You know it's time for an edition of "On the Lighter Side..." when Pat Robertson says or does ANYTHING and when R2 and I start praying that aliens will abduct us. This is especially indicative of a high stress level for me, since I am absolutely terrified of aliens due to watching way too many alien abduction TV shows as a kid. R2, and everyone else I know, make big time fun of me because I think Signs is the scariest movie ever made. If Bunches makes the clicking sound that the aliens make, I seriously hide under the bed for like a week. You better believe he is ALWAYS making that fucking sound. I found my black cashmere turtleneck under the bed the other day! Just kidding, I wish. I don't know where the hell that thing got to. I think the cats are wearing it while I'm at work.
But I digress (shock!). Lately I have been thinking quite a bit about the Police Academy movies. Oh, who am I kidding - I am always thinking about Police Academy. Mahoney, Lassard, Mauser, Sweetchuck, Hightower, Tackleberry, Jones & Hooks, blonde lady with big boobs in the wet t-shirt who fucks the Japanese dude...I love you all. But my true love is Proctor. Proctor has to be among the all time greatest bumblers in cinema history. Here's one of my favorite scenes featuring Proctor. I'm wondering if the phrase "salad tossing" was in usage when this movie came out, because if it was, the reference to "the best salad bar in town" is devillishly clever. Oh, and by the way, has a sex act ever been as poorly described by its nickname as salad tossing? I mean, there is not even a hint there as to what's going on. I had to google that shit!
On that note, do NOT google "teradactyl" if your grandmother is in the room. For some reason my whole family and I were discussing the word roots in that particular dinosaurs name (yes, we are all raging nerds, apparently, not just me), so I googled it...suffice to say, teradactyl is not just a flying dinosaur anymore. I found two other defnitions, neither of which were grandmother-in-the-room-friendly!
Back to Police Academy. My favorite is #2 (if you were Mahoney, you would make a joke of that). It was the first one I saw. I was 10. I must have seen it 50 times. It is one of many 80s movies to feature wild and crazy punks who have nothing in common with actual punks.
Mahoney story: One time R2 and I were on the beach in Queens (shut up) and retired to the sand dunes to blaze a fatty. Upon returning to Bunches and our potato chip-encrusted bedsheet/makeshift beach blanket, a cop walked by. Being stoned and paranoid, we were all "look cool, be cool, cop, cop!", but he passed on by. Literally one minute later, a cop went by on a bike. We were like, "Huh?" Then, a police helicopter flew by. By now we were laughing. Then Bunches says, look, there's a cop on a horse. We were like, ha ha, very funny, but there really was a cop on a horse! Then one went by in one of those little carts with three wheels. Then a car. There were other modes of transportation involved (I think we counted 10 total - a little help, R2?), but the piece de resistance was a cop on a four wheel ATV - just like Mahoney in the opening scene of Police Academy 2!! Needless to say, we were already almost dying laughing, but this seriously nearly killed us.
There are so many more great things to say about Police Academy. Citizens on Patrol is pretty fucking good, for example. I love that David Spade and Ratner From Fast Times are skate punks (a later variation on the punk theme, and just as poorly rendered in most every case) and a bunch of big time skaters from the 80s are in it (another 80s movie standard - where there are poorly rendered skater characters, there are actual real skaters standing right next to them who apparently had no input at all). There is not enough room in the world to say all that has to be said about Police Academy, and I have work to (very reluctantly) do.
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