Thanks to a cameo by David Graf AKA Officer Tackleberry in a particularly good M*A*S*H rerun (the one with the eggs, where Mulcahy stares down a rifle barrel then hugs the man who could have shot him), I’ve been thinking about the ‘Police Academy’ movies of the 1980s. The “good-hearted group of misfits finds their niche” is a theme that pervades the films of that decade and Mahoney and his cohorts are a perfect example. Remember Hooks finally finding her voice? Or Hightower ripping the seat out of a Toyota so that he could sit in back and fit his extra-long legs? Or the dad from Punky Brewster? The funny spots of that film are REALLY funny, but they’re all balanced with serious gross-out humor, stereotypes of all stripes and some really terrible gay panic, leading to today’s subjective query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) loves Michael Winslow, the Human Sounds-Effects Machine, in anything, but man parts of those films have aged badly, asking: The Police Academy movies: Brilliant Satire or Rock-Stupid Buffonery?
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A bit of both. But, sometimes its fine to be just silly as long as its funny.
More buffoonery, less satire, as the series progressed.
If you want a modern day spiritual successor to Police Academy, watch Brooklyn 99.