planning to build a mall on the school property.] The cheerleaders sprung into action by stealing drugs and booze from Lincoln HS, and then lacing their cafeteria's spaghetti sauce with drugs (to cause school inspectors to get high).

The promiscuous and anarchic cheerleaders also engaged in wacky hijinks - they romped in an orgiastic soap-sudsy scene in the basketball players' showers.

When the Aloha HS principal was replaced, and the new principal 'fired' the cheerleaders, they vowed revenge.

During a field trip, two of the uninhibited cheerleaders wandered off, Sesame and dark-haired Leslie (Helen Lang, future July 1976 Penthouse Pet), to have sex with a Boy Scout in the woods.

They then returned to school in time for the big BB game - between Aloha and Lincoln, and helped to save the school.