Up The Academy/Fun Facts

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< Up The Academy

Uptheacadff.jpg

  • Ralph Macchio's film debut.
  • One of Robert Downey Jr's first films. He plays one of the kids on the soccer team.
  • 'J. Hutchison' is better known as Hutch Parker - brother of Parker Stevenson, and presently President of Production for 20th Century Fox Studios.
  • Originally conceived as "Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy", this was an attempt cash in on the magazine's reputation following the National Lampoon's success with Animal House (1978). The editorial staff at Mad Magazine disowned the movie in print and gave it a two page treatment, explicitly pointing out that Ron Leibman had the good sense to have his name removed from the credits. Ultimately, this would be Mad's last attempt at producing live-action entertainment until MADtv (1995) nearly 20 years later.
  • After viewing an early screening of the film, actor Ron Leibman ("Major Vaughn Liceman") requested his name removed from the final film credits.
  • True to form, Mad Magazine ran a mini-parody of their own film called "Mad Magazine Resents: 'Throw Up the Ecchadamy'".
  • Rick Baker created the "Afred E. Neuman" masks used in the beginning and end of the film.
  • Part of a mini-cycle of Hollywood movies made during the early 1980s centering around military cadet training. The pictures include Taps (1981), Stripes (1981), Private Benjamin (1980), Up the Academy (1980), The Lords of Discipline (1983) and An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). Then the mid-late 1980s saw a few more: Cadence (1990), Biloxi Blues (1988), Heartbreak Ridge (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987).
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