YMMV / Stripes

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • If you watch the Extended Cut of the film, John and Russell try to desert during Basic, and somehow end up parachuting into somewhere in South America, before running into a group of rebels, accidentally dumping a bunch of LSD into their stew, almost getting killed, and sneaking off before getting put back on the plane and sent back to Basic.
  • The EM-50 urban assault vehicle climax seemingly comes out of nowhere. A cut scene suggests that Ziskey's been wanting a Winnebago for a while.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Stella posing for Penthouse. Decades later, a female Air Force Military Training Instructor was drummed out of the service for posing for Playboy.
  • Dewey "Ox" Oxberger explains that he joined the Army as a way of losing weight and avoiding having heart attacks. John Candy, who played Ox, would die of a heart attack, and at the time of his death, actually was making an effort to lose weight.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "That's the fact, Jack!", although it tends to be quoted as, "That's a fact, Jack!"
  • "Lighten up, Francis." In 2013, after the new Pope dubbed himself Pope Francis, this prompted a new play on the quote as "'Lighten up.' - Francis".
  • "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" has since become a longtime favorite marching song for American military personnel.
  • "You don't say 'sir' to me, I'm a sergeant, I work for a living" has since become a very common saying among NCOs.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • This was several years before John Larroquette would make it big on Night Court.
  • One of Judge Reinhold's first movies before becoming a star in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Beverly Hills Cop.
  • Likewise, the late Bill Paxton also makes a appearance in the film.
  • Timothy Busfield plays the soldier Stillman orders to fire the mortar that ends up injuring Sgt. Hulka.
  • John Diehl played Cruiser a few years before landing the role of Det. Larry Zito on Miami Vice.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Besides the Cold War setting, during the scene at the Army recruiting center, John and Russell are specifically asked whether either one is homosexual, which points itself to pre-1994, before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" first allowed LGBT people into the military.
  • The film's irreverent look at the military is a product of being set during the Cold War, when conventional warfare was considered a bit beside the point when nuclear weapons are the most likely result of a major war. Once The War on Terror began, audiences would never believe that two losers would join the military expecting to slack off.
  • The use of OG-107 uniforms pinpoints the film to the early '80s at the latest. The Woodland pattern BDU was introduced in 1982 and replaced the OG-107 (which had been in use since the Korean War) in active/deploying units, fully replacing it in all elements by 1988.
  • The EM-50 is made of a GMC motorhome, produced between 1973 and 1978. In a film made in 1981 it was still new enough to not raise eyebrows, but as time marches on it would either need to be made on a newer motorhome frame for Product Placement or figure out a good enough Handwave.
  • The climax happens in Czechoslovakia, placing it at any point before its division in 1993.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The rape jokes in the Extended Cut are pretty cringeworthy nowadays.
    Russell: There are two things I promised myself I'd never do: Kill and die.
    John: What if the Russians were raping your sister?
    Russell: Come on, you know my sister. You practically raped her one night. The Russians would just have to buy her dinner.
  • Winger's casual comment about having sex with a high school girl.

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