So I was digging through my attic tonight, because I had nothing better to do on a Friday night, and I came across these:



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The Police Academy action figures! These were based on the very weak Police Academy cartoon that ran for two seasons in the late 80's. They were "based" on the films, using most of the more popular characters. What I always found weird about the show was that the cadets of different movies would interact such as Sweetchuck and House, even though House wasn't an actual cadet until the 5th movie, while Sweetchuck left after the 4th. However, the bad guys in the show were entirely made up. Of the 13 characters that were produced, I have 10 of them. Strangely enough, neither Hooks or Callahan were made, and it's strange that they never got around to making Lassard either.



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First up we have Carey Mahoney. In the movies, Mahoney was played by talented actor Steven R. Guttenberg. Guttenberg would play the role in the first 4 movies. He's voiced by Ron Rubin in the animated series. The Mahoney figure was the first figure I got as a kid, and was one of my favorites. When you squeezed Mahoney's legs, his right arm would move up and down. You could attach either a nightstick or a pistol to his hand, which creates awesome realism in case you ever wanted to reenact the Rodney King incident. Mahoney also came with a dog named Samson, who you could fill with water and squirt. Samson did not appear in any of the movies. There was a second Mahoney figure made in the second wave of figures, where he was "undercover", but the figure sucked.



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Next up, we have Mahoney's partner in crime, Larvell Jones. Jones is easily the most recognizable character from the movies. His vocal impersonations and sound effects provided some of the best comedy of the series. Michael Winslow played Jones throughout the 7 movies. Greg Morton did the voice on the show. Although, I really liked this figure as a kid, it has some major flaws. First off, it's made of an entirely different kind of plastic, almost like fiber glass sort of. The entire top portion of this figure is painted, so any rough play would chip the fuck out of him. Also, you can't tell from the picture but his shirt contains the Police Academy insignia, which placing your fingers on it could cause it to smear. Jones' left arm can be pressed, causing his mouth to open and shut. Unfortunately, he can no longer hold his megaphone or his walkie talkie. Plus the megaphone doesn't work (it used to make a whistling sound if I recall). There was a second Jones figure in the second, where he was dressed for karate, but the figure sucked.



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Another memorable character from the franchise was Eugene Tackleberry, played by David Graf, who appeared in all 7 movies.There are talks of doing an 8th (*sigh*...I know) Police Academy movie, which is unfortunate for us, since Tackleberry was easily one of the best. He was played by Dan Hennessy in the cartoon series. This figure is pretty awesome overall, the arms move up and down and they can be adjusted from left to right from the elbows. There's a flack jacket that can attach several weapons to. His goggles and be put up or down and if you squeeze his legs, he can draw up his guns so quickly that it would make Sergio Leone proud. There was a second Tackleberry figure in the second series, where he was a half assed version of this one with a bazooka, but the figure sucked.



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Next is Moses Hightower. Hightower was one of my lesser favorite characters in the movies, because he didn't really have a character, he was just big. And the guy who played him, Bubba Smith always delivered his lines so flat and boring that it didn't do much for him. He had a few decent moments, but not many. Hightower was also voiced by Greg Morton. As far as the figure goes...well...he's a cool figure, but he looks nothing like Bubba Smith. I know most of the cartoon characters were changed, but this one always bothered me the most. Where's his fucking mustache? This figure was also the only one who bent at the knees, allowing for him to be the only cadet to perform oral sex on a standing person and to physically drive the squad car, which is ironic if you consider what Hightower did to cars in the first movie. He also comes with a tiny yellow scooter, which he could lift over his head and if you pushed his legs together, he could throw it. Yeah! Who needs a fuckin' scooter!? Hightower didn't receive a second figure, but if he did, I would imagine he would come dressed with a blonde wig.



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Closing out the first series wave of cadets is Zed McGlunk. Zed appeared in the 2nd through 4th movies and was played by Bobcat Goldthwait. He's actually one of the reasons why I liked the later movies, simply because he was so goofy. I know a lot of people who complain about how the first movie was good and the following movies sucked, and while I understand where they're coming from, I have to disagree. There were several uninteresting characters in the first film and the following three movies allowed for us to dispose of the ones who were uninteresting and replace them with cooler characters. I mean would you rather watch Cadet George Martin or Cadet Zed? And since Police Academy later was targeted towards kids, I think they made the right move. Zed was voiced by Dan Hennessy in the cartoon. I liked this figure as a kid, but honestly...it sort of sucks. The camera would not take a good enough picture of his face, but you're not missing much, since he looks mentally retarded. His legs don't move up and down but can be shifted left and right. Whoever designed this thing really fucked up on his right foot, which looks like it was caught in a heavy piece of machinery. If you look on Zed's poor excuse for a uniform, you'll see a pair of hands with handcuffs. This was actually another Police Academy toy that Kenner made that you could play with, but I never bought them. Zed also comes with a removable hat, a very basic green cadet skateboard and there's a button on his ass, which causes his shorts to fall down exposing his 80's heart undies. There was a second Zed figure in the second wave of figures, where he was a hang glider , but the figure sucked.



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The one and only figure I have from the second series is Carl Sweetchuck. It's also one of the few figures I didn't originally own as a kid. Up until a few years ago, he was pretty hard to find even on Ebay. The only reason I picked this up about 10 years ago was because I felt it would compliment the Zed figure, since their bickering in the movies was always fun to watch. Sweetchuck was portrayed in the 2nd through 4th movies by Tim Kazurinsky and voiced by Howard Morris in the show. What I find funny about this figure is it looks a hell of a lot more like Cadet Fackler, whom wasn't nearly as cool in the movies. Anyways, this figure is decent, the one thing that bothered me about the second series was how there were so few new cadet figures and a lot of rehashes of the first series. You can wind Sweetchuck's right arm and then press his left arm, which allows for him to spin his flashlight into the testicles of whoever is unfortunate enough to be standing next to him. He also comes with a fire hydrant to hide in, at least until Samson decides to come by and take a leak on him. There are several really stupid stickers on the inside, one shows a shelf that contains vitamins, bandages, jellybeans, a baseball and a toothbrush with fresh toothpaste on, and then there's another shelf that has Sweetchuck's music collection which includes rock, blues, and boogie. There's another sticker that reads "call Mom". What the fuck, Chuck?



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And while Sweetchuck is somewhat rare, Captain Thadeus Harris is next to impossible to find. I have seen him a grand total of 2 times on Ebay and neither one was a complete figure. You see, this figure was a mail away, and for some weird reason, must've been made in small quantities. Harris was played by G.W. Bailey, who was the main antagonist in 5 of the 7 movies. Originally, he wasn't set to come back, but after Art Metrano (Lt. Mauser) suffered a legit back injury, he came back to the franchise. In a way, it actually worked out better since Bailey's performance was only enhanced when he inherited Proctor (Lance Kinsey). He was voiced by Len Carlson. Again, the cartoon takes severe liberties with the look of the character. I was SHOCKED when I recieved this in the mail and noticed he was bald. Not only that, he looks smaller than the other figures, despite being the same height. Harris comes with binoculars, his trusty baton and his hat with "wig" inside, which has a hole in it. In fact part of his hat is literally embedded to his head for some reason, I have no idea why they decided to do that. Like a lot of the other figures, when you squeeze his legs together, he would do a salute, which causes his hat to fall off.



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Finally, onto the bad guys. Up first, we have my favorite bad guy, Mr. Sleaze. I have to think that this guy was modeled after Rene Auberjonois' character "Tony" from Police Academy 5. Along with Mahoney, he was the first figures I got. He comes with a little dog named FooFoo, which is disguised as a poodle or something, but under the disguise is a mutt that looks like Sleaze. Unfortunately, I couldn't get Foo Foo to stand up straight, so I had to lean him against Sleaze. My favorite thing about Sleaze, is that when you squeeze his legs, he puts his hands up, as to surrender, but his tie flies up revealing a gun underneath. I couldn't find who Sleaze was voiced by, which was the same for the other bad guys.



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Next up is The Claw. Outside of the shitty name, this figure is on par with Sleaze. He was also the last figure from the original line that I bought. Out of all the figures, I think he has the most going on. Not only does he have a large propeller on his back, which spins, but he has a fishing pole that comes with a cat named Mouser (no relation to Mr. Metrano). As you can see, the pole broke when it was in storage, which totally sucks since the cat doesn't stand on it's own.



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Speaking of sucks, I've saved the shittiest figure for last. This is Numbskull. I can only assume that he's a bouncer for the Blue Oyster Bar. I mean look at him! There's nothing remotely interesting about him compared to the other characters. He's basically a pin head that wears different helmets. There is one thing I've noticed about this character is that there's a chase figure where the colors of his helmets are reversed, but I don't believe it's worth anything. Anyways, you push his left arm and it causes his head to go up and down, like a ventriloquist dummy. When killing off the bad guys when I was playing as a kid, Numbskull always got it first and the most gruesome. I hated this guy.



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Along with figures, there were several other accessories you could buy including a Police station. However, I only got so far as the car and motorcycle. Both of which are pretty decent. As I said before, only Hightower fits in the car properly, everyone else can't sit their asses on the seats. There's several places you can push on the car, which allows for it to split into different pieces. What's weird is under the hood of the car, there's some guy. Who is that? I don't have a fucking clue. Maybe it's an escaping crook, maybe it's an illegal immigrant, who fucking knows. The motorcycle is a tad cooler. I always put Tackleberry on there, since he was already wearing a helmet. There's a button in the back, that allows for the seat to launch the driver off, because road accidents are fun. It also comes with training wheels for some reason, but they can be removed, just like almost everything else on the bike. This was actually pretty fun, because it made wrecking quite realistic for those PSAs I used to act out as a kid. Wear a helmet!~

And that's it. That's a good chunk of my childhood right there. My major complaint is the lack of characters in the second series. There were 3 other character figures that were made that I never picked up. Kingpin, Flung Hi and House. Both Kingpin and Flung Hi were racist stereotypes that served worse as action figures, that lacked anything special to them. House on the other hand is as rare as the Sweetchuck figure, but I didn't really desire to have it due to the sharp decline of the movies after the 4th. I know a lot of people who hated the movies and everything associated with them, including the toys/ I think I got most of these figures on clearance at KMart as a kid, so I didn't shell out any real cash or anything. And when you're a young kid, you don't mind as much, it's all nostalgia, much like the movies are anymore. Sure, they were never really that good and in fact I wouldn't watch them nowadays, but I loved the franchise up until I was like 9 and that cesspool 7th movie came out.




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"Oh yeah, give it to me Hightower!"

aeonic wrote:

God, this just made me think of the Food Fighters figures that're in storage somewhere in PA at my grandmother's house.

I actually have the full set of those as well, that I might review one of these days. They're a little worse for wear and I lost most of the weapons, but most of the figures are intact and in decent shape.

I was in contact with a guy who has a crapload of chase figures from this line that I never heard of, including a Zed which somehow had black shorts instead of blue ones.



Not included was a Numbskull figure who had red attire instead of purple, thus making him much cooler.