YMMV / Police Academy

• And You Thought It Would Fail: After leaving the premiere, Steve Guttenberg's agent told him, "I'm getting you into a TV series as soon as possible; this is gonna be the biggest bomb in history." Granted, it would be 6 movies later, and after Guttenberg had long abandoned the series...
• Awesome Music:
  • Most people who've seen the movie will probably start laughing after just hearing the first few notes of "El Bimbo"
  • While opinions certainly vary on the quality of the films themselves, most viewers can agree that the main Police Academy March is a genuinely great theme, to the point that real police, fire and EMS training programs have used it for graduation ceremonies.
  • "Riot Gear" by Robert Folk, from the first film when the riot starts and the academy assemble to combat it.
  • "I'm Gonna Be Somebody" by Jack Mack & The Heart Attacks that plays over the closing credits of the first film.
• Bile Fascination: Mission to Moscow. It came out five years after City Under Siege after the others were released on an annual basis, made less than $130,000, and was one of the first films shot in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Naturally, people will be curious.
• Contested Sequel: Back in Training. Some consider it to be where the series started going downhill, for embracing full-on slapstick humor and Status Quo Is God. However, those who actually like that sort of humor consider it to be one of, if not the best film in the series, for starring the series' best-known ensemble of characters, and being able to dive into the action right away with only minimal time needed for set-up.
• Crazy Is Cool: Zed; he is clearly insane and constantly screaming. What's not to love?
• Critical Dissonance: The series was always critically panned during its run. Some will try to tell you that only the first film was good, but even that received a critical drubbing (Roger Ebert rated the original no stars, something he almost never did). And yet the original spawned six sequels, which doesn't happen to a series if absolutely nobody likes it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: There's a reason the third movie had Zed join the force. Also, depending who ask, Tackleberry, Jones, and Hightower.
• Fair for Its Day: The films and especially the first one, was made in the 80's so there's a lot of anti-gay language even from heroic characters that wouldn't fly today. On the other hand, there's a lot of racism directed at black characters that is meant to be bad, in a "hey, don't do this" kind of way.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: Blanks and Copeland are humiliated when they get really tight buzzcuts from the academy barber, mistakenly thinking it's the same as army regulations. Both of them actually look quite good.
• Fashion Dissonance: A sort of inversion with the buzzcuts Blanks and Copeland are unhappy they end up with. In The '80s, a buzzcut would be seen as extremely unfashionable, and no one outside of the army or Prematurely Bald would have their hair that short. By modern standards, they look fine.
• First Installment Wins: While the series is infamous for its Sequelitis and there are debates about which sequel has it worse, nowadays it is agreed that the original was actually a rather good comedy (though ironically, even that one was originally panned).
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series has gained a Cult Classic status in Soviet Union and later Russia, becoming an interesting introduction into the world of American comedy for people behind the Iron Curtain. It's one of the reasons the seventh movie takes place in Moscow.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Some viewers are bound to find much of the humor with Tackleberry's careless gun use less funny nowadays. One good example is the early scene in the sixth movie where he nearly shoots his own father-in-law after mistaking him for a burglar. Many actual deaths have occurred since then from careless gun use.
  • Just the fact that the Jerkass duo of Blankes and Copeland (their one saving grace being following his orders) are the only cadets Harris approves of, considering the rise in police brutality in the decades that followed. Copeland outright using racial slurs makes this even moreso, although he does face consequences for this the second time he does it.
  • Mauzer's overly boot camp-style academy in Back In Training is less funny with the rise of controversial police militarization.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • In the first film, Barbara lamenting Hightower’s dismissal from the academy, saying that he thought of all of them, he would make it. He then adds that “if all cops looked like him, there’d be no crime at all.”
  • In City Under Siege, Proctor commanders a bus to chase the Mastermind... and also picks up the people on the bus’ route. Stopping to let them off, a little girl about to disembark tells him that he’s much better than the regular driver. Proctor’s beaming smile at the compliment and parting salute to the girl warms the cockles of one’s heart.
  • Harris mellowing out a little bit and working together with the rest of the team in Mission to Moscow, finally upgrading from god-tier Jerkass to Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Rather than risk bungling it, he trusts Tackleberry to make a difficult shot to plant a surveillance bug on a moving vehicle (even addressing him with an informal "Tack" as he hands over the gun), and is seen at the very end happily whooping it up with the others on horseback.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When it's his turn for target shooting practice in the first movie, Tackleberry dons a pair of shades, holds up the shotgun he's given and tells the observing officer "Come with me" in a deep voice. Despite the reference seeming obvious, this movie actually came out seven months before The Terminator.
  • In Assignment: Miami Beach, Nick Lassard deals with a kidnapper by apparently giving him the Vulcan nerve pinch (actually using anaesthetic). The following year, Matt McCoy, who played Nick, appeared in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some people will watch the movies just for the guy that makes noises.
• Love to Hate: Lieutenant Harris (later Captain). G.W. Bailey's glorious Ham and Cheese performance makes him more fun to watch the bigger an asshole he's being.
• Replacement Scrappy: Nick Lassard and Connors, neither of whom are anywhere near as memorable as Mahoney. In addition, the former lacks Mahoney's charming charisma and mostly comes off as a smirking tool, while the latter is just generally bland and forgettable. Mauser also comes off as a poor substitute for Harris by having all of the same authoritarian smugness without the entertaining hamminess that makes Harris such a good comedic foil for the protagonists' antics.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Kim Cattrall as Karen Thompson in Police Academy.
  • David Spade as a young recruit in Citizens on Patrol in one of his first movie roles.
  • Sharon Stone as Mahoney's love interest in the fourth movie, years before the one-two punch of Star Making Roles in Total Recall and Basic Instinct.
• Sequelitis: As a general rule, each sequel is considered weaker than the last. The first four are generally considered watchable to some degree (if you can overlook the fact that Citizens on Patrol is nearly a carbon-copy of the previous film), but Assignment Miami Beach is seen as where the series really started to get bad, with Mission to Moscow being where it completely bottomed out. Bobcat Goldthwait on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, when Jay Leno poked fun at him for appearing in the film series, said: "We had to make six of them. There were so many unanswered questions."
• Special Effect Failure: Assignment Miami Beach has two glaring examples, namely the shark that Tackleberry scares off early in the film, and the crocodile/alligator (which actually changes species between stock footage and the mechanical model) that attacks Harris near the end.
• Squick: Mahoney's new partner Vinnie Schtulman's introduction has him flicking a large lump out of his cereal bowl, admonishing his cat for not using the litterbox, and then keep eating the cereal. Eeeugh. According to Donovan Scott himself, this scene was part of why he noped out of reprising his role as Leslie Barbara from the first film (the character was then rewritten into Schtulman).
• Strawman Has a Point: Chief Hurst and Lt. Harris of the first film. In any other situation, having people like some of the cadets who obviously don't meet realistic fitness requirements, educational levels, and medical standards to be effective cops allowed into the Academy would be extremely foolish. But due to them being Genre Blind and Jerkasses the message is lost.
• Values Dissonance: There's a LOT of anti-gay language in the first movie that was fine in the 80s, but would be unacceptable by today's standards, now that gay people are no longer considered acceptable targets of mockery (e.g. Mahoney's throwaway line "Sleep is for fags" and Tackleberry trying not to fall asleep after that). The entirety of the Blue Oyster Bar Running Gag would today be seen as incredibly distasteful at best.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Oh, lord. These movies were not for kids (while they did get Lighter and Softer with each sequel, the first in particular earned an R rating). Everything else connected to them was, though.

---