Goldthwait is a high point, and watching his and Tim Kazurinsky's relationship develop from scared storeowner and nutjob gang leader to buddy cops makes the subsequent films watchable...to a point. While Howard Hessman may not have liked being in the film, his playing a police captain as an aging hippie is a real treat ("I haven't carried live ammo since 1972", rattled off with Dirty Harry-like confidence, always got a laugh from me), and David Graff and Colleen Camp as Gun Nuts in Love is oddly adorable.
Guttenberg is...less essential to the series despite being the lead, and starts his descent into being the "Normal Guy" in the series, where he spends most of his time looking like he's asking himself "What am I doing here?" I think Mahoney's best moment is when Zed finds out he's an undercover cop and momentarily has a nervous breakdown about it, which leads to the cop having to comfort his enemy as he babbles hilariously about getting too much caffeine in his life—a joke my former wife and I loved so much, we used it for years afterward whenever we were feeling stressed!
I really did love the Police Academy movies as a kid, and this was definitely my favorite. Even when I was a fan I didn’t like the first one much. I just wanted goofy sketches full of eccentric characters.
I have a VHS at home that we apparently stole from the pre-Blockbuster Video rental house we used to frequent, back in the 80s. It’s a family heirloom at this point.
Fun review and a nice bit of cultural history. Charlie Day seems to be the closest descendant of or modern day equivalent to Bobcat Goldthwait that I can think of just of.
When I think of Police Academy movies, this is the one I'm thinking of. It was endlessly quoted by class clowns in my Junior High/High School.
Goldthwait is a high point, and watching his and Tim Kazurinsky's relationship develop from scared storeowner and nutjob gang leader to buddy cops makes the subsequent films watchable...to a point. While Howard Hessman may not have liked being in the film, his playing a police captain as an aging hippie is a real treat ("I haven't carried live ammo since 1972", rattled off with Dirty Harry-like confidence, always got a laugh from me), and David Graff and Colleen Camp as Gun Nuts in Love is oddly adorable.
Guttenberg is...less essential to the series despite being the lead, and starts his descent into being the "Normal Guy" in the series, where he spends most of his time looking like he's asking himself "What am I doing here?" I think Mahoney's best moment is when Zed finds out he's an undercover cop and momentarily has a nervous breakdown about it, which leads to the cop having to comfort his enemy as he babbles hilariously about getting too much caffeine in his life—a joke my former wife and I loved so much, we used it for years afterward whenever we were feeling stressed!
I really did love the Police Academy movies as a kid, and this was definitely my favorite. Even when I was a fan I didn’t like the first one much. I just wanted goofy sketches full of eccentric characters.
I have a VHS at home that we apparently stole from the pre-Blockbuster Video rental house we used to frequent, back in the 80s. It’s a family heirloom at this point.
Fun review and a nice bit of cultural history. Charlie Day seems to be the closest descendant of or modern day equivalent to Bobcat Goldthwait that I can think of just of.