Police Academy
Quite frankly, this franchise was a bit of a blur for all of us. Seven movies, a TV series, a Saturday morning cartoon... at a certain point it all starts to run together a little bit.
And yet, this original film does have a few key differences from everything else that would follow - not the least of which is its R-rating. Police Academy was initially conceived as a way to capitalize on the success of raunchy comedies like Bachelor Party and Porky's, but the director wasn't a fan of that style of humor and tried to steer this in a less vulgar direction. As it turns out, you can definitely feel that struggle in the finished product.
Topics include: the real life event that inspired the premise of the film, how the director's unfamiliarity with the genre both helps and hurts the movie, the scenes he (unsuccessfully) lobbied the producers to remove, why just sticking to the formula may have been the best course of action in this case, how this was sustained for six sequels, what a reboot might look like, and much more!