History Film / Stripes

* OpenSaysMe: Subverted then hilariously played straight - John and Russell try to rescue their captured unit from a cell by blowing up the locked door with a bomb, which fails. Then [[TheBigGuy John Candy's character]] Ox (who's inside the cell among the prisoners) decides to run screaming at the door, and smashes it open.
** Actually, Ox was charging at the whining Stillman, [[NeverMyFault who was blaming them for the predicament they were now in]], but who had the good sense to get out of the way of a charging 300-lb avalanche.

* [[CaliforniaDoubling Kentucky Doubling]]: Pretty much the entire movie was filmed in and around Louisville, with Fort Knox portraying the Army base and a disused Jim Beam distillery playing the Czech Red Army outpost.
** Very, very discreetly hinted at in the recruiting scene; the storefront the boys "park" in front of was Morguelan Walsh, a Louisville-based wholesale drug company.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Besides the UsefulNotes/ColdWar setting, John and Russell are asked by an army recruiter whether either of them are homosexual, which points itself to pre-1994, before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" first allowed LGBT people to serve in the military.
** Even more HilariousInHindsight, since they are "willing to learn."

John Winger (Murray) is a slacker who convinces his friend Russell Ziskey (Ramis) to join the U.S. Army. The two of them have a miserable time in basic training, but eventually their drill sergeant (Oates) gets injured in a training exercise and they have to finish the training on their own. The night before graduation day they stay up all night, show up late for the parade, and put on one hell of a show for the generals. In the end, they are assigned to guard the new EM-50 urban assault vehicle in Italy.

* ReasonableAuthorityfigure: Sgt. Hulka. He ''genuinely'' cares of his subordinates.

* {{Badass}}: Sergeant Hulka isn't just a DrillSergeantNasty - during the climax of the film he also proves himself to be a legitimate badass when he sneaks behind the Iron Curtain to recover the EM-50.

* SoundOff: A hilarious version, where the platoon uses the song "Doo Wah Diddy" as a jody call.

* AxCrazy: Francis 'Psycho' Soyer, who threatens to kill his squadmates if they touch him or his stuff, or call him anything other than Psycho.

A 1981 military comedy directed by Ivan Reitman, starring Creator/BillMurray and Creator/HaroldRamis.

John Winger (Murray) is a slacker who convinces his friend Russell Ziskey (Ramis) to join the U.S. Army. The two of them have a miserable time in basic training, but eventually their drill sergeant gets injured in a training exercise and they have to finish the training on their own. The night before graduation day they stay up all night, show up late for the parade, and put on one hell of a show for the generals. In the end, they are assigned to guard the new EM-50 urban assault vehicle in Italy.

A 1981 movie starring Creator/BillMurray and Creator/HaroldRamis. ''Stripes'' is a military comedy about a slacker named John Winger (Murray) who convinces his friend Russell Ziskey (Ramis) to join the army. The two of them have a miserable time in basic training, but eventually their drill sergeant gets injured in a training exercise and they have to finish the training on their own. The night before graduation day they stay up all night, show up late for the parade, and put on one hell of a show for the generals. In the end, they are assigned to guard the new EM-50 urban assault vehicle in Italy.

-> ''We're all very, very different, but there is one thing that we all have in common: we were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army!''
-->--'''John Winger'''

* CaliforniaDoubling: Pretty much everything set in Europe was shot somewhere around Louisville, KY (like most of the rest of the movie) or in California. The Russian base in particular was an old bourbon distillery.

* AxeCrazy: Francis 'Psycho' Soyer, who threatens to kill his squadmates if they touch him or his stuff, or call him anything other than Psycho.

* CoolOldGuy: Hulka, who despite his demeanor is a FatherToHisMen, going as a OneManArmy to rescue his men (though he has help.)

* EagleLand: Most of the main characters are distinctly Type 2 (as Winger puts it, America got started because they got kicked out of every decent country), but still trying to be Type 1. PlayedForLaughs.

* {{Expy}}: Francis 'Psycho' Soyer is fairly obviously based on [[TaxiDriver Travis Bickle]].

* NoKillLikeOverkill: Psycho during bayonet training. He knocks the dummy off the frame supporting it and stabs it over and over again while cursing furiously.

** Not to mention the Red in the tower, when he [[MuggingTheMonster sees the rocket launcher come out of the top of the EM-50, pointed at ''him''.]]

* [[ReassignedToAntarctica Reassigned To Nome, Alaska]]: [[spoiler:Captain Stillman at the end.]]

* DrillSergeantNasty: Sergeant Hulka, though, befitting an Ivan Reitman comedy, he's more the dry and sarcastic type then a furiously aggressive type such as [[FullMetalJacket R. Lee Ermey.]] In fact, he's one of the few characters in the entire film who has much in the way of common sense.

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Sgt. Hulka can't help but let out a few guffaws at Winger's smart-assed "Big Toe" speech before promising to come back at 0500 to put that Big Toe where the sun don't shine.

* YanksWithTanks: Specifically, the aforementioned EM-50 armored recreational vehicle.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Besides the ColdWar setting, John and Russell are asked by an army recruiter whether either of them are homosexual, which points itself to pre-1994, before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" first allowed LGBT people to serve in the military.

* JerkAss: Winger. Most of the platoon (initially) hated him for his failed attempts at playing smart with Hulka.

While John and Russell are guarding it, they decide to "borrow" it and go for a joyride to Germany. The rest of their squad comes after them, thinking that they're communist spies, but they take a wrong turn and get captured by the Soviets in Czechoslovakia. Winger and Russell come back to save their squad. When they come back to the states, somehow they all end up getting medals.

* BackedByThePentagon: Surprisingly true.

* EnforcedMethodActing: While shooting the boot camp scenes, director Ivan Reitman secretly told the actors as recruits to drag actor Warren Oates (Hulka) into the mud with them. Oates ended up chipping a tooth, and upon learning Reitman manipulated the whole thing, furiously [[WhatTheHellHero chewed him out]]. Since then, Reitman has never used enforced method acting in his films.

* StarMakingRole: Warren Oates, despite a long career in film prior. He died a year after the film's release, making two films that were released posthumously.
** This was also the film debut of Creator/HaroldRamis, who would later play Egon in ''{{Film/Ghostbusters}}''.

* ThrowItIn: Quite a bit of the comic dialogue was improvised by the actors. In particular, the scene where everyone explains why they joined was entirely improvised by the actors.