these movies got bad after Steven Guttenburg left

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The problem with the Police Academy movies was that there was to the best of my recollection, hardly any character development. Other than Mahoney (who was of course, the linchpin), everybody else felt like walking cliches or stereotypes. Hightower is the gentle giant, who could easily turn a dime when pushed, Hooks is meek and soft-spoken who like Hightower, could become more aggressive when provoked, Callahan is the tough, big boobed ball-buster, Tackleberry is the overzealous gun nut, Jones is the goofy sound effects guy, Harris/Mauser were the uptight butt-monkeys, who were always trying to spoil the fun, etc. You could immediately describe everybody else since they're so one-dimensional. Mahoney was really the only one who felt like an actual "character" that you could relate to.

http://outlawvern.com/2012/06/25/police-academy-1-4-the-carey-mahoney-cycle/#comment-2833514

Obviously the first four with Steve Guttenberg were the best simply because he knew how to work it as the lead character. I think the reason he had a career was simply because of these movies and everything else was cashing in on his reliable box office appeal. And he knew when to get off the gravy train too because the drop in quality after the fourth one was very noticeable. So credit to him for that.

What I do not understand, and never will, is why they felt they had to replace his character with a generic guy in all of the following movies who simply had no presence whatsoever. There was even another replacement in the final Mission to Moscow movie! And that guy sucked ass too. The worse thing was that the scripts for the movies wrote that character like it was still Guttenberg when they simply were not. It made no sense. Did they really think they needed a smarmy “lead” to hold the supporting cast of characters together? It was just plain weird.

https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/dvd-dungeon-the-post-guttenberg-police-academy-films/

The first four films (let’s call them the Guttenberg era) were by no means cinematic masterpieces but at least there were a few laughs to be had along the way and Steve Guttenberg was largely responsible for that. Sure he didn’t have the out and out jokes that Michael Winslow, David Graf and George Gaynes had, but his charm and on-screen charisma lent those early films a personality that people could connect with. Like Bill Murray in Stripes, Guttenberg’s likeable rogue with a quip for every occasion and an eye for the ladies was never less than endearing and his relationships with the other characters (notably Bubba Smith’s Hightower) kept those earlier films, in particular the first two efforts, moving along at a pace.

By film number four (Citizens on Patrol) Guttenberg had had enough and moved on to pastures new, leaving behind Winslow, Graf, Smith et al and with him, bizarre as it may sound, went the heart of the series. Sure the plots and scripts had already gotten a little lazy by that point, but the loss of Guttenberg should have really been the time to end things. Of course, when faced with a successful, bankable franchise, that was the last thing on the film studio bods’ minds and just a year later, Assignment Miami Beach was released.

Bringing in Matt McCoy as Mahoney’s replacement was their trump card, and boy did it stink. McCoy had the smirks and the gurning down to a tee but crucially he lacked any charm or star power whatsoever. What that meant was that those latter films had no character that audiences could really connect with, no lead character to drive the films forward. Sure, they still had old favourites such as Tackleberry’s guns and Callahan’s breasts to keep them company but there are only so many jokes you can wrench out of these essentially one-dimensional characters, leaving it up to a Mahoney to keep audiences interested. And as Nick Lassard, McCoy just wasn’t up to the job.

Yep, it's true. While Matt McCoy doesn't bother me much at all, he is no Steve, and there are plenty of clever/funny scenes in both 5 & 6, namely involving Capt. Harris and Procter, but funny is funny, doesn't matter who it involves!

https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/ranking-the-police-academy-movies/

Police Academy has moments that approach its influences, but they’re only moments. The franchise never gains any momentum. It remakes the same film to a rigid formula (five minutes of setup, an hour of sketches, and a twenty minute action finale that’s probably on water) and puts in a few amusing gags in near the start to lull you into a false sense of hope. The characters are scarcely realized one-note jokes stretched dementedly thin, some of the cast have no comic timing, and the pace is akin to a slug nailed to a milk float.

I think we skipped over a very important point. That being the first time it was said something got worse AFTER Steve Guttenburg left.

Sorry I love the whole Academy, earlier poster said guilty pleasure and that is 100% accurate. I also really love ragging on "the Gutts"

Blanks and Copeland didn't return either after this one.