WTF Happened to Police Academy?

the80s was a fun time for movie goers for a successful comedy to work sometimes all you needed was a group of employees at a specific job let them butt up against whatever authorities in place and let them get into some hij Jinks and there is no better example of this than the recruits at the police academy a group of Misfits that are thrown together and given guns the making of the film had its ups and downs but the whole thing ended up with a whole lot of laughs and created a franchise that would spawn seven films a TV series and a Saturday morning cartoon let's find out exactly what happened to Police Academy here on what the happened to this movie producer Paul maslansky was in the middle of production on the film The Right Stuff they were about to film a scene on the street and had called into the local police for some help with crowd control to his amazement a couple of buses showed up with some trainees from the San Francisco police what he saw was a collection of recruits that incorporated people from just about every Walk of Life there were men women African-Americans Asians Hispanics white tall short skinny overweight you get the picture here as he watched they began to take their positions but a red face Superior officer had a bark orders and looked just miserable and fed up with the entire group when he would yell at some of the trainees they would begin to get flustered and would try to explain their way out of the tongue lashing maslansky would ask the exasperated officer if these recruits would end up becoming full-time officers he sighed and said that San Francisco had an equal opportunity enrollment which meant that they had to accept anyone that applied they were allowed to flunk them after 2 weeks but had to let him try until that point maslansky immediately had an idea what if the person didn't want to be flunked out and did everything they could to stay in the program that night he wrote up a two-page treatment and gave it to his EP Allan lad Jr he loved the idea and they hired Neil Israel and Pat Prof to write a script based on this treatment when they began looking for a director they actually wanted Dom deloise he had directed a film about goofball cops 5 years earlier called Hot Stuff unfortunately his schedule was full thanks anyway now now I'm allergic to fun their attention then turned to Hugh Wilson he had created written and directed several episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati he came aboard but was unfamiliar with the type of Comedy that the film was going for the script was more interested in reveling in juvenile comedy that had started to become popular at the time it all sounds like some bad movie he watched some of the films that were among the same sub genres and the first thing he wanted to do was rewrite the script after watching so many of these movies the first thing Wilson wanted to do was cut down on the sleeves he wanted to go for real laughs rather than nothing but sex jokes and crude humor mzansi could see that some of the humor that would give the film its Edge was being erased before Wilson turned in the new draft he tried to get him to keep some of this original humor when the new draft was turned in the production company rejected it the film was almost sheld completely at this point since it looked like the things that had made the film shine had been taken out of the script Wilson agreed to put some of the Lost elements back and knew he would have to find a way to make the jokes as artistic as possible to make them work more to his liking in the film a newly elected mayor decides to do away with restrictions for people who want to apply for the local police Academy they can no longer turn people away and have to keep them as long as they can graduate K Kyle blanks reporting for Duty sir get away from me you yes sir the police chief hates this of course and recruits Lieutenant Harris to force the undesirable cadetes to quit by making the training miserable little do they know that new recruit Mahoney has other plans and decides to do what he can to make sure that he and his fellow Misfits grad we this leads to numerous attempts at making Lieutenant Harris's life as miserable as possible as the group moves through training they develop a bond that helps push all of them through to become respectable officers they get their first taste when the cadetes are asked to help crowd control during a dangerous Riot one change from the original script that no one argued with was including the actor Michael Winslow Wilson and the casting directors went out to see count basy perform one night he opened for the singer and they were blown away Way by his abilities I'm having trouble with the radar sir what's wrong with it I've lost the bleeps I've lost the sweeps and I've lost the creeps the what the what and the what you know the bleeps the sweeps and the creeps that's not all he's lost they immediately created a character just for him and put it into the film now it was time to find the rest of the unruly recruits for the role of Mahoney producers and someone who could really carry the film and began auditioning some of the biggest names in Hollywood like Billy Crystal Robin Williams Bill Murray and John Travolta none of these actors seem to really have the vibe they wanted for the character so they just kept [Applause] [Music] looking some of the actors who auditioned but were passed up include Tom Hanks Bruce Willis and Michael Keaton little did they know they could have had future giant movie stars in their movie One actor walked into the audition wearing a regulation police uniform and the producers were impressed enough with his audition to offer him the part as it turns out Steve gutenberg's father was a retired New York police officer and he had borrowed his old shirt he seemed to understand this character but would later say that Mahon wasn't that hard to get according to Gutenberg I think he's a party guy he doesn't really know what he's going to do with his life but it is kind of hard to talk about him because he's not exactly a deep character I really hate when actors get interviewed and they've just started in The Love Boat or something and they go on for a month about motivation and character analysis Police Academy set out to be light entertainment and that is what it is one person who loved gutenberg's Mahoney was former President Bill Clinton really this makes complete sense considering what his reputation is seeing a character that is running around causing hilarious hij Jinks and trying to score with the hot girls seems like something Clinton would be into rumor has it he showed his daughter Chelsea six of the films in a single Police Academy marathon when it came time to looking for someone to play the imposing Moses high tower the production started to look at other actors who had a tough screen presence there were thoughts to bring in people like Mr T Carl Weathers and even OJ Simpson instead the role would go to former football player Bubba Smith his large size would give high tower an intimidating look among the rest of the cast having Smith play the character very lowkey and quiet made him all the more threatening after leaving football Smith had racked up a lot of roles usually as henchmen in shows like Charlie's Angels BJ and the bear and heart to heart here he got to show a softer side that also had some power to it when the movie was screened before test audiences they lik the character of hi Tower so much that Bubba Smith got second billing Maran Ramsay was asked and found unique inspiration for the role of softspoken hooks she had been in a stage version of Little Shop of Horrors and Michael Jackson had attended a performance he came backstage and met the cast and told Ramsey he loved her performance she remembered how softspoken he was and decided to use that as the soft voice part of her character when it came time for Hook's big moment when she yelled don't move dirt bag the audio texts were not prepared they had been used to recording her for her softer and hadn't adjusted their equipment she was worried she had blown out their hearing David graph showed up to his audition cover head to toe in camouflage The Producers knew this guy understood the role of tackleberry completely and it was an easy hire for the production maybe even easier was the casting of Donovan Scott when he entered the room for the audition he flipped forward into the room in a cartwheel and landed on his back for a guy his size it was good to see he was down for any piece of physical comedy director Hugh Wilson laughed and nodded to him saying I think you got this for the role of command at lassard they had Leslie neelen in mind he passed so they then offered it to Robert Conrad unfortunately he passed as well but would come to regret that decision when the film became a giant hit when the writer Neil Israel was making a film the next year called moving violations about a group of students at a driving school butting heads with their police officer instructors he would jump at the chance of playing the police captain this would not do as well as police academy the role would go to George gains who wasn't even sure if he should take it the humor was not something he was used to and felt he was a more serious actor if he took this role he was afraid he wouldn't be looked at for dramatic roles in the future he of course went ahead with it and realized later on that it was probably the role he is most known for and ended up loving the character GW Bailey almost didn't play the insufferable Lieutenant Harris he was on the popular show St Elsewhere yes the show where in the last episode we learned that the entire Series has taken place inside the mind of a young autistic boy but that's a video for another time Bailey had been on the show as Dr Hugh Beal during his time on the show he had a hard time getting along with the show's producer Bruce paltro because of their constant battles on set Billy decided to leave the show and would get cast in Police Academy not long after if things had worked out on the show he wouldn't have been available for the film he became so tied with being the constant antagonist to gutenberg's Mahoney that it's hard to even imagine someone else in that role while nothing too controversial or shocking would happen during filming making a movie is constantly full of difficult problems or fun mistakes that make the movie even better during one scene hook says I'll bet there's a back door to this place and then tries to open the door the door was supposed to open right away away but was legitimately jammed she kept trying and trying and finally after a few attempts it opened when they went to edit the movie they found this take way funnier than the regular one they sped up the footage a bit and kept it in the scene where high tower is supposed to drive for the first time the actor they cast as the angry driver was nowhere to be found the cast and crew spent time looking for him but couldn't find him anywhere as they were trying to figure out what to do a grip found him passed out drunk in one of the trailers the director Shrugged his shoulders and decided he would have to play the angry man that high tower rear ended unplanned director Cameo but it works when the cadetes were training on the obstacle course the first man to scale the wall during the take threw himself over the top with so much force that he broke a leg they had to Halt production while he received medical attention during the filming of the rooftop scene where Mahoney and Harris are being held hostage the director asked Bubba Smith to open his mouth wider when he delivered his line they shot the scene again but Smith didn't open his mouth much wider when the director asked him why Smith told him he had a gap between his teeth and he was self-conscious the director then smiled and showed Smith that he also had a big gap between his teeth and it was almost double the size of Smith's this made him laugh and he told the director he would do it high Tower's Gap in his teeth became part of the character's signature look throughout the series one story point that got taken out during the editing process was that hooks was supposed to lose weight by the end of the film Mary and Ramsey wore a fat suit for the duration of the shoot and during the cadet's graduation we were supposed to see that she had lost a lot of weight during her time at the Academy she would be shown at the graduation without the fat suit and would look a lot Slimmer due to time constraints this was cut out of the scene and it was decided that hooks would remain a larger character however one scene during the graduation march you can actually see the slim down version of hooks the film would go on to be an instant hit it was released on March 23rd 1984 with a budget of just $4.5 million it would earn over 81 million at the box office Steve Gutenberg became a movie star overnight and almost didn't come back for the sequel he would eventually stay with the series until the 4th entry the franchise would end up with seven films a cartoon series and a liveaction TV show without a doubt it became one of the most popular comedy franchises of all time nothing however has been done with the property since 1997 and some wonder if it might be time for a reboot bob cat gold weight would join the franchise in the second film and has said that he has asked about it all the time one time he was questioned by TMZ about a reboot to which he responded that there didn't need to be one he said that if they did maybe maybe it should be funny this time obviously messing with the cameraman who was trying to get a rise out of the guy then he said no and that it probably wasn't the time for a wacky comedy about the police at that moment with so much unrest about police brutality when the video was shown that last part was cut off whether it's time to revisit the franchise or not you can still go back to watch the original and enjoy it as a time capsule for a certain period of film comedies sometimes we all need a little [Music] [Music] [Music] laughter [Music] [Music]

Channel: JoBlo Originals

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Id: dH8ZZtZgfKg

Length: 15min 27sec (927 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 18 2023