This was definitely one of my numerous childhood memory movies from the 1980s along with "Back to the future", "The breakfast club", "Ferris bueler", "Caddyshack", The "Karate kid" films, and the "National Lampoon vacation" films. And many others."Back to School" and Rodney Dangerfield went together like cake and icing. The movie would obviously not been the same without him, it would've then been another quirky raunchy college comedy.I liked Rodney's (Thorton Melon's) tough friend Lou (Burt Young, who also played a tough "you better not mess with me" character in "Rocky"). Lou didn't hesitate to take care of a bully picking fights in a bar. Even Thornton's son's friend Robert Downey Jr. cries to Lou during the fight "where you been Lou? I've been getting my a** kicked all over this bar!" Downey did toughen up some in later years, but not always in good ways.Thornton's son Jason was played by Keith Gordon, another one-hit wonder actor that I never remembered from any other movies. Jason complains how he only got onto the diving team and the fraternity because Pops bought his way onto it all, which was true. Before that, he was no one special to anyone really and shared a little dorm room with his only friend Downy. Jason didn't make the team due to the coach (Emett Walsh) saying he wasn't that good. Rodney has Jason dive doing the "two and a half", which does flawlessly, causing the coach to reconsider his opinion. Thorton also reminds him about his legendary dive "the triple lindy", which the coach once saw not knowing it was Thorton. Thornton was a man with money from owning his "Tall and fat" stores ("well, you're short and ugly" Thornton tells a wise** kid who points out that he's "Tall and fat"). Thornton really did buy a lot of Jason's newfound success, including hiring a work team to do his and Jason's homework, much to Jason's dispair and his dad then retorting "kids, they always wanta do it the hard way". Also a funny joke is that Thorton hires 'the' Kurt Vahnaghan himself to write his term paper on Kurt Vahnaghan, leading to another funny joke when Thornton's told by sultry teacher Sally Kellerman that "whoever wrote that paper doesn't know the first thing on Kurt Vahnaghan". Thorton takes a "drinks for everybody" approach at the university, according to Roger Ebert. That he does. He buys everybody's schoolbooks who's present at the college store, he hires staff to do his and Jason's homework, he hires Oinga Boinga themselves to perform live at his frat house party (and pays the police to bring the beer, much to stuffy teacher Paxton Whithead's dismay), and he dedicates a wing at the college to himself while getting dirt thrown on Paxton with the ceremonial shovel.Thorton paying Jason's way also gets attention of the obnoxious William Zabka character, he tells Jason at the swim meet "your father already bought your way onto the swim team, I'm sure he bought off the judges too". Zabka does not play the same kind of menacing bully in this movie that he played in "Karate kid" and "Just one of the guys". Here he plays more of a yuppie snob, and Jason is actually the one that punches him, and Zabka never even hits him back or comes back onto him later about it. It was kinda like the tables had turned here on Zabka. I also like the classroom scenes and still find them funny. The late Sam Kinneson going "Ahhhhhhh!!!! Aaaaaahhhh!!!!". The sultry Kellerman (who Thorton very keenly starts dating) who reads a romantic poem with Thorton almost unknowingly standing up in class saying aloud " yes!! yes!!!" Then the stuffy Paxton Whithead's business class teaching how to build a business from the ground up and Thorton, who has a lot of hands on experience in the business world and is rich "Tall and fat" business owner himself, corrects Paxton making him look bad at every turn. Also is the "what's a widget?" line. Answer being "a fictional product, it doesn't matter". They should've waited another 20-30 years to mention that one in the world of the internet. No longer a fictional product and widgets do matter.

The late Rodney Dangerfield was a stand-up comic full of one liners, a latter day Henny Youngman. ("Take my wife -- please.") He's worked some amusing wisecracks into this movie too.Dangerfield is the wealthy businessman whose son isn't doing well in school, and Dangerfield decides to enroll and help him through. The filming was done at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.It has its amusing moments. When an assignment involves doing an essay on Karl Vonnegut, Dangerfield hires Vonnegut to write the paper for him. But it isn't as keen as it might be, for a couple of reasons.It's not a pure comedy like, oh, "One, Two, Three", "The In Laws", or "The Freshman." The narrative follows the well-worn path of introducing misunderstanding towards the end, followed by a triumphant celebration of the conflict's resolution.That's pretty dreary, and another problem is that Rodney Dangerfield is a stand-up comic, not an actor. He delivers his lines with a high quotient of bluster, as if addressing a night club audience. Whether the lines are supposed to be serious or funny makes no difference.Oddly enough, since it looks like a family movie, Dangerfield comes up with some risqué jokes. In a Jacuzzi with a couple of bimbos he makes a remark about his class in English literature and expresses the hope that they can help him out with his Longfellow.Nobody else puts in a notable performance. How could they? Yet Terry Farrell as the nearly edible girl friend of Dangerfield's son is memorable. She hardly has anything to do, so I wonder why. I'm pondering it, I'm pondering it.

Millionaire businessman Thornton Melon is upset when his son Jason announces that he is not sure about staying at college. Thornton insists that college is the best thing for him, and to prove his point, he agrees to enroll in school along with his son. Thornton is a big hit on campus: always throwing the biggest parties, knowing all the right people, but is this the way to pass college?.....Here in the UK, Dangerfield is a drama that was shown on the BBC back in the nineties starring some bloke your mum used to fancy, because he looked trustworthy, not a stand up comedian.So the only thing I've ever seen him in is Natural Born Killers. I knew of him, but the only films of this that had anything near a prolific release here were, Ladybugs, Rover Dangerfield, and this.And if it wasn't for him, this would have been your average fish out of water comedy,that would have had mild success, because during this stage of the eighties, college movies were the fashion, so to speak.But he lights up every scene he's in, treating the film like a stand-up routine rather than a narrative, and this kind of hides the predictable fish out of water cliché.But you find all the regular tropes that you would expect....The Professor who wants him to fail.... The Love interest who just happens to be seeing said professor..... The Jock who causes trouble..... The make or break exam..... And of course, the last minute act that saves the day......But it's never dull, there are a lot if laughs, and it's always good to see Downey Jr.A good addition to the sub-genre..

Back to School (1986) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Box office hit has Rodney Dangerfield playing Thorton Melon, a millionaire who decides to go back to school when his son (Keith Gordon) talks about dropping out. Melon is a hit on campus and even hits it off with one of his teachers (Sally Kellerman) but soon all the attention begins to push his son away. BACK TO SCHOOL is certainly a charming movie and it certainly has some funny moments but overall I don't think it works as well as it could have. For the most part the entire story is poorly written and there's really not too much that happens. The entire father-son relationship just comes off fake and especially towards the end when they have a falling out. This here leads to some scenes that are meant to be touching but they just come off rather melodramatic. Another problem I had is that there really aren't any funny moments that just happen. In other words, all of the funny material comes from Dangerfield's one-liners that he basically just looks into the camera and says. Some of these are certainly funny but the way they're filmed it really takes you out of the movie. With all of that said, yes, there's no question that seeing Dangerfield back at school contains a certain cuteness that can't be denied. The actor does a good job in the role as he has no problem throwing out the jokes and he handles the more dramatic moments just fine even if they are melodramatic. Burt Young does his typical good performance as does Kellerman in her role. Robert Downey, Jr. isn't too bad in his brief role and we get brief but entertaining spots by M. Emmet Walsh, Ned Beatty and Adrienne Barbeau. I found Gordon's performance somewhat annoying and the same with the quick cameo by Sam Kinison. BACK TO SCHOOL is pretty much pure 80s in term of its style and comedy. The cast makes it much better than it actually is but fans of Dangerfield will still want to check it out.