Eric Lassard

Eric Lassard
First appearance	Police Academy
Last appearance	Police Academy: Mission to Moscow
Portrayed by	George Gaynes; Tedd Dillon (animated series)
In-universe information
Gender	Male
Title	Commandant
Occupation	Police officer
Family	Pete Lassard (brother) Nick Lassard (nephew)
Spouse	Unnamed wife

Commandant Eric Lassard is a fictional character in the 1984 film Police Academy, as well as its six sequels. He was portrayed by George Gaynes.

Character arc

Commandant Lassard is introduced as head of the Metropolitan Police Academy (sometimes also called the Midcity Police Academy). He is initially not into the politics of the police department. When Police Chief Henry J. Hurst and Lieutenant Thaddeus Harris are denouncing the new female mayor's policy change to remove race and gender as barriers from academy admissions, he plays along with them. After they leave, Lassard quickly dismisses their comments, and he is the only one revealed to be against Hurst and Harris's plans to weed out the cadets to keep the original standard set by the police academy. However, after his first successful run with the new recruits, Hurst changes his outlook and realizes that Lassard was right in giving them a chance. In Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, however, he initiated a program known as Citizens on Patrol (COP), which is a community outreach course.

Lassard is portrayed as being fond of his job, proud of the Academy, and supportive of his cadets. He is also comically odd. He is rarely seen without his pet goldfish, frequently travels by golf cart, and is prone to accidentally destroying things (similar to fellow officer Sgt. Douglas Fackler), e.g., by playing golf inside his office. He is somewhat absent-minded, and a running joke in the series is that he becomes so lost in thought that he is carried away—figuratively, as in his signature windy repetition of the words "many" and "very" (e.g., "Have a very, very, very good day," or "This is very, very... very bad"), or literally, like when he begins to pace while giving a speech and then walks far away from the group he is addressing. Lassard is also an excellent trick shot at billiards, once clearing an entire pool table in a single turn, much to the surprise of the local bar players.

Lassard nearly loses his job three times in the series. In Police Academy 3: Back in Training, the Metropolitan Police Academy, now a semi-statewide institution, is pitted against the state's other police academy in a competition to decide which school will be closed due to budget cuts. In Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach, Lassard reaches the mandatory retirement age. This is brought to his superiors' attention by Captain Harris, and Lassard's retirement is announced to the surprise of everyone (including himself) at the subsequent graduation ceremony. He flies with his contingent to Miami Beach, Florida to be honored as Police Officer of the Decade at the National Police Chiefs' Convention. While in Miami, he inadvertently foils a jewel thief's escape, earning him and his men and women medals from the city. As a result, back in his home state, the mandatory retirement age is waived for him and he is allowed to serve until he himself decides to retire. His age seems to be approximately 70 years old. In Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, the criminal mastermind who has begun to seize control of the city attempts to frame Lassard for a jewel heist by planting stolen jewelry in his desk at the Oakdale Station, where he has been leading a task force. As a result, Lassard is suspended from active duty, until Nick and Hightower prove that he is innocent (and that Harris had been leaking information to the thieves to keep them ahead of the police and humiliate Lassard and his men).

Comdt. Lassard's family consists mainly of his wife, seen briefly during the first movie and never named, and a younger brother, Captain Pete Lassard (played by Howard Hesseman), whose precinct has a horrendous crime rate until the fresh graduates from Comdt. Lassard's academy bring down an enormous gang. A nephew (possibly Pete's son), Nick Lassard, is with the Miami Police but leaves to join Eric in Police Academy 6.

Lassard has other nephews in the animated series.