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I'm rewatching Police Squad!

Started by Johnny Yesno, April 21, 2020, 08:51:20 AM

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Shaky

We're all in agreement that Top Secret! is the best thing they ever did, yeah?

Those Red Rock ads are ace - no clue how I'd never seen them before!

Two Headed Sex Beast

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on April 21, 2020, 05:49:54 PM
I've seen stuff like Spy Hard and Repossessed, which I found a bit "meh" in large part - did Nielsen do any top quality comedy work after Police Squad!/Naked Gun films (I enjoy the first two of those, perhaps due to warm glow of nostalgia from seeing them when I was a lad).

I'll always stick up for Wrongfully Accused. It's not a classic but the gags are good and plentiful. It plays a bit too "big" in the joke delivery sometimes, but it's well worth watching for Nielsen alone. Better than Repossessed, and probably Spy Hard (I haven't seen in for a long time)

kalowski

It's stuff like this that I love

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Shaky on April 22, 2020, 01:17:35 AM
We're all in agreement that Top Secret! is the best thing they ever did, yeah?

Ah, my favourite film of all time. The Zuckers themselves are not so hot on Top Secret compared to Airplane because Airplane had an actual plot with plot beats and everything, it's a 'proper' film, whereas Top Secret had a flimsy story that was just there as an afterthought, an excuse for the jokes. Top Secret is a lot more gag-heavy but a bit less coherent but I love that about it, it's a comedy film and it goes for a laugh every single time.

Now weirdly, it's the other way around with Police Squad and The Naked Gun. The Naked Gun films are proper films with a plot and beats and all that, whereas Police Squad feels like the story is far less important and it's all about the gags. So while there's a hell of a lot to enjoy in Police Squad, it feels a bit disjointed at times, every gag that they could possibly think of is being flung at you, the joke is king. Not sure why that approach works for me with Top Secret and not Police Squad, but Top Secret > Airplane and Naked Gun > Police Squad, but only just.

dissolute ocelot

Top Secret! is very underrated. It works as a dead-on parody of a lot of terrible 60s movies, as well as having a lot of great jokes, while a lot of the later films seem to have been made by someone whose only knowledge of Dracula is some kid in the playground using his jacket for a cloak.

Alberon

QuoteOur surgeons did what they could, but it took them two hours just to remove the smile from his face.



Quote"Is this the potato farm?"

"Yes, I am Albert Potato".

Shaky

A big YES to the phone gag there. Blows me away every time.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: notjosh on April 21, 2020, 04:53:21 PM
Red Rock Cider adverts
Some decent gags in there.

Weirdly, even though I didn't quite remember these ads existing, I knew some of the stuff in them word for word, plus the tune of the Shadows bit.

evilcommiedictator

Another +1 for Wrongfully Accused. Enough movie jokes to keep it going and doesn't dwell like Spy Hard.
He's being hunted by a one-armed, one-legged man featuring a shootout in Bogota for that sole fan of Patriot Games.

Nielsen got a Foley guy to make him a fart button, and being old, he'd see in interviews how many farts he could get away with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGuHDdSImFQ
just search for Leslie Nielsen farts

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: evilcommiedictator on April 22, 2020, 01:00:15 PM
Another +1 for Wrongfully Accused. Enough movie jokes to keep it going and doesn't dwell like Spy Hard.
He's being hunted by a one-armed, one-legged man featuring a shootout in Bogota for that sole fan of Patriot Games.

Nielsen got a Foley guy to make him a fart button, and being old, he'd see in interviews how many farts he could get away with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGuHDdSImFQ
just search for Leslie Nielsen farts

I'm sorry, but that's not funny.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

It's not funny at all. Can't stand fart humour, it's witless and boring. The overrated Blazing Saddles baked bean-eating scene can do one.

Shaky

Aw, guys. Genuinely fart gags can be pretty flimsy admittedly but that clip was really infectious.

famethrowa

Yeah come on now, it's funny. Even if fart jokes aren't your scene, at least appreciate our man trolling the interviewer who thought he was going to "keep things serious" with Leslie Nielsen.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Shaky on April 22, 2020, 01:15:13 PM
Aw, guys. Genuinely fart gags can be pretty flimsy admittedly but that clip was really infectious.

Leslie Nielsen was great, a bringer of joy, but I just can't stand fart jokes.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Leslie Nielsen did fart jokes for somebody's laughs, but not mine.

Pay heed to myself and Ballard, kids- a fart gag is * never* funny. Not even when Stewart Lee dissects it.

studpuppet

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on April 22, 2020, 02:50:53 PM
Leslie Nielsen did fart jokes for somebody's laughs, but not mine.

Probably my wife's. Germans love jokes about caca (kaka?) and farting. We used to drive past a leisure centre that was called 'Furzfield' and she'd crack up every time. "Furzefeld!!" she'd scream, "Fart-field!!!"

+1 for Top Secret! I forgave Val Kilmer a LOT for years afterwards because of that film. Even Joanne Whalley. And it's got Jim 'NTNOCN darts commentator' Carter, Ian MacNeice, Omar Sharif and Peter Cushing in it. It's (along with Team America and maybe The Big Bus) my 'feeling poorly on the sofa' film.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Hot Shots! is gleefully funny too.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote"Is this the potato farm?"

"Yes, I am Albert Potato".

Fucking hell

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

" Top Secret" also had Warren Clarke as a Nazi Colonel, and Daisy as The Cow, don't forget.

SavageHedgehog

I was such a huge fan of the ZAZ/faux-ZAZ stuff when I was 12\13 that I remember looking at Neilsen's filmography on IMDB and being excited at the prospect of seeing 2001: A Space Travesty and Titanic Too: It Missed the Iceberg (tragically never made) in cinemas.

I will admit I did like Pavarotti singing In the Navy in 2001. The most interesting thing about Repossessed was the UK Poster and VHS cover which parodies The Naked Gun poster, though in retrospect that probably wasn't parody so much as trying to mislead customers into thinking the same people were involved.

Police Squad is the only one in this genre I'd really go out of my way to watch now. My experience with the films has been that once you know all the good gags, sitting through the less good ones and the boilerplate plot gets harder. It's been a while since I've tested this theory though. I still have a lot of fondness for Ruthless People.

Quote from: kalowski on April 21, 2020, 09:03:04 AM
Is it suitable for children, I can't remember, but I think my son would like most of the jokes in this.

DVD\VHS were rated 15 (before 12 became a thing), but only because of the last episode, presumably because of a gag where a character starts compulsively drug testing a bag of cocaine. Remember this episode airing on C5 midday with this gag intact. Other episodes are all PG. It's the cleanest stuff ZAZ ever did.

Quote from: famethrowa on April 21, 2020, 09:19:14 AM
I'm sure I've seen 3 different versions of The Butler Did It A Bird in the Hand, the band is playing Satin Doll at the party, the father asks them to play something different, and I'm sure I've seen 3 different things happen:

- the band says "ok, something different" and then starts up Satin Doll yet again, fading into Happy Birthday
- the band starts playing Happy Birthday but the crowd sings "something different..." with the tune
- the band starts playing Happy Birthday and everyone sings the right words.

I've seen it as late night TV version, mail order DVD, torrent 15 years ago, and now youtube.

Pretty sure at least one of these was because it used to be very expensive to licence Happy Birthday for commercial releases until a few years ago. The Something Different version was on the VHS I had.

studpuppet

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on April 22, 2020, 03:20:35 PM
" Top Secret" also had Warren Clarke as a Nazi Colonel, and Daisy as The Cow, don't forget.

"Okay, go ahead. Be an asshole."

neveragain

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on April 22, 2020, 02:30:31 PM
Leslie Nielsen was great, a bringer of joy, but I just can't stand fart jokes.

Even Graham Chapman's "I couldn't think of an acceptable legal phrase m'lud"?

Gulftastic


Annie Labuntur

I like the comparison video featuring the bits from Police Squad's opening episode where ZAZ made their inspiration obvious - you'll probably need headphones to properly appreciate it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvotUunsEjQ

As noted in the comments, if you thought the reveal of the teller's barred window alongside the rest of the room being open was a typically great sight gag, see the M Squad version.

Attila

Quote from: notjosh on April 21, 2020, 04:53:21 PM
Red Rock Cider adverts

Some decent gags in there.

Oh wow -- I remember these: they were playing on TV over here the first time I came to England, cripes, 30 years ago now.

studpuppet

Quote from: Annie Labuntur on April 22, 2020, 05:21:07 PM
I like the comparison video featuring the bits from Police Squad's opening episode where ZAZ made their inspiration obvious - you'll probably need headphones to properly appreciate it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvotUunsEjQ

Hat so fucked I probably need to be in another thread. I heard somewhere (Rule Of Three podcast?) that Airplane! worked because it had the plot to hang the gags on, and somehow Top Secret! didn't. Whereas I think it's the other way around; Top Secret! is literally a stupid American's worldview in the early eighties, hence the mishmash of WW2 and Cold War themes. There literally is no plot and therefore no constraints on the gags (mind you I also enjoy Airplane 2 more for the same reasons).

QuoteNick: Listen to me, Hillary. I'm not the first guy who fell in love with a woman that he met at a restaurant who turned out to be the daughter of a kidnapped scientist, only to lose her to her childhood lover who she last saw on a deserted island, who then turned out fifteen years later to be the leader of the French underground.

Hillary: I know. It all sounds like some bad movie.

popcorn



So his shoes were empty or what.

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: Shaky on April 22, 2020, 01:17:35 AM
We're all in agreement that Top Secret! is the best thing they ever did, yeah?


Airplane is their best I'd say, Naked Gun second.

#88
"I hear you've got a piece of every boxer in town" and Drebin being dealt a hand that contained the Official Rules were personal favourites. And "he was a model prisoner." It's making fun of dialogue cliches by making them literal.

I didn't like the movies for the familiar reason that an idea the fits perfectly into 22 minutes is massively overstretched at 90 minutes. It's also why it's best to watch one a day not binge. I would add George Kennedy in the Alan North role to Nielson as someone whose character works less well in the movies. As soon as he starts to mug, his whole purpose collapses.

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on April 21, 2020, 02:31:28 PM
Those are great but I think mine might be 'We would've come earlier but your husband wasn't dead then.'
That was the one I came here to post.  Marvellous stuff.