Ben Stiller’s ‘Born to Bowl’ has foul-mouthed humor to spare

Who knew bowlers had such potty mouths?

HBO’s (sorry) ballsy five-part docuseries “Born to Bowl,” which follows five professional bowlers as they chase strikes on the Professional Bowlers Association tour, is filled with cheeky humor, high stakes and so much yelling and cursing. All narrated by Liev Schreiber.

If the Ben Stiller-produced series feels like you’re watching a real-life version of “Kingpin,” that’s by design. Filmmakers James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte cite the 1996 bowling comedy with Woody Harrelson and Randy Quaid as their inspiration. (Though Stiller’s involvement and the fact that it centers on a seldom-covered sport with undoubtedly give it comparisons to “Dodgeball.”)

“It’s where I learned that if you pour sugar in a gasoline tank, it would kill a car engine. And I also learned not to try to hustle over a bowling center out in the middle of nowhere, because a priest might chop your hand off,” Hernandez says with a laugh.

For the two, their “Kingpin” fandom came full circle while filming the fourth episode, largely focused on Aussie bowler Jason “Belmo” Belmonte. “One of the most phenomenal things is art imitating life, in the sense that the US World Series of bowling happened in Reno, Nevada, in the bowling center that they filmed ‘Kingpin’ in. So the big finale of going to Reno; we experienced that. For me, it was kind of mind-blowing to be there, having been obsessed with that movie for so long.”

Outside of Pete Weber, there’s not many real-life bowlers that are household names. And whether it’s the “Kingpin” duo or John Turturro’s “Big Lebowski” character Jesus Quintana, most of the time bowlers are portrayed as a bit of a joke. Hernandez and Lazarte wanted to change that narrative.

“Most of what we associate with bowling movies and bowling TV shows are funny. And the key thing for us when we were making this series was that, yes, it can be funny, but we’re not making fun of the bowlers. We’re not punching down,” Lazarte says.