One fact/correction with worth noting.

As ...

2009-01-12T16:54:00.000-05:00

One fact/correction with worth noting.

As detailed in the memoir "Good Days and Mad" by longtime MAD editor (and Match Game question writer) Dick DeBartolo, UP THE ACADEMY existed as its own film before Mad's involvement.

Warner Brothers, in fact, had contracted to create THE MAD MOVIE, a KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE-style sketch comedy using MAD characters and features, some of which would be animated.

After all, THE MAD SHOW had enjoyed a successful two-year Off-Broadway run in the 60s and, as you noted, NATIONAL LAMPOON had just proven that anything was possible at the box office.

The studio's one caveat was that they wanted to test the power of the MAD name on a theatrical release before shooting anything.

The title that got picked was UP THE ACADEMY.And you detailed exactly how the public reacted.

Warners dropped THE MAD MOVIE, and William Gaines reportedly sank into a pitch-black depression.

As an 11-year-old MAD worshipper, the fact that the movie was rated R really did hurt me.

When a full-color ad ran in the comics section of the Sunday New York Daily News, the insult added to injury was as sure as the gap in Alfred E. Neuman's gumline.

At 14, I caught up with the movie on video and was annoyed by its lack of nudity. If they had to rate it R, at least provide what, then, was the prerequisite of even a fair number of PG movies.

A few years ago, I met Harry Teinowitz, who plays Rodney. He's now a successful afternoon sports talk radio host in Chicago, and a good friend of Mr. Skin.

Harry signed my UP THE ACADEMY poster, but I couldn't get him drunk enough to do the laugh.

Semi-related: I interviewed Larry Flynt in 1994, and he told me that a script had been written for HUSTLER: THE MOVIE which he said would have been "a hard R comedy."

I asked if the failure of UP THE ACADEMY had anything to do with H:TM never getting made and he said he wasn't sure, but he remembered how bad it had bombed.

As I worked at HUSTLER then, I spent the next year combing the office for the HUSTLER: THE MOVIE script. No luck finding it.

Comments on Movies About Girls: Up the Academy (1980)

One fact/correction with worth noting. As ...

One fact/correction with worth noting.

As ...