Cheerleader Peggy Jo Kowalski had to leave school under some mysterious sets of circumstances, and the hunt is on to find her replacement.

As we all know, dutiful Southern Cal cheerleaders have this noble obligation to sperm their football players on to victory.  So, the new stand-in must carry on in the best traditions of mooning, romping naked through the shower room, putting out for the coach (why should he be left out?), and just be, in general, sexually obsessed.

Bingo. Along comes Jeannie Davis, professional nymphette at heart, but technically unsullied.  Boy, are we going to have some fun in the halls of Amorosa High School.  Jeannie (Stephanie Fondue) does her level best to achieve some sexual break-through and create a niche of prominence for herself on the squad.

Despite cheesy production values and thespianism that approximates “the dead-zone,” The Cheerleaders is landmark softcore.  It spawned a rash of cheerleader and pom-pom girls imitators in the ‘70’s and extended its influence well into the Porky’s era.  But graphically, where its clones often stopped short at bare booby and sometimes flash glimpses of fanny, The Cheerleaders smacks us with indulgent visuals about one millisecond short of hardcore.  Practically nothing is left to the imagination, with some great simulated thumping scenes sprinkled throughout its running time. Like The Stewardesses, which came out about the same time, The Cheerleaders was a shock to mainstream theater goers who were not used to seeing sex tossed around with such casual abandon.

It’s ironic, then, how over the years our sexual tastes matured, but our ability to portray sexual circumstances on the screen regressed – at least on the softcore front. For that reason alone, this film is a treasure.