Depiction of the police in comedy

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Vaguely interesting that Hot Fuzz (2007) doesn't really come readily to mind.

(Perhaps because it leans so heavily on easily accessible stereotypes, and their violation for determinedly apolitical ends?)

Isn't the twist at the end of Hot Fuzz that the villagers are trying to keep property prices up? It's light but with all the idealisation of American police militarisation and the villains being the Neighbourhood Watch, I wouldn't call it apolitical.

[Dog Botherer]

can't believe Reno 911 hasn't come up. been rewatching it lately and it might be the most honest portrayal of modern american policing i've ever seen. just a bunch of thick nasty bullying cunts making an absolute hames of everything they come in contact with.

[Yussef Dent]

The police interrogation sketch from Alas Smith and Jones is bloody brilliant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOy_oP3ESQY

[Video Game Fan 2000]

There's a bit 90s of American cop comedy using reality tv as a framing device.

[Hillbert]

I think there's a strong case to be made for Frank Drebin being the funniest single police character. Police Squad (and Naked Gun) were fairly neutral about the police, serving as a vehicle for hi-jinks rather than anything deeper. Been a while since I've seen Police Squad though, so prepared to be corrected on that.

Also, thinking about, I don't think a Touch of Cloth espoused an particular view about the police, more the depiction on various procedurals.

[up_the_hampipe]

Seth Rogen and Bill Hader in Superbad is probably one of the most accurate depictions, apart from the lack of racism.

can't believe Reno 911 hasn't come up. been rewatching it lately and it might be the most honest portrayal of modern american policing i've ever seen. just a bunch of thick nasty bullying cunts making an absolute hames of everything they come in contact with.

This too.

[There Be Rumblings]

The first series of Operation Good Guys I remember as being fantastic when it came out.

The following series were nowhere near as good, but it was a mockumentary format years before the Office or any of its ilk, and the semi-improvised approach felt quite revolutionary at the time (to me anyway).

A fair number of the cast (Ray Burdis, Perry Benson, Dominic Anciano) then went on to reprise that style in movies with Jude Law, Sadie Frost, Johnny Lee Miller etc. Presumably a connection with the Natural Nylon production company that a lot of them went in on together?

[beanheadmcginty]

Do you remember that old trop of the bobby on the beat bending his legs akimbo then straightening them while keeping  his hands behind his back?

Whenever one of the contestants was a copper on the Generation Game, Brucie would do this motion while repeating the catchphrase "Warm night. Warm night." Which baffled me as a kid. I now realise it was an allusion to the policeman's hot, sweaty scrotum getting stuck to his inner thigh and his attempts to release it without rummaging around in his pants.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Vaguely interesting that Hot Fuzz (2007) doesn't really come readily to mind.

It was the first thing I thought of, although I dunno where it falls in terms of politics. Obviously it presents a tooled up police force as the heroes, but that's a knowingly ridiculous spoof of Hollywood action flicks. They're fighting a bunch of pensioners in a sleepy village.

[Twilkes]

Scot Squad is an affectionate take on things, only seen the odd clip but it's been going for at least seven series now.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cOOyEF_e3s8

This clip maybe less affectionate...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JEMDzGh-AzE

[chip]

The deeply corrupt Officers George Green and Ted Johnson beating Jim Lahey with a stack of telephone books.

Weren't a good proportion of the Nova Scotia officers on Trailer Park Boys gay/bi actually? Idk how true-to-life that is.

[studpuppet]

Vaguely interesting that Hot Fuzz (2007) doesn't really come readily to mind.

Or Touch Of Cloth.

I do like Burnistoun's particular brand of bumbling, pre-occupied-with-food coppers.

And I can't forget this one because I live in Broxbourne.

[phantom_power]

I would imagine it's more to do with it being on its 8th season than anything, but I could be wrong. I know they tried to do a bit of a course correction down the line, but any course correction on a show starring cops could be seen as "not all cops".

I am fairly sure it got cancelled after the 7th season and they got the 8th to cap it off and then George Floyd and BLM happened and they had to do a lot of re-writing of the final season to address the issues, or at least not ignore them. I don't think the cancellation had anything to do with the task of making police likeable in the modern age or anything

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

A couple of people mentioned The Thin Blue Line, which was the first thing that came to mind when I saw this thread. It depicts policing specifically in a small town, with the headmaster-ish Chief Inspector Fowler, and Detective Inspector Grimm who longs for the excitement of big city policing. Ultimately though the police are portrayed as a force for good.

What I find interesting about it is that for a comedy it also did a few episodes with a "serious" plotline, and three of the episodes deal with police misconduct:

- Goody punches a handcuffed teenager after he racially abuses Habib
- Habib allows her sister to pass her drugs during a police raid
- Boyle plants evidence during a raid on the home of a known villain to bolster a case against him

They're resolved as follows:

- While in Fowler's office lodging a complaint against Goody, the teenager's mother strikes him about the head and shoulders, prompting Fowler to threaten her with arrest, or "we can forget the whole thing"
- Fowler catches Grimm at an illegal lock-in and agrees not to charge him in exchange for letting Habib off the hook for handling drugs
- Unable to get evidence of CID planting evidence, Fowler alerts the defence counsel to a technicality which invalidates the evidence and causes the case to collapse

Now in the first two cases the two officers involved do get a bollocking from Fowler, and they're both sympathetic characters, and we understand why they did what they did. But they're still serious things for cops to do, aren't they? Yeah Goody is a skinny wimp and nearly breaks his hand on the teenager's face but isn't it kinda fucked that his mother (I believe named "Mrs. Scum") is blackmailed into withdrawing her complaint? In Habib's case Fowler and Grimm directly compare illegal drinking with possession of illegal drugs, which is fair, but that's still two cases of police misconduct that are never reported and no further action is taken because a) Habib is such a wonderful officer b) Grimm's never taken part in an illegal lock-in before. Yeah yeah I know I know, Fowler's reluctantly about to proceed with disciplining Goody and Habib until he finds a way out of it, and it's to show that he's capable of bending the rules in the name of true justice. It's still a bit unsettling, no?

The third incident of misconduct is interesting because Grimm is portrayed all through the episode as incredibly conflicted about what they're doing. He confronts Fowler after the case goes tits up and almost breaks down, confessing that he's glad Fowler stopped it. Which is great and all but nobody gets disciplined, especially not Boyle who appears to be the instigator of planting the evidence and is the one who tells Goody where to look. I dunno. Does this Say Anything about anything?

[Twilkes]

I'm not sure that comedy shows featuring police are obliged to make a real point or realistically depict correct courses of action any more than restaurants, hotels, shops, people or pretty much anything in Miranda has to. That's not to say that they can't, but that's kind of what drama is for. The Thin Blue Line is over 25 years old now so the stories may be different if it was written today, but it was still a sitcom first and foremost.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I'm not sure that comedy shows featuring police are obliged to make a real point or realistically depict correct courses of action any more than restaurants, hotels, shops, people or pretty much anything in Miranda has to. That's not to say that they can't, but that's kind of what drama is for. The Thin Blue Line is over 25 years old now so the stories may be different if it was written today, but it was still a sitcom first and foremost.

Oh I know, I know. I don't actually think that The Thin Blue Line Says Something about Ben Elton's (or Rowan Atkinson's or anybody else who worked on it) true feelings about the police. But the thread is about depictions of the police in comedy and wouldn't you know, I started thinking about it.

[king_tubby]

The deeply corrupt Officers George Green and Ted Johnson beating Jim Lahey with a stack of telephone books.

Weren't a good proportion of the Nova Scotia officers on Trailer Park Boys gay/bi actually? Idk how true-to-life that is.

Ah, I was just coming here to mention them. So let's go with Sledge Hammer then instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sledge_Hammer!

A parody of an unironic parody, what more do you want?

[king_tubby]

Oh, Bakersfield PD, another one from back in the day I should really rewatch.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I like the weird meta-joke in Sledgehammer where he's convinced all the criminals are hippies, but he hates smoking, eats health food, etc. but for silly reactionary reasons. They should've made more of that.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Though they do bring to mind an Aussie show called Bluey featuring a detective of prodigious proportions.

Footage of Bluey was later redubbed by an Aussie comedy show and turned into a parody titled Bargearse. It's all getting a bit meta here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fahf77qzEnE

[letsgobrian]

Michael Palin's paranoid policeman in Innes Book of Records was a superb comic monologue.

https://youtu.be/2NgZt10YgJk

Angie Tribeca, despite on the surface being in the same ball park as Police Squad does have some satirical edge hidden in the absurdity, particularly in season 2 (which unfortunately also has the most James Franco).

[lookatthemshine]

Officer Harper in Man Like Mobeen. White fella policing a largely Muslim community in Birmingham, some 'is he/isn't he racist?' moments early on but turns out he just hates everyone, a strict but fair sort of character. Plenty of great jokes pointed at racism and the police throughout the show. The episode where Harper and Mobeen are handcuffed together is quite lovely.

[chip]

"Uh no, you've got the wrong number. This is 9-1-... 2."

[Catalogue of ills]

Officer Harper in Man Like Mobeen. White fella policing a largely Muslim community in Birmingham, some 'is he/isn't he racist?' moments early on but turns out he just hates everyone, a strict but fair sort of character. Plenty of great jokes pointed at racism and the police throughout the show. The episode where Harper and Mobeen are handcuffed together is quite lovely.

Good shout, it's made me want to watch more Mobeen. "Maybe he went in the sea" [points at stream].

[Tony Tony Tony]

Footage of Bluey was later redubbed by an Aussie comedy show and turned into a parody titled Bargearse. It's all getting a bit meta here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fahf77qzEnE

I know Aussies are not famous for subtlety but even at a good few years old that's crazy stuff.

Thanks, enjoyed it a lot.

[Brundle-Fly]

I will nominate U.S. sixties sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? even though I can't recall ever watching an episode, which surprises myself as it was created by Nat Hiken and I loved The Phil Silvers Show and starred Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis and I loved The Munsters. Only ran for two seasons but that still totes up sixty episodes. The 90s movie remake bombed.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Do it for me, Billy. McGarnagle.

[studpuppet]

Kids In The Hall policemen are always cute and parochial:

https://youtu.be/wc4ND4Javf4?t=2228

[Ja'moke]

Got to give a shout out to PC from Ideal played by Tom Goodman-Hill, who I believe has also played coppers in other shows.

[Mr Farenheit]

Joe Friday from Dragnet, although I only know it from snippets played on WFMU

From literature it has to be Sergeant Pluck and Policeman Maccruiskeen