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). Unlike many of his colleagues in administration, he is never politically reactionary in response to changes in the police force or changes to his academy, although he appears uninterested in police politics in general. 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 to academy admissions, he plays along with them. After they leave, he quickly dismisses their comments, and he is the only one shown to oppose Hurst and Harris's plans to weed out the new cadets. After Lassard's first successful run with the new recruits, Police Chief 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 can sometime be absent-minded, and a running joke in the series is that he becomes so lost in thought that he is carried away—usually figuratively, as in his signature repetition of the words "many" and "very" (e.g., "Have a very, very, very good day," or "This is very, very... very bad"), but sometimes literally, as when he starts to pace while giving a speech and wanders far from his audience. Lassard is an astounding trick shot at billiards, once clearing an entire pool table in a single shot, much to the astonishment 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 survive budget cuts. In Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach, Lassard reaches the mandatory retirement