THROW UP THE ACADEMY

UP THE ACADEMY (1980)
dir: Robert Downey

Probably because of the success National Lampoon had with Animal House, MAD decided they should do a movie, but instead of producing it and having their writers concieve one, they put their name on a comedy that was already in production. It closed on its opening weekend, two of the actors took their names off, and MAD was ashamed and and they took their name off any video release as well. This two-page parody was their apology for it in place of their letters section.

MAD #218, October 1980
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres

MAD artist Jack Rickard had done a few dozen movie posters for comedies in the “chicken fat” style, the kind where everything that happens in the movie takes place on the poster. I don't know if they or the studio chose him.

A mafia boss has a son who misbehaves (Ralph Macchio), The son of an oil shiek that is constantly stealing (Tommy Citera), the son of a Farrakhanesque preacher who fools around with his stepmother (Wendell Brown), and the son of a mayoral candidate, Oliver, that got his girlfriend pregnant (Hutch Parker) are all sent to a military academy.

They must have thought their strict instructor at Weinberg Academy (Ron Liebman) saying “Say it again..” over and over would catch on among water coolers and high schools everywhere but the few who saw it were probably annoyed. Their head instructor (Barbara Bach) was to sexy for the students, some of whom masturbated in class. They frame the instructor by getting Oliver's girlfriend (Stacy Nelkin) to seduce him, creating a scandal that gets them all expelled. She's drawn as a different person than the one the splash page,

The imitation of foreigners and sex with underage girls could not be what turned audiences off, since those things were still acceptable then. Most likely the creepy prosthetic Alfred E. Neuman in the beginning and end credits and ads is what scared people away.

Here's another example of the humor from the movie.