Review of The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) by Donnie D — 22 Apr 2011

A classic movie from the ridiculously wonderful minds of Airplane! In 1982, the creators of Airplane!, Jim Abrahams and brothers Jerry Zucker and David Zucker, were asked to translate the success of their disaster movie spoof into a weekly television series.

The result was the inspired Police Squad!, a dead-on parody of prime-time cop dramas starring a veteran of series TV, the stone-faced Leslie Nielsen. Perhaps their aim was too accurate: viewers didn't respond to the deadpan wit, and the series was cancelled after only six episodes.

But the show remained dear to the filmmakers, and six years later they reached a larger audience with the broader, full-length feature The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!. What the film version lacked in sardonic wit, it made up with a rapid-fire onslaught of jokes -- gross-out slapstick, bad puns, and pop culture references happily co-exist, often within the same shot.