Canada made the move in the late 1980’s from slashers to sex comedies, so it seemed. This next Police Academy ripoff concerns firefighters and was filmed days after a very similar 80’s sex on the job comedy, Recruits.

Writer, producer and star Mike Strapko — along with his brother and an actor named Goran Kalezic — were production assistants on that Wassanga Beach shot, Charlie Wiener-directed film.

Wiener made a TV movie called Blue Murder and Dragon Hunt in addition to this movie (he also wrote Screwball Hotel), so let me assure you — his scumbag skills are in full effect here.

We meet our heroes — such as they are — Sam (Kalezic), Keith (Eric Crabb) and Baduski (Strapko) as they leave the beach to fight a fire, which really ends up being a surprise party for the firefighting parrot Fireballs, who loves beer and breasts.

I really think I might never have to write again after that sentence.

The movie then becomes Gung Ho, as Japanese business owner Mr. Matsuro wants to bring his company to town, but thinks that the fire department can’t handle things. He wants to bring in his own team of Japanese fire fighting experts.

Can you believe I just wrote that?

Strapko was supposedly an actual firefighter, so one would assume he’d want to make the profession look more heroic than this. Actually, scratch that. He just wanted to see as many breasts as possible, much like the character he’s playing, which is really more John Belushi cosplay than anything.

This movie is my kind of film. It’s neither sexy nor funny, so the more that it attempts either, it actually becomes more of the latter. For example, the idea of a bird that is dubbed to sound like it’s swearing is mildly fine the first time, becomes grating and then annoying before becoming incoherently amazing. This is the kind of movie that demands to be watched with an entire table full of mind-altering substances and a group of people who refuse to judge it and instead demand that it get worse so that it gets better.

The movie comes and goes from You Tube — as either a non-sign or age-restricted sign-in — and the lastest upload can be enjoyed HERE. In lieu of a trailer, you can watch We Bare All’s review-homage to USA’s “Up All Night” airing of Fireballs, which features plenty of clips from the film.

Bert Convy directed one movie. This is it.

The rest of the world doesn’t remember it. I’d like to celebrate it for you, as it’s a monument to the late night cable stupidity that I spend a good chunk of my teen years on. Who am I lying to? I’ve spent a good portion of my life watching movies like this.

When TV Guide reviewed this movie, they said, “Honestly, there isn’t one moment in this alleged comedy that anyone over the age of seven would find even remotely funny.”

When I reviewed this movie, I stood on my couch and screamed, “I love Vic Tayback!” like some kind of imbecile.

Also known as Hollywood Air Force, this film is all about the adventures of Hollywood actors, stuntmen and writers who have been drafted into military service during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After getting in trouble, they must pass an inspection or be sent to actual military service. Led by Vince Tucker (Chris Lemmon), they use movie magic to appear that they look like they know what they’re doing.

In addition to the beloved Tayback, Lloyd Bridges, Matt McCoy (Sgt. Nick Lassard, of course), Tom Villard from We Got It Made and Deep Roy — yes, Fellini from Flash Gordon — all appear.

If you’re the kind of TV junkie who would get excited when E.Z. Taylor from the Three’s Company spin-off Three’s A Crowd shows up, much less also know that he was Kevin in The Final Terror, then this is a movie that you should come over to watch with me after this pandemic ends. Or maybe we’ll just watch it over the internet.

I spent lots of money to get this on DVD. Obviously, my love for the Police Academy movies — not to mention Christopher Lee and owning absolute junk on physical media — is unmatched.

You know what’s awesome about the world that we live in? Of all the movies to be amongst the first Western films to be shot in the Soviet Union, one of the Police Academy films would be one of them, lensing right in the midst of Red Square.

Commandant Eric Lassard (George Gaynes), Sergeant Larvell Jones (Michael Winslow), Sergeant Eugene Tackleberry (David Graf) and Captain Debbie Callahan (Leslie Easterbrook) are joined by Cadet Kyle  Connors (Charlie Schlatter) and the despised Capt. Thaddeus Harris (G. W. Bailey).

Wait? Where’s Captain Moses Hightower? Well, Bubba Smith was asked to return, but when he was told that Sergeant Laverne Hooks (Marion Ramsey) wouldn’t be involved, he quit. This is exactly like the scene in the first Police Academy, which kind of makes me emotional.

Russian gangster Konstantine Konali (Ron Perlman!) is using Tetris to launder money. Russian Commandant Alexandrei Nikolaivich Rakov (Christopher Lee!) beings in help from the man he met at a police convention, Commandant Lassard.

Hijinks, as they say, ensue.

Is that Claire Forlani? Is that original Mousketeer Lonnie Burr as a gay Russian? Would you believe that the October 4, 1993 assault on the Russian parliament building almost took out the entire production team?

For his part, Perlman considers his work in this movie “a public service”, as he felt that he shut down the series, exclaiming, “I’m not going to apologize. I did that piece of shit.”

He forgets — as does most of the rest of the non-bonkers world, that there was a 1997 syndicated Police Academy series that followed a new crew of recruits across 26 episodes. Only Winslow would return as Jones, but there were guest-starring roles for Easterbrook with Callahan becoming a district attorney, Art Metrano as Mauser, Gaynes as Lassard, Graf as Tackleberry, who is now a Captain, Colleen Camp appearing in archival footage and Tim Kazurinsky as Sweetchuck. Bubba Smith would finally come back as well, with Hightower being promoted to Captain in episode 19.

There was also a 65-episode cartoon series that spawned a comic book and Kenner action figure line, which is amazing when you consider that the original Police Academy movies earned their R rating.

While the TV series is unavailable on DVD or even streaming, the cartoon certainly is. It was animated by Toei. Yes, the same studio that made Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon.

Rich Correll was Richard Rickover on Leave It to Beaver and helped Harold Lloyd preserve his film as a teen, a role he still works on. He’s directed tons of TV, like a hundred episodes of Hanna Montana. He also produced the Police Squad! TV series and worked with Police Academy‘s Paul Maslansky to make this somewhat forgotten 1990 teen comedy.

Ray Walston and Martin Mull are the grown-up good and bad guys in this story of a ski lodge being sold to make a mall, because in 1990 malls and avarice were things, not that they aren’t things right now.

George Lopez and Paul Feig — yes, the very same man who would make Freaks and Geeks and less famously, the 2016 Ghostbusters  — make early appearances.

This was released the same year as Ski School, which got a sequel, while this movie had none of its planned follow-ups.

There’s a wacky guy who has multiple faces thanks to a mask that allows him to continually talk to himself. That’s pretty much the highlight of this film. I’d like to say that these are a genre in and out of themselves, but seeing as how this is posted during a week of Police Academy-ripoffs, I can tell you that they are basically beach movies, which are the same thing as Porky’s movies, which are the same thing as Meatballs ripoffs, which are also all really Animal House ripoffs.

I still watch every single one of them.

If you don’t think the world was a better place in 1980’s, let me tell you that it had both Hamburger: the Motion Picture and Hot Dog…The Movie come out. Perhaps these two cultural forces don’t matter to you. Well, then you’re part of the problem.

Between this and Youngblood, director Peter Markle pretty much laid claim to many an HBO time slot.

Patrick Houser is Harkin Banks, who has saved up all year to travel from Idaho to Squaw Valley to compete in the world freestyle skiing competition. Along the way, he picks up a teen runaway named Sunny (Tracy Smith, Bachelor Party) and joins the Rat Pack, a gang of goofball skiers led by Dan O’Callahan (David Naughton, An American Werewolf In London) and is tempted by Sylvia Fonda (1982 Playboy Playmate of the Year Shannon Tweed).

Of course, there’s the foreign menace, led by the Austrian superstar Rudi. By the end, everyone must battle in a Chinese Downhill to see who the best in the world really is.

Keep an eye out for Playboy Playmate of the Month for September 1971 Crystal Smith as the hotel clerk and Buddy Hackett’s son Sandy as a wet t-shirt contest host.

James Saito, who is Kendo and was the original Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, fooled the entire cast and crew for three weeks, convincing them that he could speak Japanese. The world was very different — and perhaps way more racist — in 1984. Otherwise, it was much better than 2020.

You can get the unrated producer’s cut of this movie on blu ray directly from Synapse.