Up the Creek

Up the Creek is a 1984 comedy about Bob McGraw, a perennial student now in his twelfth year at a small, undistinguished university. When the school's reputation hits bottom, the dean recruits Bob and three fellow underachievers to represent it in an intercollegiate raft race, offering them a degree of their choosing if they win and expulsion if they fail. The four agree, and find themselves competing against better-funded rivals, including a team of marines and a group of preppy Ivy League students, with the race run down a stretch of whitewater.

The film was directed by Robert Butler, who had previously made The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and would later direct Turbulence. Jim Kouf wrote the screenplay, and Michael L. Meltzer produced it for Orion Pictures. The cast is led by Tim Matheson as Bob, alongside Dan Monahan, Sandy Helberg and Stephen Furst as his teammates, with Blaine Novak and Jeff East among the credited players.

Released in April 1984, the film runs 96 minutes and took in about 12 million dollars at the worldwide box office, a modest return for a studio comedy of its era. On TMDB it holds a rating of 5.7 out of 10 from 97 votes.