If you love the American comedies of the 1980s, you have certainly seen, at least on home video or on television, Stripes – A Platoon of Nuts, a wildly funny and anarchic film directed in 1981 by Ivan Reitman, which three years later would achieve international success with Ghostbusters – Ghostbusters. Many went to the cinema to watch Stripes, and in the 1990s a lot of people owned the videocassette—or as they used to say then—the VHS, largely because the duo at the center were two forty-somethings: Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, the latter also among the screenplay authors alongside Len Blum and Dan Goldberg, who was mainly a producer. However, you should know that Goldberg, together with the director, had thought the lead performers should be Richard “Cheech” Marin and Tommy Chong, who formed the duo Cheech & Chong. These gentlemen, who might seem like celebrated unknowns, actually enjoyed a period of notoriety around the 1970s and 1980s for their stand-up comedy nights. They acted in a handful of hilarious films such as Cheech & Chong’s Nice Dreams and Born in East L.A., and they seemed perfect for Stripes. Goldberg then presented the script to them, and the two replied that they wanted full control of the film, meaning they would follow the screenplay in some scenes and alter it in others. Reitman, however, had no intention of tolerating the actors’ whims or of not leaving his own mark on Stripes, and thus Bill Murray and Harold Ramis were cast. In fact, Murray was the first choice, whom Reitman had already directed in Meatballs, and later it was decided to pair him with Harold Ramis, who had directed him in Caddyshack. The two would join forces for Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, until they argued intensely and decided never to work together again because of the clashes during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis directed.
Casting changed the two leads, and consequently many lines in the Stripes script were altered; yet some elements endured. Bill Murray and Harold Ramis improvised entire sequences, achieving spectacular comic effects.
Also featuring John Candy, Stripes – A Platoon of Nuts follows the misadventures of taxi driver John Winger, who suddenly loses his job and his fiancée, and his lifelong friend Russell Ziskey, who decides to enlist in the United States Army, with both of them getting into all kinds of trouble.
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