The Police Academy series (with a word about the "Revenge of the Nerds")

[Andrew NDB]

So I rewatched all of the 4 "Revenge of the Nerds" movies, and I realized I never actually ever watched 3 or 4. Weird! Definitely 1 and 2 weren't what I remembered. 1 was pretty funny, and 2 was still a competent and "big" movie... but the laughs were tuned down a bit. 3 was just plain... eh... a little too made-for-TV-esque bad (which makes sense, since it was made for TV and premiered on Fox I guess). A couple of chuckles and a nice arc for the main frat guy who was the neighbor guy on Married with Children, but pretty barren beyond that. 4 was surprisingly OK and actually served as a pretty decent conclusion to the first movie's story. Not bad! But the production values took a huge dip after 2, which I've seen hundreds of times. It was always on cable.

Anyway, this inspired me to take another look at the Police Academy movies. Man oh man, as a kid, I swear... I realize now, it was parts 2-5 that were ALWAYS on cable. I must have seen 2-5 a zillion times. I'm pretty sure I at least rented part 1 at the video store but it seemed less ingrained in my brain. But man! Funny stuff. Also, while I know I must have at least rented 6 ("City Under Siege") I don't remember it at all. And I know for a fact I never saw the "Mission to Moscow."

I'm up to 4 now, but let's see...

Part 1... pretty hilarious! Irreverent. The antithesis of PC. And R-rated (I had no idea the other ones were forced to drop down!). So many great characters, and many of them don't appear in any future Police Academy movies. Definitely the best by far. You'll never see a movie again where the "bad guys" are tricked into going to a gay bar... where they almost immediately get raped. I admit, there is a spot where Hightower gets called a "jiggaboo" by another cop that is pretty cringey, not funny. But what he does in response is great. I wish he'd done more, actually.

Part 2. Still OK! And while 1 was R, this was PG-13. Surprisingly... they were still able to show a lot of boobs and had a lot of F words? *shrug* Still, this would mark the end of the series having any true teeth. Decent. You can see the camp kind of begin to take over the more "real comedy" of the first movie. This would only get worse from here on. Sight gags begin to just be sight gags not based in logic or even physics, something the first movie kept solid.

Part 3. Straight up PG. But still a lot of fun. The "new blood" from 2 comes to roost a bit more, including Bobcat's straight up gang leader from it. Now he's a cop. A little bit all over the map and a lot of "let's make people remember this scene from part 1" here and there, but not terrible. The camp devoid of logic is now taking hold in a lot of scenes.

Part 4. Eh... a little harder to defend this one. Still has the "moments," but now these are mostly confined to things that are recreated from previous movies (and mostly the first one). And while getting top billing, it seems clear Guttenberg was mostly a peripheral character this time out, complete with a martini cheersing sendoff to his character with Sharon Stone (who doesn't even show up much in the movie and doesn't so much as kiss Guttenberg even when the scene calls for it) in a hot air balloon at the end. His character never appears again after this movie. They mostly give Bobcat the "lead" parts (which, if I'm listening to this fairly recent interview with him correctly is because even though the director hated his performance, it was "testing well" and they kept giving him bonus scenes as if he was some kind of Hiddleston Loki long before that was a thing) but it doesn't really work because they don't really commit to it... and also largely because they don't really assign this role to anyone else either (not even Guttenberg).

It is pretty funny that in all 4 movies, at least someone ends up in the "Blue Oyster" gay bar getting raped by the gang of leather-clad patrons there. Obviously it couldn't happen now and wasn't even realistic then, but as an 80s comedy thing (and they were doing 1 movie a year all the way through -- as of part 4 we're not even at the 90s yet)... it's pretty hysterical.

Gonna rewatch 5 and 6, then tackle 7. I don't think it's going to take a turn for the better, but I'll be happy if there's at least moments. So far so good. A lot of misses after the first one with only a few hits, but I still found myself laughing a lot more than in most modern comedies.

[Leo656]

I have a soft spot for the Police Academy movies. Most of 'em definitely ain't "good" but the characters and cast make up for a lot as they go on. Like I was always a big Tackleberry mark and he was always fun. I grew up with 'em, and they were on constantly, so I'm more forgiving of them than they deserve.

Plus, Leslie Easterbrook/Lt. Callahan. My goodness. The scene from Part 4 where she's in the pool with the white T-shirt and no bra damn near wore out my pause button, back then.

I saw them all out of order back in the day. I think me and a buddy pretty much got into it when Part 6 ("City Under Siege") came out, it was on one of the movie channels like HBO nearly every day and then other channels like USA and WPIX would run the older ones to kind of capitalize on that, mostly showing 3, 4 and 5. Come to think of it, I'm almost positive I saw the series in complete reverse-order, with the first one being the last one I saw. 4 and 2, I saw the most because I bought them for cheap at the grocery store. 2 kinda shocked me the first time because it has that one-second shot of naked tits in that scene on the beach near the beginning. When you watch the later ones first, it really does strike you how different the early ones were.

But the first one was NEVER on TV back then, or at least not uncensored, so I didn't see that one until I rented it from the video store, and I immediately understood why stations weren't playing that one much, during the same time period that the cartoon show was on the air and those toys were out (side note: Looking at the first movie it is INSANE to think that it later spawned a kids' franchise. But it was the 80s, after all). It's all-around a bit of a "rougher" movie than the others, but by the time it got to the scene with all the topless girls dancing I was like "...WOW." No wonder stations didn't play it, and parents didn't want their kids to see where the whole thing really started. If all you knew of the franchise was what you saw on TV in 1989/1990, it was a "kiddie" series that "began" with the third movie; 1 and 2 may as well not have even existed. You had to dig to find them, and when you did it became clear why your parents didn't want you to know about them.

They definitely dropped off in overall quality very early, but I actually like all of 'em. Each one has at least one of my favorite moments in the series, although I'd say 3 and 5 were probably the least-memorable overall, except for Part 7 ("Mission To Moscow"). Funny story about that one, but as a kid I'd SWORN they'd already made a Part 7 shortly after Part 6 and it just hadn't gotten much attention for some reason. Obviously I was mistaken, but I was adamant. I swore I remembered seeing or hearing a commercial talking about it in 1990 or so, but looking back on it I'd bet it was like a skit poking fun at the series and it's constant sequels, like an SNL sketch or something like that, a gag I caught in passing but thought it was real. I'd go to the video store asking about it and they'd assure me there was no Part 7. Then finally there was, and I caught it on cable in like 1997, I think. Didn't much care for it, to be honest. Although Callahan's scene where she's pretending to be a lounge singer or whatever was pretty nice. From memory, that's the "worst" movie in the series, but to be fair I haven't watched that one in almost 25 years. I should give it another look one of these days, since I have the box set.

It blew my mind as a kid when I realized that Brian Tochi ("Officer Nogata" from 3 and 4) was also Leo's voice in the first three TMNT movies. You go back and watch the Police Academy flicks and "Leo" is all trying to mack on Callahan and sh*t. Pretty funny. Turns out he was in the "Revenge of the Nerds" movies, too, but I honestly never got too deep into those.

You want a REAL mind-f*ck, go back and watch George Gaynes in the Police Academy movies after watching Punky Brewster. Sh*t's hilarious.

I actually saw Michael Winslow ("Larvell Jones") at a comedy club back in like 2000 or so. He's really good!

Last I heard there was a sincere effort to get a sequel/reboot off the ground, but half the cast is f*cking dead now. And two of the only prominent survivors (Guttenberg and Goldthwait) were ones who left the series because they didn't wanna do it anymore in the first place, so I'd question their enthusiasm. My gut says let sleeping dogs lie, but time will tell. It'll probably never get off the ground, anyhow. Can't imagine there's a huge groundswell of affection for this series in 2021, even nostalgically.

[Andrew NDB]

I'm most interested to check out "Mission to Moscow" in that it is the only Police Academy movie not to actually have a lead. They had Guttenberg in 1-4, whatever his name was in 5 and 6... but not in 7. They went in with, just, like Tackleberry, Jones (the sound guy), and Callahan and that's it. Yeesh. I love all of those people, but none of them are leading people. Not as written or expressed to that point.

I did read that they wanted Hightower for 7 but he refused because they wouldn't bring back Hooks for 7. And good on him. She was amazing.

So sad to read that the actors playing Hightower, Hooks, and Tackleberry all died. Tackleberry very young at 50. Hooks apparently from COVID last year?

[Leo656]

7 is interesting, but it's not great. The plot literally centers around Tetris. Some Russian gangster is gonna use Tetris (or rather, "The Game" as the movie calls it) to take over the world. Like by default it has THE dumbest plot in the entire series. The "crime wave/Mastermind" plot from Part 6 is like Shakespeare by comparison.

It's an interesting bit of history, though. Supposedly it was one of the first American movies to be shot in Russia, so that's pretty cool. And some surprising names are in the cast - Claire Forlani, Ron Perlman, even Christopher Lee. But I'm guessing that even the studio had very little faith in it, since it had a super-limited theatrical release and made like no money. I always thought it went straight-to-video, but technically not. It definitely FEELS like less work went into it than the rest, though.

Again, at least from memory. It was the only one in the series I never felt any strong compulsion to watch again, so I think I only saw it like three or four times. By that point I was "in on the joke" that these were not "good" movies, but the others still had stuff that made me want to watch them. 7, not so much. Outside of the aforementioned Callahan scene.

I should probably do a run one of these days. My wife loves the series so that'll be no problem.

One thing that you may not know, which has always annoyed me, is that a couple of the early ones had scenes shot just for TV which aren't included in the DVD or home releases. At the end of "Police Academy 2", for example, if you caught it on network TV there's a scene at the very end (after the Bigfoot/wedding scene) where George Gaynes/Lassard is addressing some new recruits and telling them that they'll have to get haircuts, and one of the recruits is Zedd and he starts freaking out. I'd never seen it before until I caught it on regular TV one day, despite owning the VHS and DVD and having watched that movie a hundred times. Part 3 opens up showing Zedd joining the Academy in an early scene and this scene from the end of Part 2 is never seen or referenced, but in-context one could assume that he was "forced" to join the Academy after the events of Part 2 in exchange for leniency. Not how things actually work, obviously, but then none of this sh*t is.

But yeah, not sure how many other "deleted scenes" exist that never made it to the home versions, but I'd bet there's more.

[Shark_Blade]

I got the series late last year when iTunes had a sale and it’s bloody hilarious.

I watched until the one where Commandant Lassard went on vacation for his retirement.

[IMJ]

I loved these flicks as a kid. If there was a great 4k boxed set of the series, I'd pick it up. I haven't seen any of these in.... I don't know. Two decades.

[Leo656]

I doubt anyone's ever gonna put the work in on a 4K transfer of goddamn Police Academy of all things, but regular box sets exist.

Leslie Easterbrook's "wet T-shirt nipples" look just fine in standard def, I assure you.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I doubt anyone's ever gonna put the work in on a 4K transfer of goddamn Police Academy of all things, but regular box sets exist.

Leslie Easterbrook's "wet T-shirt nipples" look just fine in standard def, I assure you.

That was one hell of a dream girl. Sure she'd act all offended or would judo toss you or whatever if you accidentally grabbed her boob or she caught you staring in public... But then she'd sneak into your bunker later that night to **** you senseless.

Like Gawd Dayum, she was one of my first movie star crushes back in the day.

[Sumac]

First three movies are fine, 4 and 5 are weaker and 6 quiet good.
7 is just bad.

Its not a high art, but definitely decent and fun series.

[Hamato Yoshi]

I told Easterbrook that PA6 is among my favs , and also the sad passing of stars (Rinna was in #6 but scene was cut)

I like them all cept 7 , saw it in cinema and people laughed like twice in the whole movie.......yeah

The first one reminds me of the first Olsen Gang ("Olsenbanden") crime comedy movie which was more mature (porn and sex references) , like PA films the sequels became more kid friendly

Rene Auberjonois as the pompous boss in PA5 is funny lol

Hightower died before 70 , that's not really old either

[Leo656]

Yeah, as cliche' and "super-villain"-y as the whole "Mastermind" angle for Part 6 was, it actually has one of the more straightforward and believable plots in the entire series.

Like pretty much nothing about the entire series makes logical sense. Right from Square One, with the first movie, the whole "All standards are out the window, literally anyone who shows up can be a police officer because we just need bodies that badly" thing that drives the plot is bananas, with no basis whatsoever in reality. The cast and the gags allow you to dismiss that and just go along for the ride, but right from the beginning the premise is nonsense and then the plot of every subsequent movie is nonsense for various individual reasons. Someone like Zedd could never mastermind a crime wave, like in Part 2. A guy like Zedd would then in turn absolutely never be allowed to turn around and become a cop, like Part 3 onwards. I highly doubt they have "competitions" between adjacent police precincts where the less-sh*tty precinct gets to continue operating while the sh*ttier one gets shut down, like in Part 3. The whole "Citizens On Patrol" thing from Part 4 would be a public relations nightmare in real life, with lawsuits out the ass from every direction. And so on and so forth.

BUT, the plot of Part 6 is probably the most realistic of the entire series, more or less. Some of the bits with the "Mastermind" are purposely played over-the-top for laughs but the basic plot is sound. It's funny that it's the worst-reviewed in the series (except for 7) because it's arguably the one most-grounded in reality, even if the premise and some of the jokes were wearing thin by then.

Also, you met Leslie Easterbrook? That's awesome. I'd love to meet her.

[Hamato Yoshi]

Yes , and met Winslow too , a nicer celeb you prolly couldn't find and its impossible for him not to be funny

Now that I think about it #6 basically could've worked as an Inspector Gadget episode

[Leo656]

That's cool, man. I didn't get to meet Winslow when I saw him at that club but he was definitely a riot. I don't remember the set at all but I remember consistently cracking up the entire time. The one thing I do remember is that he opened the set with a couple minutes of his "Human Beatbox" gimmick and it was very impressive.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I doubt anyone's ever gonna put the work in on a 4K transfer of goddamn Police Academy of all things, but regular box sets.

I have the HBO "channel" within Amazon Prime and they're all there for streaming. So far they look... 4Kish. Definitely high end 1080p at least.

And Easterbrook was definitely the things dreams are made of.

[Andrew NDB]

Saw Assignment Miami Beach, City Under Siege, and Mission to Moscow. Yeah, these weren't funny at all, sadly. About all I enjoyed was watching the Odo actor ham it up as the main bad guy in Miami Beach. He really tries to save things.

[Hamato Yoshi]

I think you're a bit harsh on #5 , I thought the boss was amusing : "this is a kidnapping , its not a kindergarten"

Yes , he was bufoonish/pompous but that's allowed in PA movie

Fart elevator scene can give you a chuckle or the airplane scenes , silly as they are. And Janet Jones was certainly hot back then imo

I thought Lassards relative was decent replacement to Mahoney , he wasn't a prankster guy like Carey but still i enjoyed the character

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Hamato Yoshi

I think you're a bit harsh on #5 , I thought the boss was amusing : "this is a kidnapping , its not a kindergarten"

Yes , he was bufoonish/pompous but that's allowed in PA movie

Fart elevator scene can give you a chuckle or the airplane scenes , silly as they are. And Janet Jones was certainly hot back then imo

I thought Lassards relative was decent replacement to Mahoney , he wasn't a prankster guy like Carey but still i enjoyed the character

Now that you said that and purely through stream of consciousness related to this, I would love to sit through the Police Academy flicks again followed by the Airplane flicks and maybe the Naked Gun flicks.....

[Andrew NDB]

I definitely want to run through the Naked Guns again.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I definitely want to run through the Naked Guns again.

That's what she said in college.

[Hamato Yoshi]

Mauser RIP (Art Metrano)