The best college comedy in history is off the air
Pa Robert Succi
| Published
Early events brought us a stream of student parties such as Van Wilder from National Lampoon and Old schoolbut I’m here to tell you that you’re doing yourself an incredible disservice if you’ve never seen 1994 PCUwhich is the best film in the genre by a wide margin. Offering nothing more than a simple “we need to throw an epic party to save our house” story line, PCU sets up the premise without demanding of its audience and has no room for jokes due to its short running time of 79 minutes.
Movie as PCU which boasts such a simple premise, but shouldn’t be dismissed as pointless entertainment, because sometimes we all just need a quick quad bike ride while a bunch of vegan protestors try to run us out of town after being attacked with over 100 pounds of raw meat .
Politically correct university
PCU stands for Port Chester University, but is quickly becoming an acronym for Politically Correct University by Jeremy Piven James “Drose” Andrews. Droz is one of those guys you’d want to have a beer or 12 with, but not someone you’d want to have any kind of meaningful relationship with, because he’s an agent of chaos and a scumbag who just wants to party in his face . In his seventh year of college, Droz has an ax to grind against all the “righteous” who cling to whatever social issue happens to be the main topic of the week, leading to a series of complaints against his group of fellow students. known as “The Pit”.
When Tom Lawrence (Chris Young) attends PCU for his freshman year, he finds himself caught in the middle of a years-long feud between The Pit and their rival group, elegantly named Balls and Shaft, led by an insufferable puppy named Rand McPherson (David Spade). Although Tom just attends PCU, he quickly makes enemies because he always shows up at the wrong place and time, and is incredibly accident prone. Despite his inherent ability to tick everyone off, especially after accidentally crashing the computer lab while everyone is agonizing over their dissertations, Droz takes Tom under his wing and shows him what college life is all about.
On the bad side of the university president
Primary conflict c PCU involves Rand’s desire to sabotage The Pit and bring Greek life back to campus at the same time. In a previous timeline, the frat house that The Pit occupies used to be the residence of Balls and Shaft, but The Pit refuses to leave it because it is their party’s headquarters. Working with university president Garcia-Thompson (Jessica Walter), Rand collects all the complaints about The Pit, as well as the previous semester’s damage bill totaling more than $7,000.
If The Pit can’t pay the damage bill and answer for their petty crimes, they will be kicked out of the house and expelled from school.
Leave the party
As you might imagine, the rest PCU revolves around Droz, Gutter (John Favreau), and Mullaney (Alex Desert), who decides to throw a tantrum to kill everyone in order to raise funds and pay the damage bill, hurting as many people as possible in the process. Meanwhile, as the film progresses, Tom inadvertently (and constantly) makes more and more enemies across campus.
After initial setup, PCU it’s a crash course in stealing beer from rival dorms, disrupting campus protests for fun whenever you get the chance, and using Starland’s vocal orchestra as a form of psychological torture if you know how to use the steering wheel lock as a means to trap subjects in stuffy banquet hall.
But perhaps the most important advice you can get from PCU is to never, under any circumstances, wear the shirt of the band you are going to see.
An unlikely double feature
by itself PCU is a solid, light-hearted party movie about a group of misfits who playfully antagonize everyone on campus as their primary form of entertainment. But if you really want to see our hero, Droz, get a taste of his own medicine, I highly recommend watching PCU ahead of 2003 Old school and seeing the latter as a sequel set in an alternate universe Jeremy Piven plays Dean Gordon “Cheese” Pritchard, who finds himself on the side of the same chaos.
Unfortunately, this masterpiece of crude comedy is not streaming anywhere, so you’ll have to find a DVD if you want to see that PCU that’s all about.
English