Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

Director Jeff Kanew's and 20th Century Fox's R-rated, low-brow 1980s campus comedy was a raunchy derivative of (National Lampoon's) Animal House (1978); it told about a group of outcast, misfit and bullied nerds in the Adams College chapter of the national black fraternity Lamba Lamda Lamda (Tri-Lams), who engaged in continual feuding with the meat-head Alpha Beta jocks.

The predictable plot of the escapist, cult-classic (time-capsule) film centered on the competition between the underdog brainy computer-science nerds against the brawny, muscle-bound jocks fraternity (Alpha Betas) and their rich and bitchy sorority girlfriends at Pi Delta Pi. The film climaxed with a major tournament between the two groups in the Greek Games. With a script by Steve Zacharias and Jeff Buhai, this was one of the earlier examples of the "jocks vs. nerds" theme. Its tagline was:

• "They've Been Laughed At, Picked On and Put Down. But Now It's Time For the Odd to Get Even! Their Time Has Come!"

As expected, this youth-sexploitation film was filled with an archetypal group of endearing and loveable odd-ball characters (nerds, outcasts, twerps, misfits, geeks, losers, dweebs, etc., who continually were ignored or faced discrimination). It also featured rowdy hijinks, smutty gross-outs and body humor, F-bombs, and some nudity. The film was nowhere near as mean-spirited or raunchy as the earlier teen sex comedy Porky's (1982).

Some of the dated things depicted in this non-PC (or pre-woke) era film would be considered offensive or inappropriate (tasteless or even revolting) to certain audiences today, such as panty raids, frat hazing, bullying, female objectification, borderline rape (or at least sexual assault), or racial insensitivity and stereotyping (i.e., the characters of the gay African-American or the Asian exchange-student).

There were a number of familiar names in the cast, who would further their careers - Anthony Edwards, John Goodman (as a bullying football coach), Bernie Casey and James Cromwell (as a nerdy father)

Surprisingly, with a budget of $8 million, it became a smash hit - and the 16th highest-grossing (domestic) film of 1984, at $40.9 million). The popularity of this defining first film about disenfranchised dorks led to three sequels (the last two were made-for-TV movies):

• Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987)
• Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation (1992) (TV)
• Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love (1994) (TV)

Revenge of the Nerds (1984)	Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987)
Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation (1992) (TV)	Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love (1994) (TV)

An unsuccessful TV pilot was also released in 1991 based almost entirely on the movie.

• one of the main goals of the geeks was to spy on, disrobe, and humiliate the pretty coeds; the juvenile antics included setting up surveillance spy cameras (during a diversionary panty raid) in the Pi Delta Pi bathroom to view the beauteous coeds
• unnamed Pi Delta Pi coed (Colleen Madden) was spied upon by a hidden video camera as she fully undressed; during the spying incident, nerd Booger (Curtis Armstrong) delivered a famous line about the naked coed: "This is bulls--t. I want bush. Pan down. We've got bush!" Takashi (Brian Tochi) often repeated his familiar exclamation: "Oh, Hair pie!"
• Pi-Delta-Pi sorority member and popular blonde cheerleader Betty Childs (Julia Montgomery), girlfriend of the quarterback and the Greek Council President Stan (Ted McGinley), was also peeped upon during a bathroom-shower raid, and photographed (with her nude picture placed on the bottom of a pie plate, to expose her during a pie-selling contest)

Sorority Cheerleader Betty Childs (Julia Montgomery)
		Picture on a Pie Plate

• other tactics included putting 'Liquid Heat' in the jock straps of the studly football players, and a pot-smoking dance party with a sister sorority of overweight misfits (Omega Mu)
• the geeks of Lambda Lambda Lambda (Tri-Lambs) eventually triumphed by the film's conclusion (with the song "We Are the Champions") at the annual homecoming fraternity decathlon (the Greek Games), including riding tiny tricycles in a race, a pie-eating contest, an arm-wrestling contest, and the longest-belching contest