Up the Academy (1980)

Comedy is hard, guys.  It’s really, really hard.  It may actually be the most difficult genre to work in when it comes to movies and television.  There are successful ones, for sure, but the bad greatly outnumbers the good.  There are so many ways to go wrong with making a comedy.  The story, or the jokes, or the timing might be off and could cause the comedy to feel wrong.  The jokes could end up not being jokes at all.  They might end up being empty references to other things hoping to spark recognition within the audience.  Maybe the jokes are too offensive to the point that they aren’t funny anymore.  There needs to be the right balance of everything in comedy to make it work.  The surprise of the joke, the surprise of the punchline, the boundary pushing, the stupidity, the cleverness, and all the other things that can make for funny moments need to come together in the perfect way to make for a good comedy.

Mad Magazine tried their hand at filmmaking in 1980 when they produced the comedy Up the Academy.  The movie was basically a response to the success that National Lampoon had achieved two years earlier with Animal House.  If National Lampoon, a competing comedy magazine, could have success with a film in that way, Mad Magazine surely could too.  Right?  Wrong.  Up the Academy didn’t have any of the charm of Animal House, and was instead an unfunny, annoying hour and a half of film.

Up the Academy is a 1980 comedy about four kids who end up in a military school run by a creepy older man.  It stars Ralph Macchio as Chooch, Wendell Brown as Ike, Hutch Parker as Oliver, and Tommy Citera as Hash.  The leader of the school is Major Vaughn Liceman, played by Ron Leibman in an uncredited role.  In fact, when he saw the final product that was Up the Academy, he made sure his name got taken off the film.  Not that you wouldn’t know it was him in the very prominent role.  The movie was directed by Robert Downey Sr., and featured Robert Downey Jr. in a small, uncredited role, according to IMDb.

Where do I start with what I have to say about Up the Academy?  The movie starts by introducing each of the children in their own short segments.  The ones that really stood out to me were Ike’s segment and Hash’s segment.  When Ike got introduced to the audience, it was in a strange way.  He was sleeping with his dad’s wife or girlfriend or whatever she was.  His dad was yelling at him like some sort of preacher or civil rights leader, but more offensive.  Basically, it was racially offensive and alluded to statutory rape.  Really weird.  Then there was Hash’s introduction which was one of the most racist attempts at humor I’ve seen against Middle Eastern people.  Jokes about sheiks and burkas.  I still haven’t figured out why Hash, a Middle Eastern teen was going to an American military school.  Oh, and he’s a thief too.  That’s how we are introduced to the main characters of the movie.

The rest of Up the Academy is the same way with the humour.  The jokes are offensive without the writing ever having the common courtesy to make it funny.  There is a ten minute chase where the punchline is that there are Ku Klux Klan members chasing the kids because one of them is black.  There are no real laughs to the joke.  It’s just a lot of driving in circles.  They chose racy material to make a joke and it feels as though the joke was forgotten in there somewhere.

There are a few decent jokes in Up the Academy, however.  There’s one pretty great one involving the burning down of a grocery store.  It doesn’t sound funny from that, but there’s an actual punchline to it, unlike so many of the other offensive jokes littered throughout the eighty minute runtime.  There are also a few sexual harassment moments that Major Liceman has that get a little bit of a chuckle from me as I think back on them.  Other than that stuff, most of the movie was groan worthy in terms of jokes.

Another thing about Up the Academy felt tossed together for a quick buck.  That thing would be the music in the movie.  There are some good songs but they feel so varied and out of place that the music brings down the movie.  It seems like thought was put into making a soundtrack filled with good songs, when time and effort should have been put into finding the right songs for the different moments.  A soundtrack should be both pleasant to the ears and fitting of the material.  The cohesion was missing throughout the movie and threw off the tone.

I feel like I would be doing a disservice to the people reading, to the movie, and to myself if I didn’t mention the best aspect.  This would be the performance of Ron Leibman, who people of my generation would probably recognize as Rachel’s father in the television show Friends.  As bad as the material and the final product are, Leibman manages to make the most of his role.  He works well as the leader of the military school with his weird ticks and mannerisms.  He brings the character to life in a way that seems almost perfect.  I can’t imagine anyone else in that role.  Props to him for that, even if he wanted his name taken off the film.  Best part of a terrible movie is still a best part.  I’d put him up there with some of the best performances I have seen in bad movies.

That’s about all I have to say about Up the Academy.  I’d personally just like to put this movie behind me and never watch it again.  One viewing of it is enough for me.  After seeing the movie, I can completely understand why Mad Magazine never made another movie.  We wouldn’t want a whole bunch of Up the Academy style movies coming from them, would we?  There tends to be some good to come from every bad movie, or a way to look at a bad movie as a positive.  There was in this case.  But movies really come down to entertainment and a whole series of Up the Academy style comedies would not be all that entertaining.  So… As much as I would still be hopeful that Mad Magazine could have produced something good, I am glad they didn’t make another movie like this.

And now I am at the notes:

• Other movies I’ve seen for the Sunday “Bad” Movies that I think are terrible but had a good or great performance in them are New Year’s Eve (Zac Efron), and Jack and Jill (Al Pacino).
• National Lampoon, who I mentioned in this post, have been featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies with their first two Dorm Daze movies.
• Have you seen Up the Academy?  What did you think about Mad Magazine’s first and only foray into film?  Did you find anything good in it?  Am I editorializing too much with these notes?  There’s a comments section that you can use to discuss this post.
• The comments section can also be used to suggest future movies for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  What do you want me to watch for posts in the future? If you want a different place to suggest them to me, you can try my twitter, or my email sundaybadmovies@gmail.com.
• Next week’s movie is going to be a movie called 7 Below.  I don’t know much about the movie, but it does feature Val Kilmer, Ving Rhames, and Luke Goss, so there’s that to look forward to.  You’ll find out more about it next week.  See you then.