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NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDS!
Ogre when he first spots Gilbert and Lewis at Adams College
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Revenge of the Nerds (1984) is a classic '80s teen sex comedy, one of the rarer breed that takes place in college instead of High School. After the football team accidentally burns down their shared house in an ill-conceived 'fire breathing' stunt, they commandeer the freshman dorms as their own. The Freshmen are allowed to pledge fraternities earlier than usual so they'll have a place to live, but your typical frats' well-known aversion to scholarly types leaves the nine nerdiest new students out in the cold.

Not to be discouraged, the nerds decide to start their own frat, and through an oversight are given permission to set up a branch of the normally all-black fraternity Lambda Lambda Lambda. But all is not well; the existing frats, not to mention the resident jocks, don't appreciate nerds horning in on their territory, and so begins a war of attrition that involves vandalism, nude photos, the liberal application of 'liquid heat' to jockstraps, and various other wacky hijinks. It's Better Than It Sounds.

Was followed by three more sequels, one a theatrical film and the last two Made For TV Movies:

  • Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987). The second movie sends the nerds to a national fraternity conference in Florida where they once again have to put up with a Jerk Jock fraternity that gives them no end of grief.
  • Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation (1992). The third movie focuses on a new batch of nerds going to the same college as the first, which has become a paradise for geeks, nerds and outcasts. However, an alumnus of the college isn't happy with this and, teaming with a former nemesis from the first movie, proceeds to try to change the pecking order of the school. The new cast, of course, goes on the offensive.
  • Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love (1994). The fourth and final movie finds one of the original nerds getting married, but the father of the bride objects to the union and tries to break them up. It's up to the original cast to keep the wedding going as scheduled.

The series was going to have a remake in 2007, but complications with shooting ultimately shelved the project.

Tropes used in Revenge of the Nerds include:


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 Lewis: All jocks ever think about is sports. All we [nerds] ever think about is sex.

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  • Hachimaki: Takashi dons the Kamikaze headband before going on the panty raid.
  • Heel Face Turn: Betty, after Lewis pulls the Bed Trick on her. (In her case, it's more a Sex Face Turn.)
    • And Ogre in the sequel.
    • Stan himself does it in the third movie.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Ted McGinley as Stan Gable, leader of the Alpha Betas.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Takashi would go on to voice the movie version of Leonardo.
  • Hollywood Law: In real life, college campuses are subject to the local jurisdictions, so both sides of this feud could have gotten in serious legal trouble.
    • And the parents could and should have sued Adams College for evicting their sons from the double dorm rooms they'd paid considerable money for, particularly as the eviction proceedings involved the residents and their possessions being bodily flung out doors and windows by the jocks.
    • In the third movie, when the nerds claim their basic human rights, the judge replies "Nerds don't have rights!". Yeah...
  • Jerk Jock: There's a whole frat full of them, but in due course, the nerds get their revenge. And again in the second movie...
  • Large Ham: Both Coach Harris and Ogre in the first movie. Ogre: "NERDS!!!"
  • Lovable Nerd: Most of the protagonists.
  • Made for TV Movie: The third and fourth movies.
  • Masquerade Ball: Lewis takes a page from Judge Turpin's Creative Uses For Awesome Costumes manual. See Rape Is Love, below.
  • Mook Carryover: The character Ogre from the first movie shows up in the sequel in a different chapter of the Alpha Beta fraternity. The brothers he had in the original film are all gone, apparently defeated.
  • Mook Face Turn: Ogre, in the 2nd movie.
  • Mooning: The Alpha Betas. All of them at the same time.
  • Nerd: Present and accounted for, in mass quantities.
  • Nerds Are Virgins
  • Nerd in Evil's Helmet: Ogre is revealed to be one at the end of the second movie.
  • Panty Thief: The Panty Raid.
  • A Party - Also Known as an Orgy
  • The Peeping Tom: The Lambdas in Revenge of the Nerds take this trope to an extreme by installing surveillance cameras in all the bedrooms and showers of the sorority house.
  • Playing Against Type: John Goodman has almost always been associated with kind and affable Big Guys, here he plays the petty, cruel, and almost criminally negligent Coach Harris.
  • Proud to Be a Geek: The epiphany speech at the end of the movie, given to an audience entirely composed of jocks.
  • Queer People Are Funny
  • Rape Is Love: Lewis engages in covert seduction via a Darth Vader mask. She finds out it's not her boyfriend when he unmasks halfway through, and is briefly upset - but then decides he's a great lover and is in heat for him thereafter.
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 --Lewis: All jocks ever think about is sports. All we [nerds] ever think about is sex.

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 Won't be long, mark my words! The time has come for Revenge of the Nerds!

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  • Twofer Token Minority: Lamar - the only gay nerd, the only black nerd, and the only nerd with a date to the dance!
  • Two-Teacher School- The entire staff seems to consist of the Coach and the Dean.
    • And nobody is ever shown in a classroom. The closest they get is when Gilbert meets Judy in a computer lab.
  • Villainous Crossdresser: The Alpha Betas dress like cheerleaders for their Greek Games musical skit, and are still in drag when their coach chews them out for the "unmanliness" of losing to nerds.
  • Wacky Fratboy Hijinx