Columbia Pictures Corporation released Stripes to theaters on June 26, 1981. Ivan Reitman directs the film which stars Bill Murray, John Candy, and Harold Ramis. Stripes Movie Summary The genius of Stripes is that it stars some Hollywood comedic heavyweights (figuratively and literally in John Candy’s case) at the top of their game. You can tell that much of the dialgoue is ad-libbed, and like the classic golf-themed Caddyshack of the prior year, Stripes contains numerous quotable, classic lines. That’s not to say that Stripes is on par with the Quotable Caddyshack – just that Bill Murray learned that people like him so he needs to ham it up. The movie was originally designed to be a Cheech and Chong vehicle, and some of the stoner humor finds its way into the new version. But Stripes is, in essence, a movie about Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and John Candy in the army. They took funny men from Saturday Night Live and SCTV, turned on the cameras, and said “Go!” The plot of the movie is certainly not its strong suit. Murray plays John Winger, a New York cabbie whose life is not going as he wants it to. Depressed at losing his job, his car, and his scantily clad too-hot-for-Bill-Murray girlfriend all in the same day, he and his buddy, Russell Ziskey (played with deft aplomb by Harold Ramis), enlist in the Army because they feel like they really don’t have any other options. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Disclaimer This podcast is for entertainment and information purposes only. The theme music for Lunchtime Movie Review, Fireworks is provided courtesy of Alexander Nakarada at serpentsoundstudios.com under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. All original content of this podcast is the intellectual property of Lunchtime Movie Review, the MHM Podcast Network, and Fuzzy Bunny Slippers Entertainment LLC unless otherwise noted. This post contains affiliate links that will take you to Amazon.com and/or the iTunes Store. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission. Advertisers and affiliate partnerships do not influence our content. For more information, please read our Terms of Use about the inclusion of affiliate links on this site.