Liam Neeson’sNaked Gunreboot will be in theaters soon, following on from the classic original trilogy, but this franchise actually started on the small screen with a TV show calledPolice Squad!Neeson is playing the son of Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin character in the new movie, alongsidePamela Anderson as his love interestand Paul Walter Hauser as his captain, Ed Hocken’s son. Naturally, when a reboot of the belovedNaked Gunfranchise was announced, a lot of fans were skeptical, because the original is a timeless gem and reboots rarely recapture the magic.
But whenThe Naked Guntrailer dropped, it was a pleasant surprise, because it’s actually funny. The reboot has got David Zucker’s unique brand of absurdist humor down pat; it’s just as zany, twisted, and shamelessly ludicrous as the original films. The new movie seems to be in safe hands with The Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer andFamily Guycreator Seth MacFarlane. Before the reboot hits theaters on August 1, it’s the perfect time to go back and rewatch the original trilogy — and go back even further to revisit the short-lived cult TV classic that started it all.
Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin Originated On The Small Screen
The full title of the originalNaked Gunmovie isThe Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, and that’s because it’s technically a spinoff from a short-lived TV show calledPolice Squad!The series wasDavid Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker’s follow-up to their smash-hit breakthrough movieAirplane!It has all the sight gags, clever wordplay, and absurdist non-sequiturs that defined their work onAirplane!, butinstead of spoofing disaster movies of the big screen, it aims its satire at the police procedurals of the small screen.
Police Squad!features recurring characters from the movies, like Ed and Nordberg (with the slightly different name “Norberg”), but they’re played by different actors: Alan North and Peter Lupus, respectively.
It was named after the ‘60s crime dramaFelony Squadand the Lee Marvin seriesM Squad, butPolice Squad!is a parody of all kinds of crime procedurals and detective shows.Police Squad!introduced the world to Frank Drebin. ZAZ had wanted to makePolice Squad!as a movie from the beginning, but since they didn’t have a single overarching plot and were taking cues from television shows, Paramount talked them into reworking the idea as a six-episode TV series (viaThe Hollywood Reporter). The episodic nature of a procedural suited this idea well, resulting in a cult classic.
It Lampoons Every Well-Worn Trope Of Police Procedurals
Just asAirplane!is a spot-on spoof of star-studded disaster movies from the 1970s,Police Squad!is a spot-on spoof ofold-school cop shows. It flew in the face of contemporary TV trends and was instead designed to look like a rerun of a series from the ‘50s or ‘60s. Police Squad! lampoons and subverts all the well-known tropes of the police procedural genre in hilarious fashion. There’s a running gag that, aside from being a brilliant detective, Drebin just happens to be a natural at whatever new skill an undercover investigation requires, be it basketball, locksmithing, or standup comedy.
It flew in the face of contemporary TV trends and was instead designed to look like a rerun of a series from the ‘50s or ‘60s.
At the beginning of every episode, the title is announced in a voiceover, but the title uttered by the announcer never matches the title that appears on-screen. The opening credits follow the old-hat TV formula of showing a clip next to each actor’s name, but every episode lists Rex Hamilton as “Abraham Lincoln” and features the same clip that never appears in the show itself. At the end of every episode,after the crime is solved, all the characters stop moving as if they’re in a freeze-frame — but the actors are just standing still; everyone in the background keeps moving.
Gremlins' Joe Dante directed two episodes ofPolice Squad!
Police Squad!subverts the trope of a cop vomiting at a gruesome crime scene when a cop vomits at the sight of a photo of Alexander Haig. It subverts the trope of generic police badges and unmarked police cars by having every police cruiser simply labeled, “POLICE CAR.”It subverts the police informant trope with a character named Johnny the Shoeshine, who will give up any information if you slip him a few bucks. The opening titles brag about the show being “in color,” but color television had been commonplace for decades at that point.
It’s A Flawless 1-Season Run
Police Squad!only ran for one season, consisting of just six episodes. But that means that every episode is an absolute banger. It didn’t have time to become stale or hit-and-miss. It didn’t have time to exhaust all the good story ideas, forcing the writers to scrape the bottom of the barrel. It didn’t even have time to fully explore its lucrative satirical premise. All six of its episodes are brilliantly written, brilliantly acted, and jam-packed with jokes.you may binge-watch the entire series in an afternoon, and there isn’t a single weak installment.
It Was Canceled For Being Too Rewatchable
When it aired in 1982,Police Squad!was way ahead of its time. After being widely praised by critics,it was canceled for a notoriously asinine reason: it was so cleverly constructed that the audience had to actually pay attentionto their screens to catch all the jokes. This approach would go on to influence the next generation of TV comedy.The Simpsons’ penchant for signposting jokes in establishing shots and throwing in subtle background gags like a second Homer walking past the window during a discussion of cartoon surrealism can be traced back toPolice Squad!
The makers ofPolice Squad!wouldhide visual gags in the background. Audiences would have to watch each episode a few times to catch all the jokes and appreciate the nuances of the humor. But back in the ‘80s, in the heyday of scheduled broadcast television, it was rare that viewers would be able to watch an episode of a show more than once. They usually couldn’t even catch every episode of a show they liked, or watch the whole episode, since they couldn’t pause it if they needed to go to the bathroom or tend to an unruly child.
IfPolice Squad!was made today, it would undoubtedly be more successful. That kind of endlessly rewatchable show, densely packed with jokes, does extremely well in the streaming era. Audiences will watchCommunity,Arrested Development, andthe golden-age seasons ofThe Simpsonsover and over again.Police Squad!was just too good for 1982.
