January 18, 2023 • 52 mins
Chris, Mike, and Mark discuss the second episode of Police Squad!, "A Dangerous Assignment," aka, "Ring of Fear." Directed by Joe Dante, with "Special Guest Star" Georg Stanford Brown (who would direct a later episode) this episode is a parody with pugilistic panache, puns-a-plenty, and that Dante cartoon humor.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Police Squad in Color, starring LeslieNielsen, also starring Allen Norton and Rex
(00:29):
Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln. Tonight's specialguest star George Stanford Brown Tonight's episode A
Dangerous Assignment. Welcome to you fromthe files of Police Squad in Color.
(00:57):
I'm your host by Kwhite. Joiningme, of course, is mister Mark
Begley. Damn it, yes,slo I keep losing my clothes. That
was funny on its own. Damnit. Yeah, the right paper Chris
statues here as well, Get mea screwdriver? Do you want to drink?
(01:18):
No, I'm good. That gag. That gag will never not get
old, only because Leslie Nielsen justgoing in the bottom of the frame is
the is just fucking hilarious. Onthis episode, we were talking about Ring
of Fear, directed by Joe Dante, written by Tino Insanna, Robert Wall
and David Mish. It aired originallyMarch eleventh, nineteen eighty two. Just
(01:45):
a little bit over a week.I mean, this is my math is
off here? What is seven plusfour? Yeah? That's okay, so
we're one week after okay. Goodspecial guest star in this episode, mister
George's stand for Brown who gets takenout by a big safe Oh my god,
talk about an antiquated joke. Yeah, I was waiting for the Roadrunners
(02:08):
Shop. Yeah that or even fuckingBuster Keaton or something. Oh man.
And we are in very familiar territoryin this episode. This is a boxing
episode, so we get all ofthe corruption that has to do with boxing,
taking dives, no sacks before thefight. This plays with a lot
(02:30):
of tropes. I don't know ifthis is specifically based on any sort of
m Squad or Felony Squad or anyof these other shows that they would riff
on, or if it's just awhole mashup of all of these different tropes
that we've seen in boxing movies throughoutthe years. Because this is very familiar
territory. Yeah, what's the routsterling requiem for heavyweight? Yeah, Like
(02:53):
I haven't watched that in decades,so that's what I always think of.
But I'm like, are they riffingon that? Is that like the first
thing to have all these kind ofjokes, the mob guys, the mall,
the girl friend and all that.If that's where that originates from.
I'm trying to think there was aparody movie from nineteen eighty six that the
(03:15):
Zuckers had absolutely nothing to do with, which was called Ricky One by William
T. Nod That is a lotmore rocky than this one is. Though.
I think the reunion of our maincharacter and his girlfriend at the end
is very rocky esque. But Idon't think they go too far into the
(03:36):
rocky realm with this one, whichwas surprising. That's right what I was
expecting. Let me put it thisway. Obviously, second episode, Like
we mentioned at the end of thelast episode, za Z are not really
involved directly now, at least notwith writing and directing. I think it
shows almost immediately, and I willtell you why. All of a sudden,
(04:00):
it has gotten to the point wherethey say, oh, there,
he's over there with some tramps andthey're hobo's there. They're doing a lot
of the saying something and then showingthat thing. It's not bad, but
it's not needed. Every time yousay something. It's like the airplane gag
of they're on instruments and then they'rethey're they're playing the instruments. They do
(04:23):
that a lot in this episode,to a point of fault. I think
like it's he becomes a little much. I don't think Tino and Sonna and
Robert Wool, Mike's favorite, RobertWool, I don't think they are blind.
I would say, given what wesee here, they're not as in
(04:43):
tune with the expectations of what isneeded to write this kind of show.
They're writing it as if they watchedthe show and are trying to mimic or
ape what Zaz did again with alot of success, but also a lot
of just like thus same thing,the same kind of gag reoccurring a lot,
(05:03):
a lot, a lot. EvenI was trying to think of what's
the term for that type of Soyou have that one, and then you
have I'm going to get you outof this sewer, and then they'll literally
come out of so literalisms, what'sthe because that's what I noticed was different
(05:24):
tramps. I guess is more ofa pun because you could take that either
way. But the sewer, thescrewdriver joke. The screwdriver joke, is
that akin to the building jokes anairplane or is it something different? It's
kind of like the cigarette joke,right, that same idea where it's like
cigarette, it's I think it isliteralism. Just if the show was talking
(05:45):
about lizard people, it would bea literal lizard person, a guy in
a lizard suit. It wouldn't besomething else. It's bigfoot, it wouldn't
be bigfoot, it would be aguy with big feet. It's like,
yeah, and I just it's weirdbecause this episode just launched right into it.
The last episode it peppered those inthe I'm Gonna get you out of
the sewer is the one that andthe the other one. They just stand
(06:08):
down. It's like Jesus Christ,like this joke is really just beaten into
the ground, and this this kindof setup is beaten into the ground in
this episode. The no dice jokeis the same thing. I'm sorry,
but all of these jokes you're mentioningmade me laugh out loud last they're funny.
It's not that they're unfunny. It'sjust for me, it's a matter
(06:29):
of too many of the same kind, Like the same setup is just they're
still funny. But those setups justyou gotta maybe a little bit more.
Like when he says, well,I've got an ace in the hole,
he pulls his gun out, that'snot this kind of joke. But yeah,
they they're on instruments, are theysitting with tramps, or they're in
the sewer. It's like, guys, it's set up in delivery. It's
(06:51):
more like typical joke structure. Theydon't write jokes. I mean they are
constantly saying that in their commentaries.And it's either the delivery that's funny or
the irony then makes it funny,or the pun that makes it funny,
or the absurdity of it or theabsurdity. Yeah. Like at one point
(07:13):
he's like I was, She's likeI always wanted my own synagogue. I
was just like, okay, yeah, sure, odd right, I love
it. And then you still havename gags in this gym's gym, the
Johnny Cash thing, where he's like, I've also go, oh, yeah,
you represent Johnny. I love thatguy, whoever he is. That
guy's oh my god, I'm freeTuesdays. Yeah, oh that was great
(07:44):
erwin Keys. He is a veryfamiliar face. He's the guy that shows
up with the dynamo, mite,the bum, the hatchet, all this
stuff and press. He's got sucha great face. Yes, and I
confuse him with Robert Zadar because ofthat oversized Oh wow, and you know
(08:07):
I'm Jack Elam than a Robert Ciar. Oh yeah. I think of him
as someone who would be right athome and Rob Zombies films. Strangely,
he's in one of Rob Zombies films. He's in the House of a Thousand
corpses. He has just a verydistinct character actor. Look, I don't
know. I mean, he's acharacter actor. When I think of a
(08:28):
character actor, I think of someonelike Irwin Keys, or I think of
someone like grand l Bush. Anotherfantastic Yes, yeah, I'll break your
face. I was so happy.I posted about that on Facebook, about
how great it was to see him, and then he liked the comment.
I was just agent Johnson, theother one. He's so good in this.
(08:54):
Tag him when this releases. Ohyeah, he's so good in this.
Oh yeah, he's great. Theacting other than our leads is a
little iffy, even in the firstepisode, which is much stronger as far
as writing, I think, andwhen you're comparing these two, at least
(09:16):
you know, I know that theyhave tight turnaround with TV shooting four shows,
you know. I think in thecommentary they mentioned like you've got five
days to shoot something which is amazing. Some of the acting maybe not so
great. He is amazing in thisand he's barely in it. You know
that he came prepared and knew whathe was doing. He takes that small
(09:37):
minute or so of screen time andit goes with it. He's brilliant.
Almost all of the side characters inthis are really strong, you know,
And we mentioned the guys at thepoker game. I really like is a
Cooper the main baddie, the badmanager guy. I mean, I'm the
cigar chopper, yes, or thecocktail wheney chumper. He really gives it
(10:03):
a real workout. But he couldhave been a little bit stronger. But
he didn't need to do that much. He just needed to stand there and
look good pretty much. I waslike, man, that guy looks familiar.
He is in all kinds of stuff. I just saw him, I
think last week on a show.He's always on cop shows, usually playing
a detective that's no nonsense and gruffand all that, and I thought I
(10:26):
knew he looked familiar with those blueeyes. I'm like, I've seen that
face before. But man, hewas young, still working today on SWAT.
Yeah, that's what I saw himon That's what I saw him on
What's Funny Is Again, like whenyou just go and look at the IMDBs
for the people who were the lastepisode the people were in this episode.
It's like a stark contrast. Ohyeah, just the level automatically of the
(10:48):
people like Irwin Keys and Grandel Bushalone raise the level with those two,
and again irwin Keys is even isin this episode even less than Grandel Bushes.
They make an impact, but theydon't take away from Frank Drebbin being
Frank Drebin and being a complete dingdong. I was thinking about it,
(11:09):
contrasting it against the movie because Iwatched the movie pretty frequently, the original
at least, he is so muchmore of a ding dong in the movies
than he ever is in the TVshow. He's composed in these episodes in
the movie, I just always thinkof him going nothing to see here,
nothing to see here, as thefireworks factory is exploding in the background.
(11:30):
That's what I think of when Ithink of Frank Drebin. I don't think
of someone who could actually solve acrime, right, yeah, Well,
though Johnny pretty much helps him outevery time, yes, right, And
what does Hawkin never do. Imean, he just really realizing how in
it, and I have to remindmyself he's supposedly his boss, right,
(11:52):
Yeah, he's a higher rank tohis Drebbin for his Barney Miller. I
guess I think I called him captainearlier, but I meant sergeant for Drebbin,
and then it's captain for Ed.I think in the first episode,
Drebbin is everything. He's a detectivelieutenant, he's sergeant. God, Sally
(12:13):
Decker calls him captain, sergeant andlieutenant in the same scene that I never
picked up on that either. Wow, that's why I never knew what he
is. And I'm thinking, oh, okay, that's why they made it
confusing. That's funny why. Idon't know if you guys remember in the
first movie he's in like he's doingwet works in the Middle East. Yea,
(12:37):
his job title is floating at best. Yeah, or even that police
squad as a special division of thepolice force. I'm like, well,
nowhere else in the police squad dothey have Gillette advertisement being shown through microscopes?
God, I love it. Yes, So in the voice over,
he says he's sergeant Franked Rebban,active lieutenant okay, and then he gets
(13:03):
called every other rank too. Thatis amazing. Yeah, I love the
little ad in the microscope. Ilove this time Olson's just about to electricute
that poor little girl in the electricchair. Here hold dislike bulb. You
know what does he tell her tobring back next my things from your mother's
(13:26):
dress. Yes, he's such apervert, but in a different direction.
I remembered him. I just rememberhim from the movie. I remember that
character from the movie where he's justlike here, ed just like this,
and he gets ed in the neckwith the thing. I mean, that's
what I remember. I don't rememberhim just being like so lecherous, but
it kind of kind of works.I mean it works. He plays it
(13:50):
so straight that there's no way itwouldn't work. That gag in the first
episode where he's shooting through the BarbaraWalters interview tapes, I mean, that
was one of those gags that wasburned into my brain. The whole thing
of like, oh and this iswhere she asked Katherine Hepburn what kind of
tree she'd like to be? Makesno sense? Yes, right, I
(14:16):
made the mistake of looking at thegoofs for that, and they're like mentioned
that. I mean, they didn'tmention that as a goof, but it
just made me think, why wouldyou even mention goofs for a show where
continuity is out the window. You'renot going to see the same thing,
oh god, And that's part ofthe joke. You're not going to see
the same setup. They mentioned thatin the Airplane commentary. You're going to
(14:37):
see Frank Drebin's or whatever his namewas in the movie in Airplane Nos grow,
but it's not going to stay long. In the next scene. You're
going to forget about it and moveon. The hiroglyphs on the floor might
change, this might change. Thatwas hilarious too. That's part of the
bit. You move on, Youtell the joke, and you move on.
All we want nowadays is continuity.Continuity, continuity, stand Begley.
(15:00):
You can't cast Peggy Pope as thesame character six times in your show.
I guess different characters six times inyour show, like they didn't Barney Miller.
She has to be the same characterevery time. Don't you know that
that ruins my ability to enjoy thingsif continuity is not strictly adhered to Marvel
style. I actually thought that theactress from the first episode was the same
(15:24):
actress in the second episode, becauseI think they threw the same wig on.
It's the same wig, Yeah,for sure. It's like wait a
minute, Wait a minute, waita minute, which I think goes to
what I said earlier about the timelesslook they're going for because their fashions aren't
very up to date, at leastfor the female characters. Right, they're
all in like fifties sixties style wigs. You're right, it's that airplane thing
(15:46):
again, where we're just going todress everybody like it's the fifties and not
have to worry about fashions, whichmakes sense, except there are some current
jokes too, not very many,but that shaving gag, I'm again,
it's like the Uban gag and anairplane. Not very many people are going
to get that past a certain age, now, you know. Then they
(16:07):
would have mentioned so go ahead.I don't know. I was going to
mention the shadow boxing, Oh yeah, which I believe I've seen in something
else, probably a cartoon, maybeBugs Bunny or something like that. Feels
very cartoonish. Yeah, And assoon as he started to do it,
I was just like, oh yeah, this is that channel boxing gag.
I mean again, all these gagsare just right there. I mean from
(16:32):
dusting for Prince with the French Maid. You know, I mentioned in the
first episode how Frank and his voiceoverwas talking about all those naked models.
I like this one how he says, I'd just come from the stockyards.
We've gotten a report of hundreds ofcows being senselessly slaughtered in the area.
But I couldn't find any evidence.I stopped off for a Hamburger and checked
(16:52):
in with Edgers. Oh so good, couldn't find any evidence. And maybe
he's not that smart. Christ Justwait until we get to the movies.
It's I know well, and it'scrazy because again, the jokes in the
movies are similar to the jokes inthe show. They don't rely on him
(17:14):
being an idiot in either capacity.In the movie, there's a couple gags
with his car going awry on itsown, right. I know, well,
I was just thinking about how hehits garbage cans every single time he
tries something. Of course, ofcourse, but they show it in the
movie, but they play him upto be more of like a clutz.
(17:37):
You know. There's the whole thingin the hospital with Nordberg, where he's
like squishing him in the bend.I mean there's all of that, right,
there's very little of that in theshow, and I was expecting him
to have I guess less character autonomyin the show. He has a fair
amount. Like they get their guyat the end, and he's not just
dead. I mean, they gettheir guy at the end. I'll talk
(17:57):
about it, but I like thathe is not just this hapless ding dong
that he ends up being in themovies, because yes, that is funny,
but that doesn't have a lot oflegs to it. And I think,
at least for me, that's whythose later movies stopped being as successful,
because, yeah, he becomes thepunchline himself, and that's a problem.
(18:19):
Like you mentioned on the Airplane episode, Mike, he just starts mugging
for the camera. And mugging isfine, but not when that's your soul
go to. Then it's just comeon, like, come up with something
funny, like or so say somethingfunny, come on, say the things.
(18:40):
No. I always prefer him playingit straight. I just I don't
like the mugging. I want tosee how many times that cocktail sign comes
up because I want to say thatwas in the first episode. And then
for sure they're at the bar.That's the one where he gets the screwdriver.
It's got that cocktail sign on there. I imagine that we're going to
(19:00):
see a lot of these same setsquite often. Well, it feels immensely
set dound. Again, nothing JoeDante could do could change that. Joe
Dante, of all people, Ithink that's absolutely fine. I think that
adds to the funniness of this.I agree, it's just how fake the
world is. You know, thereare no shots of him driving without rear
(19:21):
projection. You know, he isnever going to leave this lot that they're
on, And I think that's absolutelyfine. That the walls look like their
cardboard and that you just you know, knock into one and they just completely
collapse, or that you walk aroundsets to get to the other. They
do every time he goes to seeit, goes to the lab, they
just walk around the wall, walkaround that. The gag that got me
(19:45):
on this one was the toothpick thatCooper is chomping on at the restaurant with
the tramps again, because I don'tthink I've noticed it ever before, and
he pulls it out, He's gota little cocktail weener on it. It's
like the world and my daughter waslike, that was weird. Yes,
it was the one that got me. And this is a silly one.
(20:07):
Was when Frank goes to Johnny tofind out more information. He's like,
I'm looking for information about Mary.You mean Mary the boxer's wife that was
just kidnapped. Yes, that one, or the random Saint Bernard dog in
their apartment. Yes, I'm sittingnext to another cartoon gag. That shot
(20:29):
is hilarious of Leslie Nielsen sitting onthe couch with the Saint Bernard just behind
him. Is she's so drunk thatshe's drinking the Saint Bernard alcohol? Is
that what we're getting out? Ithink that's what I thought. Yeah,
because as a kid, that wouldshow up in cartoons like constantly, Oh
you know the Saint Bernard with thexxx right roll. Remember he would take
that barrel and then it would likeshake it up and then like poor cocktails.
(20:52):
Yes, I was like, boy, that's yeah again. Would younger
people would get that? What doesthe dog mean even with the barrel around
its neck? Did you get it? Chris? I did, but that's
well, that's only because a hugefan of the film series Beethoven obviously,
(21:14):
Yes, featuring Charles Groden. Ithink a lot of this comedy, at
least a slapstick and visual gags,are more informed. And you guys have
kind of already mentioned it by cartoonsand animation. I mean it's the movies
not so much. I mean,the movies have their moments, but the
show definitely is almost it verges onlive action cartoon. Yeah, that's very
(21:40):
I appreciate episode. Yeah, whichis very appropriate for Joe Dante to be
directing this. Yes. Yes,so that's a good point too, Grande
Bush getting knocked out and then hehas the you know, the dollars signs.
Yeah, that is straight out ofLooney Tunes, Like yeah, and
I appreciate that sensibility being brought tothis episode. I wish they leaned on
it more. At the same time, what they leaned on does work up
(22:03):
until a point. And you knowwhat, I'm not the biggest fan of
Robert Wall either. I don't thinkhe's very funny. I think he's kind
of always does the same thing andif you like that thing, cool he
has gone on to say, andI believe he's In the commentary, he
says something the effective like, Ididn't wasn't not a whole lot of connection
to this show, to the characterI was. It was just a job.
(22:26):
It was you know, six episodesand move on. I think he
writes, what two, maybe atleast two. Yeah, it kind of
already shows that the people who arewriting for this show just don't get it
already. They get it enough,is what. It feels like. The
notes might be site gags. Ohyeah, they probably had such a show
(22:47):
bible where they're just like, Okay, this is it. You know,
Johnny comes in middle beat of acttwo, you follow this blueprint or else
scrotic here. But even if yougive them that direction, the interpretation,
because I think the side gags area little different, the visual puns are
a little different. Just from thefirst episode. Yeah, as we talk
(23:10):
about it, thinking oh, yeah, this is really cartoon esque. I
forgot about the no sales sign andthinking, boy, that sticks out in
a show that doesn't really do thiskind of thing. And I'm curious now
if that'll show up in the nextfour episodes at all, that cartoon like
aspect. I mean, I lovebugs Bunny cartoons. So if you're going
(23:33):
to riff on that, I'm totallyfine. You could have gotten that scarf
anywhere. You could have gotten thatperson anywhere. This is Mary's toaster.
Well, then they take that chokeeven further during that machine the blender.
Yeah, and then the final formof the gag that they repeat five times
(23:57):
is the washing machine. And youknow when it works every single time they
do it, but it wouldn't haveworked if they had done it five times
in the same scene. The factthat they break it up with those three
jokes and then they come back toit and they don't even say anything.
They take those dialogue or script gagsand then they turn it into a visual
(24:18):
gag that's informed by those script gags. I appreciate when it's a joke within
a joke, or kind of likea joke seption. I don't want to
call it that, but that jokeand then changing the style of the delivery,
but it's still the same joke.I really appreciate that, And there
wasn't a lot of that in thelast episode. This is kind of one
of the first times we're seeing themkeeping the joke going and then they come
(24:41):
back to it again and beat itup again, and it still works.
And that's not za Z doing it. That's Insana and Robert Wool and Meche
doing it. And I think itreally, I think that gag really works.
I just there could have been lessof the tramps and whatever. There
could have been less of that kindof stuff, because I think those gags
(25:02):
they work, they just don't workas well and they're not as original obviously,
especially there's you know, and thelook he's over there with a with
a bunch of whatever and there itis, or whether like you said,
the seward thing. It's like,come on, just I don't need you
to do that that many times I'vefound my intro line, Oh what was
it? What's a goon? Luca? That is a good one. Nice.
(25:26):
I do like the use of thesound and everything. The big steam
room scene. How we just makethe finale very cheap. We're just gonna
play an animation of steam on screen. And works for me? Yeah,
miss me? How about this time? Not so good? You tease the
act too title, and I didn'twant to take that away from you.
(25:48):
Act too Brute and Hue, whichis a William Shakespeare Julius Caesar joke,
anyone playing along at all. Youknow, every buddy who was sitting down
to watch Police Squad as a hugefan of Julius Caesar, so good you
probably had to suffer through it atsome point in your educations. I love
(26:11):
that gag. I love the Imean you met we mentioned in the last
episode, the title cards or thecar, you know, the interstitial cards,
every opportunity to tell a joke.I would say, for the most
part, this episode lives up tothe expectations of the first one. Yeah,
it is somebody else writing a NakedGun episode or a Police Squad episode,
so they're gonna bring their own sensibilitiesto it. I think the sensibilities
(26:33):
here really lead on like isn't itfunny to literally see something like this?
And yeah, it can be.That's can't be your sole vehicle of delivery
of the jokes. There's got tobe more than that. That's what I
think about when I think of NakedGun or any other ZAC stuff. It's
not just one thing. It isa mix, a very a varied mix
of things. You had the weirdthings like the have you had your kid
(26:57):
today on the back of his robe, which is another head scratcher for me.
I'm not for sale. And thenhe turns around and asked, oh
okay, now, oh wait,no, no, no, I've yeah,
Am I mixing up two jokes?I don't know. Yeah. I
look at that and I go,I don't really get the reference here.
Was this like one of those darethings, like a national You know there
(27:22):
are all these commercials. Have youhugged your kid today? That's what's going
to keep them off drugs? Or? Is it? Right? Intergirl to
the story. Yeah, I thinkit's the way you're talking about. I
think it's the idea of like aPSA type of thing that reminds me of
It's ten o'clock. Do you knowwhere your children are? Yeah? Which,
Chris, I don't know if youknow, but that used to be
a thing that would play on televisionat ten o'clock at night every single night.
(27:45):
It's ten o'clock. Do you knowwhere your children are? It's eleven
o'clock. Do you know where yourchildren are? I told you late night?
No, you know a safety thing. The toothpick gag is kind of
a weird one that there's some weirdjokes in this that aren't really in the
first one either. So you've gotcartoon gags, you've got the literalisms,
(28:06):
you've got weird jokes verging on nonsequitaries, right, I mean, yeah,
yeah, if anything were closer tothat Seth McFarlane type of thing with
this one, but still not fullySeth McFarland, Thank goodness. No.
And the Seth McFarland gags and FamilyGuy they really do lean on in a
(28:26):
lot of ways. And if youappreciate Family Guy or you like Family Guy,
this is not meant as a digat you, but more of a
dig at Seth McFarlane. It alwaysfelt like he thought he was the smartest
guy in the room, and heis making sure that you understand that he
understands how smart you are by makingsmart informed pop culture gags, and sometimes
(28:49):
they land, and sometimes they don't. I like a good pop culture gag,
a good Deadpool gag, where ohweren't you Wolverine Jackman? I appreciate
those, but there is a pointwhere those kinds of jokes go from funny
to You're just trying to show howwell informed pop culturally you are, and
(29:11):
it's like it's that weird. Ohmy god, thank you for bringing that
that's that weird. Ryan Reynolds inOh god him the Statham and Rock movie.
Why am I blinking the name ofthat? It was Hobbs and Shaw.
Oh, Ryan Reynolds isn't inn whereSuddenly yes he is, He's there.
(29:32):
Oh, never seen it? Clearly. He also dubs the bad guy's
voice at the end, so Idon't know if he's supposed to be the
bad guy or not. It's veryconfusing, but he is their handler,
and he just like out of nowhere, starts talking about the finale of Game
of Thrones and you're just like,what, this is not going to age
(29:52):
well at all. And that's thething I think that we've mentioned several times
talking about police Squad is these jokesare timeless. There are some things like
have you helped your kid today orwhatever, where it's probably very much of
the moment, but the rest ofthese gags are you know, we're laughing
again, forty years later, we'restill laughing at these gags. Bannu was
(30:14):
supposed to do the voice at theend of Hobbs and Show that you're talking
about, but it is Ryan Reynoldsdoing the voice at the end, which
makes it very confusing. As anaudience member, we were just like,
wait, that's Ryan Reynolds's voice.He's a big actor. Just have him
do it, Just have him back. Yeah, when are we going to
get a sequel to that Ryan Reynoldsrock Netflix movie with Gale Goodot Red Letter
(30:36):
Red nut Letter? Yeah, whatare we going to get a Red Letter
Media? Red Letter Media gonna makethat? What are they going to make
a sequel to Space Cop? Comeon, God, I appreciate pandering to
someone's pop culture knowledge, but itdoes not age well. And that's why
you mentioned we mentioned the you know, my husband doesn't normally have two cups
(30:56):
of coffee. That's a pop culturejoke. I don't know what else that
is. And yes, those jokeswill always work for the right audience.
Okay, So in the original NakedGun, they have the whole you know,
he's coming back from the Middle East, and they're not here for you,
Frank, They're here for weird AlYankovic. That fucking joke only works
(31:17):
because weird Alt still happens to befucking topical and weird ape right apparently,
But there is a universe where thatjoke has not worked since the first five
years that movie came out, butyet we're still talking about weird Out today
in twenty twenty two. That's thekind of joke that is a huge risk
(31:37):
to take, but if it works, it's great. Most of the time
it doesn't work because you're making twospecific reference you date yourself immediately. Oh,
I just had this horrible vision ofthe future, Chris, as you
were saying that I imagined the worldin a hundred years when some a whole
discovers weird Al Yankovicx's his whole bodyof work, and it's just like,
(32:01):
did you know? And he's justlike writing the Dangerous Minds article right now?
Did you know that there was aguy back in the last century who
made his entire living by taking otherpeople's songs and making them his. Ow
people like going through the archives discoveringweird Al Yankovic. I just my blood
runs cold. Well just think aboutit, and nobody else has done it,
(32:22):
nobody else has done it successfully.I mean, oh, what it
must be to be the only guydoing parody music who doesn't even do it
anymore. Those kinds of songs tendto also have the same problem that this
movie does, or this show oryou know any of the ZAC movies.
You can't be too specific because ifyou're too specific, people twenty thirty forty
(32:47):
years from now won't find it funny. There's a reason I constantly missing Gangster's
Paradise as Amish Paradise, unintentionally,un ironically, because I heard both of
those songs one before the other.And if you know me, you know
which song I heard first. Andit wasn't Gangs's Paradise. It was fucking
(33:07):
Amish Paradise. And that was aspecific kind of reference being made. But
everything in that song is timeless.That's why weird al works. That's why
Airplane still works for the most part. What there's like three pop culture gags
an Airplane that don't work, notthat they don't work, but they only
work for an age group of acertain kind. Right, Yeah, there
(33:28):
will come a point where you watchAirplane and nobody's gonna get the my husband
doesn't have two cups of coffee joke, right, They might not even get
the center to night Fever and Joshjokes. Yeah. I mean, thanks
for big ten pole movies for thoseparodies of that, And then you get
to these things now, the disastermovie superhero movies, these kind of things,
(33:49):
and you're just like, what thehell were they even referencing with that.
It was like, you know somebodywho was in the news cycle for
a week, and they're just like, oh yeah, put that guy in
there, put the double Rainbow guyin here. Let's not discount the fact
that this show is based on ashow that none of us are actively talking
about in twenty twenty two. Nobody'stalking about MS Squad or the Felony Squad
(34:14):
for that matter. Let me sendyou all the links to all the M
Squad podcasts that are out there rightnow. Please do I think it's a
testament to a cod right what wetalked about it on the Airplane episode.
You know, you don't need towatch Zero Hour anymore. You watch Airplane,
you don't need to watch M Squad, just Launch Police Squad or Naked
(34:37):
Gun like. They distill all thosethings down, but they are making references
to specific things that we should notget quote unquote. But it's such a
timeless trope that they're aping that itdoesn't matter that it's M Squad, a
show that I have never laid asingular eye on. But yet I understand
(34:58):
the tropes of what that show is. Inherently because it's a cop show from
the sixties, I know what that'sgoing to be, And even if I
don't, I could still appreciate PoliceSquad. Yeah, that's amazing. In
that first episode of Police Squad,how one for one and it is with
the I guess it's the first episodeof the second season of m Squad.
I was actually surprised because it seemslike a hockey storyline to have her shoot
(35:23):
two guys to steal the money fromthe job she's working out, and I'm
like, oh, that's exactly whatit was. Yeah, But then they
take it and they say, whowas it her bookie or some of her
bookie of course, And is theOrthodonis he'd stab his own mother for twenty
dollars? Well, they even doit an airplane, right, I mean
(35:43):
you know an airplane. It's it'sline for line. Oh yeah, a
former pilot has to land the airplane. That's still the gag in the movie.
It's just the ridiculousness of it isplayed up, not the seriousness of
it. I'm genuinely shocked, genuineonly shocked. Nobody ever did like a
die hard parody or something of thatilk where it's somebody locked in a building
(36:06):
or something, and they aped dieHard because that movie was the biggest thing
when it came out, right,I was massively successful. There was just
an episode of Rick and Morty wherethe whole thing was to do a die
Hard. That was the entire jokethrough the entire episode, right. I
mean, there were things like theBen Stiller Show that did in the nineties.
The die Hard was in a grocerystore. Yeah, but Dabidabba Gooby,
(36:29):
which I mean the Benstiller showed fuckinga real underrated piece of TV comedy
still there in the nineties. Theywere parodying a movie from the eighties,
but they understood the timelessness of thesource material, and that is a hard
thing to determine in the time andthe place. I don't know. If
(36:52):
you told me today write a parodyof something current, I don't know what
I would parody. First off,there's like eight million goddamn things you could
do. Now, what could youparody now that you would be able to
get seventy five percent or more ofthe people watching it to understand what you're
parody. It may be a Marvelmovie superhero movies that was well that and
(37:15):
then give me something else that inforty years is going to be relevant as
well. So right by that time, I don't know if our cycle of
superhero movies will have played out Fingerscrossed, it will fingers crossed, it
will so lasted this long. I'mkind of surprised as well. Yeah,
me too. You can't be tootopical in these things. That's the whole
(37:38):
point, and that's why a lotof those maybe not so much the scary
movie, but it's it's those otherones that have the ridiculously long titles,
right, right, you know,the girl with the dragon tattoo, who
married the forty year old from whateverthey are, that group that does those,
it's so of the moment that ayear later you don't get half the
(38:01):
jokes. Well, the title aloneis like a microcosm of it. Right,
It's like da da dada, It'slike it's specific to begin with.
Scary movie, Got lucky? Theyfucking parody one of the biggest horror movies,
one of the more influential horror moviesof the nineties, right, I
mean, which were yeah, right, yeah, we're talking about Scream In
twenty twenty two because a scream moviecalled Scream came out this year. There
(38:23):
you go, they benefited from luck. But also again that first Scary movie
is very similar to Naked Gun,very similar to Airplane. They had a
lot of things to parody and theydid it really well, but they didn't
do it hyper specific. Yeah theyparody Scream. Yeah, they parody I
know what you did last summer.But they will still have legs now.
(38:46):
Yeah, it was a very specificcycle of films that they were going.
Yeah. Yeah, but again,thankfully, Scream is still the one that
has lasted. And I will givethem credit. Scary Movie was the original
tie for Scream, and that wasthe title for a scary movie, so
they tied themselves directly to Scream.Scream a successful But yeah, you can't
(39:07):
just throw a hail Marry up.I'm gonna do a ted Lasso parody show,
like, you don't know, tenyears from now, anybody's gonna be
talking about ted Lasso. You know, I'm gonna do a Hawaii five Oh
parody show, like okay, likeyou're really just paroding a cop show.
If you do something hyper specific,you're not going to have a good time.
But if you kind of expand itand take some base elements and parody
(39:30):
those. I think it's easier.I just nobody does it anymore. This
is this's a weird Al's not doingparody music anymore, Like even he kind
of gave up the ghost and Iget it, it's not It seems like
a thankless job because all you're doingis really just riffing on everybody else's stuff.
It wasn't even until tonight that Ifinally got what Trey Parker mat Stone
we're talking about. Because years ago, before Team America World Police came out,
(39:52):
they were talking about doing a remakeof the Day After Tomorrow because I
thought it was the most ridiculous filmaround, and they were saying we would
play it straight, and if finallyjust dawned on me that they would basically
do an airplane version of the DayAfter Tomorrow, which I think you could
(40:13):
definitely do. And I think there'sso many of these disaster movies, you
know, but Airplane already was thedisaster movie. This Day After Tomorrow was
just a disaster movie. Three decadeslater, Finally, you know, it
dawns on me, and I thinkthat's where Parker and Stone really mets sensibilities
with like Basketball, because it hadvery much that same humor. And I
know it was I can't remember ifit was Zucker or Abrams or this sucker
(40:36):
or that sucker, but those guyswere together on that film, and I
thought their sensibilities missed very well.Well. We talked about earlier this year,
you and I and Mike. Wetalked about Mafia, which is a
really good parody movie for a specifickind of movie, good Fellas a see
no Godfather, but like they waitedhow long to make that movie. They
(41:00):
could have made a Godfather movie inthe eighties or the nineties, they waited
until ninety eight to parody Godfather andCasino and good Fellows and once upon a
time, like every Mafia movie,they kind of just threw it into one
big old pot and made a nastyball and as out of it. But
it works, and same with Basketball. But then, yeah, you get
to stuff like anything, like Isaid, past Scary Movie three, and
(41:22):
I was like, never mind,American Carol, folks, you don't get
to talk about comedy if you madethat movie. Just gonna point this out,
I have more to say about comedybecause I didn't make that movie.
Okay, Jesus and Leslie Nielsen's inthat movie. Oh yeah, playing Osama
bin Nielsen because even Leslie needed tocheck there at the end. And that's
(41:45):
okay. God, you gotta paythose teeth whitening bills. Yeah, yes,
man. In that the case,they were the unsung heroes of this
genre, right, and I thinkstill are. I don't think anybody else
is doing this. I don't thinkthey're unsung. Yeah, that's fair.
(42:09):
Whoa may maybe they are. Whoknows. There's three of them, one
of the three probably law of averages. Yeah, just think about this call
right now. Yeah, they're veryfair. It is just a testament though,
that this show still works. Itdoes still work. They're not making
(42:30):
very specific references in this show.They're more or less just tramps, screwdriver.
Yeah, there's a Gillette joke,but there's not even There is nothing
even on the level of Elephant Manin this episode. There's an on the
waterfront joke, I guess, butyeah, that's pretty iconic. That's not
(42:51):
time specific either. It's not amovie from the previous year that they're riffing
on that maybe no one will everremember. Right. They even referenced the
Wizard of Oz. Yeah, that'stimeless. Yeah, who's going to stop
talking about the Wizard of Oz,noboddy, We're still talking about it now.
Plus it calls back to Airplane aswell, the whole echo thing.
They do the echo gag and airplanesame lines too, an Am and Toto
(43:15):
too? Is it that same?Well, I don't know. I know
that they just do the echo okay, the echo itself, I don't remember
specifically. Tunes into the sports saidyes, yes, yes, Manny Mota.
(43:37):
Yeah. Now coming into pitch hitfor pedro Borbond that joke and Airplane
doesn't work anymore, I guess.I guess I understand what the joke is
referencing, but that always made melaugh because it was a non sequitur,
which I think also to the pointof kind of what we're talking about last
episode. In this episode, evenwhen the jokes don't work because you don't
(43:59):
have a pop culture guidepost, ifit still works. I think that's a
testament to those who are writing andunderstanding that you can you don't necessarily have
to lean on the pop culture aspectof a joke to make it funny.
It could still be funny to peoplewho don't get the reference, don't get
the gag. We talked about airplane, like you mentioned Mark with I don't
know if people who know what SaturdayNight Fever is, they should still be
(44:21):
able to find that scene in thebar funny the Jaws thing at the beginning.
Maybe not, but you can stillfind it funny that they're having an
airplane going back and forth across screenand then flying up. Is it as
funny as the Saturday Night Fever gagis and its entirety? No, If
the joke works in spite of thepop culture reference, I think that's the
sign of people who understand how tonot only write comedy, but have mastered
(44:43):
comedy, because you can provide ajoke that's multi layered, like we've been
kind of talking about. And Idon't think you have to know who those
baseball players are to get that joke. No, I don't. It's the
announcer voice and the echo. Well, it's the fact that he's thinking about
baseball players in his head when he'sworrying about landing a plane. It turns
into that because they're riffing on theecho. Right. When you have a
(45:07):
memory like that, it's in anecho and what does an echo sound like?
Well, who you know when you'reat the baseball stadium when you're the
announcer talk, it's echoes. Okay, yeah, I guess people that have
never been to a sporting event inreal life might not get that gag.
Well, I guess the most likepop culture specific gag in any of these
episodes of the show are the openerswith George Stanford Brown. I did not
(45:34):
know who that was. I hadto look up who that was. Just
like Lauren Green in the last episode, there will be people who are the
Tonight's Special guest stars who are beyondrecognizable. The next episode has the eventual
villain from Naked Gun too, Andthen I want to say, there isn't
there's one with Shatner right there,Shatner, Florence Henderson, right, Riccardo
(45:57):
Multibon as well, right, isn'tregard on multipad in one. He's the
villain in one of them. Okay, Naked Gun movies for whatever reason have
this image of him in an opening. I don't know why. Yeah,
I'm not sure of all of them. I know that I've seen the Florence
Henderson and I remember William Shatner forsure, and then, like I said,
William Conrad, he does show upeventually in the sixth episode. I
(46:22):
mean, even when I was watchingthese when they first aired, I mean,
I knew who Lauren Green was.I never really watched Bonanza, but
he was on commercials and TV guestappearances. George Stanford Brown was on was
a police show? Yeah, serves, yeah, the rookies. Yes.
Sorry, while you're you're looking himup, I just remember we're talking about
(46:44):
the fifties garb and how they reallyplayed down current fashions from eighty two.
I forgot that. When we goto that fight, the boxing match,
That's what I really noticed. Thateveryone was in fifties garb, like really
old school, like, if notthirty scar but it looked really strange.
It was like they were really playingup this is an old boxing movie type
(47:07):
of thing. When I see oneor two characters, it doesn't really ring
a bell. But when I seeeverybody against on screen, all wearing these
outfits, I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I forgot that
we're doing this here. The bitwith the prosthetic chin that we watched could
apply that just maybe, so guys, I was like, oh, they're
(47:29):
doing the special effects right now.That's great, and then in the next
shot he's got the full effect on. You should mention George Stanford Brown actually
would direct a later episode of thisshow. Really, Oh that's funny.
Yeah, maybe that's how they ropedhim into the opening of this one.
We'll let you direct if you dothe opening right, get smashed by a
(47:51):
safe, I'll do it. Youcan count on me. We should talk
about the end of the episode.We'd be remissing if we didn't mention how
they take the freeze frame gag andbump it up to the nth degree.
And even before that though, thisis another one of those weird jokes.
Why is he his desk? Whyis hawking Dreben's desk? That's what I
(48:12):
was like. And Drebin comes insmoking, which I don't think we've He
has the cigarettes with them right andoffers them to people, but he's never
been shown smoking, And I'm like, is it just a set up the
gag that Hawkin is acting as hisdesk? And then that makes me think,
why is Hawkin acting ass his desk? Did I miss something? Did
they say they were refurnishing the placeor reorganizing. I don't know. It
(48:37):
just it's one of those ones.It just stands out to me, is
I don't get it non sequitors.I guess I don't want to give every
non sequitor. Well, it's justa non sequitor like bird anything necessarily,
but it's just kind of an oddthey pull back. I mean, he's
got all of his stuff on him, like he's a desk. Okay,
(49:00):
I have to tell you, Mark, I never noticed that. I never
picked up on that joke at all. Now I have to go back and
rewatch that. Yeah, he's literallysitting there with his feet out and that
everything is just on his legs.I never picked up on the phone the
ash tray, like you mentioned inthe last episode. It's because they have
foreground background stuff always going on.So that's all happening in the foreground,
(49:24):
and the credits are over it.They don't even care. This is the
freeze frame gag I've seen out ofa context the most and you have the
villain Martin who's played by Rudy Solari, running away after being captured because the
freeze frame, everybody freezes but him, and he starts looking around trying to
(49:45):
figure out what's going on, andthen he just tries to go out the
door. The door's locked, sohe tries to come through the screen and
get stopped by the I guess theglass on the cameras. What we're being
TV screen read to believe. Itis a really funny gag that I think
(50:06):
is what I remember this episode forthe most is that final upping of the
antie of that gag from the firstepisode, essentially the same gag. They
do something else with it, whichI appreciate because they could have just done
the same thing, literally the samething, and instead they go, no,
no, what's the next thing wecan do? Oh, we we'll
have one of the people in thescene not be frozen, And it just
(50:30):
happens to be the person they've beengoing after the entire episode. That is
an inherently funny setup, and whatthey do with it I think is really
funny. It kind of steals theshow almost. I think it almost steals
the entire episode that in the Acttwo brute a joke which obviously will never
not be funny again. They wentto something that everybody theoretically could know Shakespeare.
(50:52):
The next episode, we will beback talking about rendezvous at Big gulch.
Until then, Chris, do youwant to tell people? Where you
can find out more about you,about me, and about Mark. You
can find all of the shows thatthe three of us work on, create
and put out at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. We each have our main shows over
(51:13):
there, along with this show thatwe work on together, and a whole
host of other shows that we continueto workshop and create. And just go
to weirding Way Media. There's alwayssomething new. I guarantee you there's a
new episode of something almost every day. So that's where you can go Weirdingwaymedia
dot com. We're also on YouTubeWeirdingway Media. If you find that name,
it's probably us. Are you surethat you and in next week for
(51:59):
another exciting story from the files ofPolice Squad.
Police Squad in Color, starring LeslieNielsen, also starring Allen Norton and Rex
(00:29):
Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln. Tonight's specialguest star George Stanford Brown Tonight's episode A
Dangerous Assignment. Welcome to you fromthe files of Police Squad in Color.
(00:57):
I'm your host by Kwhite. Joiningme, of course, is mister Mark
Begley. Damn it, yes,slo I keep losing my clothes. That
was funny on its own. Damnit. Yeah, the right paper Chris
statues here as well, Get mea screwdriver? Do you want to drink?
(01:18):
No, I'm good. That gag. That gag will never not get
old, only because Leslie Nielsen justgoing in the bottom of the frame is
the is just fucking hilarious. Onthis episode, we were talking about Ring
of Fear, directed by Joe Dante, written by Tino Insanna, Robert Wall
and David Mish. It aired originallyMarch eleventh, nineteen eighty two. Just
(01:45):
a little bit over a week.I mean, this is my math is
off here? What is seven plusfour? Yeah? That's okay, so
we're one week after okay. Goodspecial guest star in this episode, mister
George's stand for Brown who gets takenout by a big safe Oh my god,
talk about an antiquated joke. Yeah, I was waiting for the Roadrunners
(02:08):
Shop. Yeah that or even fuckingBuster Keaton or something. Oh man.
And we are in very familiar territoryin this episode. This is a boxing
episode, so we get all ofthe corruption that has to do with boxing,
taking dives, no sacks before thefight. This plays with a lot
(02:30):
of tropes. I don't know ifthis is specifically based on any sort of
m Squad or Felony Squad or anyof these other shows that they would riff
on, or if it's just awhole mashup of all of these different tropes
that we've seen in boxing movies throughoutthe years. Because this is very familiar
territory. Yeah, what's the routsterling requiem for heavyweight? Yeah, Like
(02:53):
I haven't watched that in decades,so that's what I always think of.
But I'm like, are they riffingon that? Is that like the first
thing to have all these kind ofjokes, the mob guys, the mall,
the girl friend and all that.If that's where that originates from.
I'm trying to think there was aparody movie from nineteen eighty six that the
(03:15):
Zuckers had absolutely nothing to do with, which was called Ricky One by William
T. Nod That is a lotmore rocky than this one is. Though.
I think the reunion of our maincharacter and his girlfriend at the end
is very rocky esque. But Idon't think they go too far into the
(03:36):
rocky realm with this one, whichwas surprising. That's right what I was
expecting. Let me put it thisway. Obviously, second episode, Like
we mentioned at the end of thelast episode, za Z are not really
involved directly now, at least notwith writing and directing. I think it
shows almost immediately, and I willtell you why. All of a sudden,
(04:00):
it has gotten to the point wherethey say, oh, there,
he's over there with some tramps andthey're hobo's there. They're doing a lot
of the saying something and then showingthat thing. It's not bad, but
it's not needed. Every time yousay something. It's like the airplane gag
of they're on instruments and then they'rethey're they're playing the instruments. They do
(04:23):
that a lot in this episode,to a point of fault. I think
like it's he becomes a little much. I don't think Tino and Sonna and
Robert Wool, Mike's favorite, RobertWool, I don't think they are blind.
I would say, given what wesee here, they're not as in
(04:43):
tune with the expectations of what isneeded to write this kind of show.
They're writing it as if they watchedthe show and are trying to mimic or
ape what Zaz did again with alot of success, but also a lot
of just like thus same thing,the same kind of gag reoccurring a lot,
(05:03):
a lot, a lot. EvenI was trying to think of what's
the term for that type of Soyou have that one, and then you
have I'm going to get you outof this sewer, and then they'll literally
come out of so literalisms, what'sthe because that's what I noticed was different
(05:24):
tramps. I guess is more ofa pun because you could take that either
way. But the sewer, thescrewdriver joke. The screwdriver joke, is
that akin to the building jokes anairplane or is it something different? It's
kind of like the cigarette joke,right, that same idea where it's like
cigarette, it's I think it isliteralism. Just if the show was talking
(05:45):
about lizard people, it would bea literal lizard person, a guy in
a lizard suit. It wouldn't besomething else. It's bigfoot, it wouldn't
be bigfoot, it would be aguy with big feet. It's like,
yeah, and I just it's weirdbecause this episode just launched right into it.
The last episode it peppered those inthe I'm Gonna get you out of
the sewer is the one that andthe the other one. They just stand
(06:08):
down. It's like Jesus Christ,like this joke is really just beaten into
the ground, and this this kindof setup is beaten into the ground in
this episode. The no dice jokeis the same thing. I'm sorry,
but all of these jokes you're mentioningmade me laugh out loud last they're funny.
It's not that they're unfunny. It'sjust for me, it's a matter
(06:29):
of too many of the same kind, Like the same setup is just they're
still funny. But those setups justyou gotta maybe a little bit more.
Like when he says, well,I've got an ace in the hole,
he pulls his gun out, that'snot this kind of joke. But yeah,
they they're on instruments, are theysitting with tramps, or they're in
the sewer. It's like, guys, it's set up in delivery. It's
(06:51):
more like typical joke structure. Theydon't write jokes. I mean they are
constantly saying that in their commentaries.And it's either the delivery that's funny or
the irony then makes it funny,or the pun that makes it funny,
or the absurdity of it or theabsurdity. Yeah. Like at one point
(07:13):
he's like I was, She's likeI always wanted my own synagogue. I
was just like, okay, yeah, sure, odd right, I love
it. And then you still havename gags in this gym's gym, the
Johnny Cash thing, where he's like, I've also go, oh, yeah,
you represent Johnny. I love thatguy, whoever he is. That
guy's oh my god, I'm freeTuesdays. Yeah, oh that was great
(07:44):
erwin Keys. He is a veryfamiliar face. He's the guy that shows
up with the dynamo, mite,the bum, the hatchet, all this
stuff and press. He's got sucha great face. Yes, and I
confuse him with Robert Zadar because ofthat oversized Oh wow, and you know
(08:07):
I'm Jack Elam than a Robert Ciar. Oh yeah. I think of him
as someone who would be right athome and Rob Zombies films. Strangely,
he's in one of Rob Zombies films. He's in the House of a Thousand
corpses. He has just a verydistinct character actor. Look, I don't
know. I mean, he's acharacter actor. When I think of a
(08:28):
character actor, I think of someonelike Irwin Keys, or I think of
someone like grand l Bush. Anotherfantastic Yes, yeah, I'll break your
face. I was so happy.I posted about that on Facebook, about
how great it was to see him, and then he liked the comment.
I was just agent Johnson, theother one. He's so good in this.
(08:54):
Tag him when this releases. Ohyeah, he's so good in this.
Oh yeah, he's great. Theacting other than our leads is a
little iffy, even in the firstepisode, which is much stronger as far
as writing, I think, andwhen you're comparing these two, at least
(09:16):
you know, I know that theyhave tight turnaround with TV shooting four shows,
you know. I think in thecommentary they mentioned like you've got five
days to shoot something which is amazing. Some of the acting maybe not so
great. He is amazing in thisand he's barely in it. You know
that he came prepared and knew whathe was doing. He takes that small
(09:37):
minute or so of screen time andit goes with it. He's brilliant.
Almost all of the side characters inthis are really strong, you know,
And we mentioned the guys at thepoker game. I really like is a
Cooper the main baddie, the badmanager guy. I mean, I'm the
cigar chopper, yes, or thecocktail wheney chumper. He really gives it
(10:03):
a real workout. But he couldhave been a little bit stronger. But
he didn't need to do that much. He just needed to stand there and
look good pretty much. I waslike, man, that guy looks familiar.
He is in all kinds of stuff. I just saw him, I
think last week on a show.He's always on cop shows, usually playing
a detective that's no nonsense and gruffand all that, and I thought I
(10:26):
knew he looked familiar with those blueeyes. I'm like, I've seen that
face before. But man, hewas young, still working today on SWAT.
Yeah, that's what I saw himon That's what I saw him on
What's Funny Is Again, like whenyou just go and look at the IMDBs
for the people who were the lastepisode the people were in this episode.
It's like a stark contrast. Ohyeah, just the level automatically of the
(10:48):
people like Irwin Keys and Grandel Bushalone raise the level with those two,
and again irwin Keys is even isin this episode even less than Grandel Bushes.
They make an impact, but theydon't take away from Frank Drebbin being
Frank Drebin and being a complete dingdong. I was thinking about it,
(11:09):
contrasting it against the movie because Iwatched the movie pretty frequently, the original
at least, he is so muchmore of a ding dong in the movies
than he ever is in the TVshow. He's composed in these episodes in
the movie, I just always thinkof him going nothing to see here,
nothing to see here, as thefireworks factory is exploding in the background.
(11:30):
That's what I think of when Ithink of Frank Drebin. I don't think
of someone who could actually solve acrime, right, yeah, Well,
though Johnny pretty much helps him outevery time, yes, right, And
what does Hawkin never do. Imean, he just really realizing how in
it, and I have to remindmyself he's supposedly his boss, right,
(11:52):
Yeah, he's a higher rank tohis Drebbin for his Barney Miller. I
guess I think I called him captainearlier, but I meant sergeant for Drebbin,
and then it's captain for Ed.I think in the first episode,
Drebbin is everything. He's a detectivelieutenant, he's sergeant. God, Sally
(12:13):
Decker calls him captain, sergeant andlieutenant in the same scene that I never
picked up on that either. Wow, that's why I never knew what he
is. And I'm thinking, oh, okay, that's why they made it
confusing. That's funny why. Idon't know if you guys remember in the
first movie he's in like he's doingwet works in the Middle East. Yea,
(12:37):
his job title is floating at best. Yeah, or even that police
squad as a special division of thepolice force. I'm like, well,
nowhere else in the police squad dothey have Gillette advertisement being shown through microscopes?
God, I love it. Yes, So in the voice over,
he says he's sergeant Franked Rebban,active lieutenant okay, and then he gets
(13:03):
called every other rank too. Thatis amazing. Yeah, I love the
little ad in the microscope. Ilove this time Olson's just about to electricute
that poor little girl in the electricchair. Here hold dislike bulb. You
know what does he tell her tobring back next my things from your mother's
(13:26):
dress. Yes, he's such apervert, but in a different direction.
I remembered him. I just rememberhim from the movie. I remember that
character from the movie where he's justlike here, ed just like this,
and he gets ed in the neckwith the thing. I mean, that's
what I remember. I don't rememberhim just being like so lecherous, but
it kind of kind of works.I mean it works. He plays it
(13:50):
so straight that there's no way itwouldn't work. That gag in the first
episode where he's shooting through the BarbaraWalters interview tapes, I mean, that
was one of those gags that wasburned into my brain. The whole thing
of like, oh and this iswhere she asked Katherine Hepburn what kind of
tree she'd like to be? Makesno sense? Yes, right, I
(14:16):
made the mistake of looking at thegoofs for that, and they're like mentioned
that. I mean, they didn'tmention that as a goof, but it
just made me think, why wouldyou even mention goofs for a show where
continuity is out the window. You'renot going to see the same thing,
oh god, And that's part ofthe joke. You're not going to see
the same setup. They mentioned thatin the Airplane commentary. You're going to
(14:37):
see Frank Drebin's or whatever his namewas in the movie in Airplane Nos grow,
but it's not going to stay long. In the next scene. You're
going to forget about it and moveon. The hiroglyphs on the floor might
change, this might change. Thatwas hilarious too. That's part of the
bit. You move on, Youtell the joke, and you move on.
All we want nowadays is continuity.Continuity, continuity, stand Begley.
(15:00):
You can't cast Peggy Pope as thesame character six times in your show.
I guess different characters six times inyour show, like they didn't Barney Miller.
She has to be the same characterevery time. Don't you know that
that ruins my ability to enjoy thingsif continuity is not strictly adhered to Marvel
style. I actually thought that theactress from the first episode was the same
(15:24):
actress in the second episode, becauseI think they threw the same wig on.
It's the same wig, Yeah,for sure. It's like wait a
minute, Wait a minute, waita minute, which I think goes to
what I said earlier about the timelesslook they're going for because their fashions aren't
very up to date, at leastfor the female characters. Right, they're
all in like fifties sixties style wigs. You're right, it's that airplane thing
(15:46):
again, where we're just going todress everybody like it's the fifties and not
have to worry about fashions, whichmakes sense, except there are some current
jokes too, not very many,but that shaving gag, I'm again,
it's like the Uban gag and anairplane. Not very many people are going
to get that past a certain age, now, you know. Then they
(16:07):
would have mentioned so go ahead.I don't know. I was going to
mention the shadow boxing, Oh yeah, which I believe I've seen in something
else, probably a cartoon, maybeBugs Bunny or something like that. Feels
very cartoonish. Yeah, And assoon as he started to do it,
I was just like, oh yeah, this is that channel boxing gag.
I mean again, all these gagsare just right there. I mean from
(16:32):
dusting for Prince with the French Maid. You know, I mentioned in the
first episode how Frank and his voiceoverwas talking about all those naked models.
I like this one how he says, I'd just come from the stockyards.
We've gotten a report of hundreds ofcows being senselessly slaughtered in the area.
But I couldn't find any evidence.I stopped off for a Hamburger and checked
(16:52):
in with Edgers. Oh so good, couldn't find any evidence. And maybe
he's not that smart. Christ Justwait until we get to the movies.
It's I know well, and it'scrazy because again, the jokes in the
movies are similar to the jokes inthe show. They don't rely on him
(17:14):
being an idiot in either capacity.In the movie, there's a couple gags
with his car going awry on itsown, right. I know, well,
I was just thinking about how hehits garbage cans every single time he
tries something. Of course, ofcourse, but they show it in the
movie, but they play him upto be more of like a clutz.
(17:37):
You know. There's the whole thingin the hospital with Nordberg, where he's
like squishing him in the bend.I mean there's all of that, right,
there's very little of that in theshow, and I was expecting him
to have I guess less character autonomyin the show. He has a fair
amount. Like they get their guyat the end, and he's not just
dead. I mean, they gettheir guy at the end. I'll talk
(17:57):
about it, but I like thathe is not just this hapless ding dong
that he ends up being in themovies, because yes, that is funny,
but that doesn't have a lot oflegs to it. And I think,
at least for me, that's whythose later movies stopped being as successful,
because, yeah, he becomes thepunchline himself, and that's a problem.
(18:19):
Like you mentioned on the Airplane episode, Mike, he just starts mugging
for the camera. And mugging isfine, but not when that's your soul
go to. Then it's just comeon, like, come up with something
funny, like or so say somethingfunny, come on, say the things.
(18:40):
No. I always prefer him playingit straight. I just I don't
like the mugging. I want tosee how many times that cocktail sign comes
up because I want to say thatwas in the first episode. And then
for sure they're at the bar.That's the one where he gets the screwdriver.
It's got that cocktail sign on there. I imagine that we're going to
(19:00):
see a lot of these same setsquite often. Well, it feels immensely
set dound. Again, nothing JoeDante could do could change that. Joe
Dante, of all people, Ithink that's absolutely fine. I think that
adds to the funniness of this.I agree, it's just how fake the
world is. You know, thereare no shots of him driving without rear
(19:21):
projection. You know, he isnever going to leave this lot that they're
on, And I think that's absolutelyfine. That the walls look like their
cardboard and that you just you know, knock into one and they just completely
collapse, or that you walk aroundsets to get to the other. They
do every time he goes to seeit, goes to the lab, they
just walk around the wall, walkaround that. The gag that got me
(19:45):
on this one was the toothpick thatCooper is chomping on at the restaurant with
the tramps again, because I don'tthink I've noticed it ever before, and
he pulls it out, He's gota little cocktail weener on it. It's
like the world and my daughter waslike, that was weird. Yes,
it was the one that got me. And this is a silly one.
(20:07):
Was when Frank goes to Johnny tofind out more information. He's like,
I'm looking for information about Mary.You mean Mary the boxer's wife that was
just kidnapped. Yes, that one, or the random Saint Bernard dog in
their apartment. Yes, I'm sittingnext to another cartoon gag. That shot
(20:29):
is hilarious of Leslie Nielsen sitting onthe couch with the Saint Bernard just behind
him. Is she's so drunk thatshe's drinking the Saint Bernard alcohol? Is
that what we're getting out? Ithink that's what I thought. Yeah,
because as a kid, that wouldshow up in cartoons like constantly, Oh
you know the Saint Bernard with thexxx right roll. Remember he would take
that barrel and then it would likeshake it up and then like poor cocktails.
(20:52):
Yes, I was like, boy, that's yeah again. Would younger
people would get that? What doesthe dog mean even with the barrel around
its neck? Did you get it? Chris? I did, but that's
well, that's only because a hugefan of the film series Beethoven obviously,
(21:14):
Yes, featuring Charles Groden. Ithink a lot of this comedy, at
least a slapstick and visual gags,are more informed. And you guys have
kind of already mentioned it by cartoonsand animation. I mean it's the movies
not so much. I mean,the movies have their moments, but the
show definitely is almost it verges onlive action cartoon. Yeah, that's very
(21:40):
I appreciate episode. Yeah, whichis very appropriate for Joe Dante to be
directing this. Yes. Yes,so that's a good point too, Grande
Bush getting knocked out and then hehas the you know, the dollars signs.
Yeah, that is straight out ofLooney Tunes, Like yeah, and
I appreciate that sensibility being brought tothis episode. I wish they leaned on
it more. At the same time, what they leaned on does work up
(22:03):
until a point. And you knowwhat, I'm not the biggest fan of
Robert Wall either. I don't thinkhe's very funny. I think he's kind
of always does the same thing andif you like that thing, cool he
has gone on to say, andI believe he's In the commentary, he
says something the effective like, Ididn't wasn't not a whole lot of connection
to this show, to the characterI was. It was just a job.
(22:26):
It was you know, six episodesand move on. I think he
writes, what two, maybe atleast two. Yeah, it kind of
already shows that the people who arewriting for this show just don't get it
already. They get it enough,is what. It feels like. The
notes might be site gags. Ohyeah, they probably had such a show
(22:47):
bible where they're just like, Okay, this is it. You know,
Johnny comes in middle beat of acttwo, you follow this blueprint or else
scrotic here. But even if yougive them that direction, the interpretation,
because I think the side gags area little different, the visual puns are
a little different. Just from thefirst episode. Yeah, as we talk
(23:10):
about it, thinking oh, yeah, this is really cartoon esque. I
forgot about the no sales sign andthinking, boy, that sticks out in
a show that doesn't really do thiskind of thing. And I'm curious now
if that'll show up in the nextfour episodes at all, that cartoon like
aspect. I mean, I lovebugs Bunny cartoons. So if you're going
(23:33):
to riff on that, I'm totallyfine. You could have gotten that scarf
anywhere. You could have gotten thatperson anywhere. This is Mary's toaster.
Well, then they take that chokeeven further during that machine the blender.
Yeah, and then the final formof the gag that they repeat five times
(23:57):
is the washing machine. And youknow when it works every single time they
do it, but it wouldn't haveworked if they had done it five times
in the same scene. The factthat they break it up with those three
jokes and then they come back toit and they don't even say anything.
They take those dialogue or script gagsand then they turn it into a visual
(24:18):
gag that's informed by those script gags. I appreciate when it's a joke within
a joke, or kind of likea joke seption. I don't want to
call it that, but that jokeand then changing the style of the delivery,
but it's still the same joke.I really appreciate that, And there
wasn't a lot of that in thelast episode. This is kind of one
of the first times we're seeing themkeeping the joke going and then they come
(24:41):
back to it again and beat itup again, and it still works.
And that's not za Z doing it. That's Insana and Robert Wool and Meche
doing it. And I think itreally, I think that gag really works.
I just there could have been lessof the tramps and whatever. There
could have been less of that kindof stuff, because I think those gags
(25:02):
they work, they just don't workas well and they're not as original obviously,
especially there's you know, and thelook he's over there with a with
a bunch of whatever and there itis, or whether like you said,
the seward thing. It's like,come on, just I don't need you
to do that that many times I'vefound my intro line, Oh what was
it? What's a goon? Luca? That is a good one. Nice.
(25:26):
I do like the use of thesound and everything. The big steam
room scene. How we just makethe finale very cheap. We're just gonna
play an animation of steam on screen. And works for me? Yeah,
miss me? How about this time? Not so good? You tease the
act too title, and I didn'twant to take that away from you.
(25:48):
Act too Brute and Hue, whichis a William Shakespeare Julius Caesar joke,
anyone playing along at all. Youknow, every buddy who was sitting down
to watch Police Squad as a hugefan of Julius Caesar, so good you
probably had to suffer through it atsome point in your educations. I love
(26:11):
that gag. I love the Imean you met we mentioned in the last
episode, the title cards or thecar, you know, the interstitial cards,
every opportunity to tell a joke.I would say, for the most
part, this episode lives up tothe expectations of the first one. Yeah,
it is somebody else writing a NakedGun episode or a Police Squad episode,
so they're gonna bring their own sensibilitiesto it. I think the sensibilities
(26:33):
here really lead on like isn't itfunny to literally see something like this?
And yeah, it can be.That's can't be your sole vehicle of delivery
of the jokes. There's got tobe more than that. That's what I
think about when I think of NakedGun or any other ZAC stuff. It's
not just one thing. It isa mix, a very a varied mix
of things. You had the weirdthings like the have you had your kid
(26:57):
today on the back of his robe, which is another head scratcher for me.
I'm not for sale. And thenhe turns around and asked, oh
okay, now, oh wait,no, no, no, I've yeah,
Am I mixing up two jokes?I don't know. Yeah. I
look at that and I go,I don't really get the reference here.
Was this like one of those darethings, like a national You know there
(27:22):
are all these commercials. Have youhugged your kid today? That's what's going
to keep them off drugs? Or? Is it? Right? Intergirl to
the story. Yeah, I thinkit's the way you're talking about. I
think it's the idea of like aPSA type of thing that reminds me of
It's ten o'clock. Do you knowwhere your children are? Yeah? Which,
Chris, I don't know if youknow, but that used to be
a thing that would play on televisionat ten o'clock at night every single night.
(27:45):
It's ten o'clock. Do you knowwhere your children are? It's eleven
o'clock. Do you know where yourchildren are? I told you late night?
No, you know a safety thing. The toothpick gag is kind of
a weird one that there's some weirdjokes in this that aren't really in the
first one either. So you've gotcartoon gags, you've got the literalisms,
(28:06):
you've got weird jokes verging on nonsequitaries, right, I mean, yeah,
yeah, if anything were closer tothat Seth McFarlane type of thing with
this one, but still not fullySeth McFarland, Thank goodness. No.
And the Seth McFarland gags and FamilyGuy they really do lean on in a
(28:26):
lot of ways. And if youappreciate Family Guy or you like Family Guy,
this is not meant as a digat you, but more of a
dig at Seth McFarlane. It alwaysfelt like he thought he was the smartest
guy in the room, and heis making sure that you understand that he
understands how smart you are by makingsmart informed pop culture gags, and sometimes
(28:49):
they land, and sometimes they don't. I like a good pop culture gag,
a good Deadpool gag, where ohweren't you Wolverine Jackman? I appreciate
those, but there is a pointwhere those kinds of jokes go from funny
to You're just trying to show howwell informed pop culturally you are, and
(29:11):
it's like it's that weird. Ohmy god, thank you for bringing that
that's that weird. Ryan Reynolds inOh god him the Statham and Rock movie.
Why am I blinking the name ofthat? It was Hobbs and Shaw.
Oh, Ryan Reynolds isn't inn whereSuddenly yes he is, He's there.
(29:32):
Oh, never seen it? Clearly. He also dubs the bad guy's
voice at the end, so Idon't know if he's supposed to be the
bad guy or not. It's veryconfusing, but he is their handler,
and he just like out of nowhere, starts talking about the finale of Game
of Thrones and you're just like,what, this is not going to age
(29:52):
well at all. And that's thething I think that we've mentioned several times
talking about police Squad is these jokesare timeless. There are some things like
have you helped your kid today orwhatever, where it's probably very much of
the moment, but the rest ofthese gags are you know, we're laughing
again, forty years later, we'restill laughing at these gags. Bannu was
(30:14):
supposed to do the voice at theend of Hobbs and Show that you're talking
about, but it is Ryan Reynoldsdoing the voice at the end, which
makes it very confusing. As anaudience member, we were just like,
wait, that's Ryan Reynolds's voice.He's a big actor. Just have him
do it, Just have him back. Yeah, when are we going to
get a sequel to that Ryan Reynoldsrock Netflix movie with Gale Goodot Red Letter
(30:36):
Red nut Letter? Yeah, whatare we going to get a Red Letter
Media? Red Letter Media gonna makethat? What are they going to make
a sequel to Space Cop? Comeon, God, I appreciate pandering to
someone's pop culture knowledge, but itdoes not age well. And that's why
you mentioned we mentioned the you know, my husband doesn't normally have two cups
(30:56):
of coffee. That's a pop culturejoke. I don't know what else that
is. And yes, those jokeswill always work for the right audience.
Okay, So in the original NakedGun, they have the whole you know,
he's coming back from the Middle East, and they're not here for you,
Frank, They're here for weird AlYankovic. That fucking joke only works
(31:17):
because weird Alt still happens to befucking topical and weird ape right apparently,
But there is a universe where thatjoke has not worked since the first five
years that movie came out, butyet we're still talking about weird Out today
in twenty twenty two. That's thekind of joke that is a huge risk
(31:37):
to take, but if it works, it's great. Most of the time
it doesn't work because you're making twospecific reference you date yourself immediately. Oh,
I just had this horrible vision ofthe future, Chris, as you
were saying that I imagined the worldin a hundred years when some a whole
discovers weird Al Yankovicx's his whole bodyof work, and it's just like,
(32:01):
did you know? And he's justlike writing the Dangerous Minds article right now?
Did you know that there was aguy back in the last century who
made his entire living by taking otherpeople's songs and making them his. Ow
people like going through the archives discoveringweird Al Yankovic. I just my blood
runs cold. Well just think aboutit, and nobody else has done it,
(32:22):
nobody else has done it successfully.I mean, oh, what it
must be to be the only guydoing parody music who doesn't even do it
anymore. Those kinds of songs tendto also have the same problem that this
movie does, or this show oryou know any of the ZAC movies.
You can't be too specific because ifyou're too specific, people twenty thirty forty
(32:47):
years from now won't find it funny. There's a reason I constantly missing Gangster's
Paradise as Amish Paradise, unintentionally,un ironically, because I heard both of
those songs one before the other.And if you know me, you know
which song I heard first. Andit wasn't Gangs's Paradise. It was fucking
(33:07):
Amish Paradise. And that was aspecific kind of reference being made. But
everything in that song is timeless.That's why weird al works. That's why
Airplane still works for the most part. What there's like three pop culture gags
an Airplane that don't work, notthat they don't work, but they only
work for an age group of acertain kind. Right, Yeah, there
(33:28):
will come a point where you watchAirplane and nobody's gonna get the my husband
doesn't have two cups of coffee joke, right, They might not even get
the center to night Fever and Joshjokes. Yeah. I mean, thanks
for big ten pole movies for thoseparodies of that, And then you get
to these things now, the disastermovie superhero movies, these kind of things,
(33:49):
and you're just like, what thehell were they even referencing with that.
It was like, you know somebodywho was in the news cycle for
a week, and they're just like, oh yeah, put that guy in
there, put the double Rainbow guyin here. Let's not discount the fact
that this show is based on ashow that none of us are actively talking
about in twenty twenty two. Nobody'stalking about MS Squad or the Felony Squad
(34:14):
for that matter. Let me sendyou all the links to all the M
Squad podcasts that are out there rightnow. Please do I think it's a
testament to a cod right what wetalked about it on the Airplane episode.
You know, you don't need towatch Zero Hour anymore. You watch Airplane,
you don't need to watch M Squad, just Launch Police Squad or Naked
(34:37):
Gun like. They distill all thosethings down, but they are making references
to specific things that we should notget quote unquote. But it's such a
timeless trope that they're aping that itdoesn't matter that it's M Squad, a
show that I have never laid asingular eye on. But yet I understand
(34:58):
the tropes of what that show is. Inherently because it's a cop show from
the sixties, I know what that'sgoing to be, And even if I
don't, I could still appreciate PoliceSquad. Yeah, that's amazing. In
that first episode of Police Squad,how one for one and it is with
the I guess it's the first episodeof the second season of m Squad.
I was actually surprised because it seemslike a hockey storyline to have her shoot
(35:23):
two guys to steal the money fromthe job she's working out, and I'm
like, oh, that's exactly whatit was. Yeah, But then they
take it and they say, whowas it her bookie or some of her
bookie of course, And is theOrthodonis he'd stab his own mother for twenty
dollars? Well, they even doit an airplane, right, I mean
(35:43):
you know an airplane. It's it'sline for line. Oh yeah, a
former pilot has to land the airplane. That's still the gag in the movie.
It's just the ridiculousness of it isplayed up, not the seriousness of
it. I'm genuinely shocked, genuineonly shocked. Nobody ever did like a
die hard parody or something of thatilk where it's somebody locked in a building
(36:06):
or something, and they aped dieHard because that movie was the biggest thing
when it came out, right,I was massively successful. There was just
an episode of Rick and Morty wherethe whole thing was to do a die
Hard. That was the entire jokethrough the entire episode, right. I
mean, there were things like theBen Stiller Show that did in the nineties.
The die Hard was in a grocerystore. Yeah, but Dabidabba Gooby,
(36:29):
which I mean the Benstiller showed fuckinga real underrated piece of TV comedy
still there in the nineties. Theywere parodying a movie from the eighties,
but they understood the timelessness of thesource material, and that is a hard
thing to determine in the time andthe place. I don't know. If
(36:52):
you told me today write a parodyof something current, I don't know what
I would parody. First off,there's like eight million goddamn things you could
do. Now, what could youparody now that you would be able to
get seventy five percent or more ofthe people watching it to understand what you're
parody. It may be a Marvelmovie superhero movies that was well that and
(37:15):
then give me something else that inforty years is going to be relevant as
well. So right by that time, I don't know if our cycle of
superhero movies will have played out Fingerscrossed, it will fingers crossed, it
will so lasted this long. I'mkind of surprised as well. Yeah,
me too. You can't be tootopical in these things. That's the whole
(37:38):
point, and that's why a lotof those maybe not so much the scary
movie, but it's it's those otherones that have the ridiculously long titles,
right, right, you know,the girl with the dragon tattoo, who
married the forty year old from whateverthey are, that group that does those,
it's so of the moment that ayear later you don't get half the
(38:01):
jokes. Well, the title aloneis like a microcosm of it. Right,
It's like da da dada, It'slike it's specific to begin with.
Scary movie, Got lucky? Theyfucking parody one of the biggest horror movies,
one of the more influential horror moviesof the nineties, right, I
mean, which were yeah, right, yeah, we're talking about Scream In
twenty twenty two because a scream moviecalled Scream came out this year. There
(38:23):
you go, they benefited from luck. But also again that first Scary movie
is very similar to Naked Gun,very similar to Airplane. They had a
lot of things to parody and theydid it really well, but they didn't
do it hyper specific. Yeah theyparody Scream. Yeah, they parody I
know what you did last summer.But they will still have legs now.
(38:46):
Yeah, it was a very specificcycle of films that they were going.
Yeah. Yeah, but again,thankfully, Scream is still the one that
has lasted. And I will givethem credit. Scary Movie was the original
tie for Scream, and that wasthe title for a scary movie, so
they tied themselves directly to Scream.Scream a successful But yeah, you can't
(39:07):
just throw a hail Marry up.I'm gonna do a ted Lasso parody show,
like, you don't know, tenyears from now, anybody's gonna be
talking about ted Lasso. You know, I'm gonna do a Hawaii five Oh
parody show, like okay, likeyou're really just paroding a cop show.
If you do something hyper specific,you're not going to have a good time.
But if you kind of expand itand take some base elements and parody
(39:30):
those. I think it's easier.I just nobody does it anymore. This
is this's a weird Al's not doingparody music anymore, Like even he kind
of gave up the ghost and Iget it, it's not It seems like
a thankless job because all you're doingis really just riffing on everybody else's stuff.
It wasn't even until tonight that Ifinally got what Trey Parker mat Stone
we're talking about. Because years ago, before Team America World Police came out,
(39:52):
they were talking about doing a remakeof the Day After Tomorrow because I
thought it was the most ridiculous filmaround, and they were saying we would
play it straight, and if finallyjust dawned on me that they would basically
do an airplane version of the DayAfter Tomorrow, which I think you could
(40:13):
definitely do. And I think there'sso many of these disaster movies, you
know, but Airplane already was thedisaster movie. This Day After Tomorrow was
just a disaster movie. Three decadeslater, Finally, you know, it
dawns on me, and I thinkthat's where Parker and Stone really mets sensibilities
with like Basketball, because it hadvery much that same humor. And I
know it was I can't remember ifit was Zucker or Abrams or this sucker
(40:36):
or that sucker, but those guyswere together on that film, and I
thought their sensibilities missed very well.Well. We talked about earlier this year,
you and I and Mike. Wetalked about Mafia, which is a
really good parody movie for a specifickind of movie, good Fellas a see
no Godfather, but like they waitedhow long to make that movie. They
(41:00):
could have made a Godfather movie inthe eighties or the nineties, they waited
until ninety eight to parody Godfather andCasino and good Fellows and once upon a
time, like every Mafia movie,they kind of just threw it into one
big old pot and made a nastyball and as out of it. But
it works, and same with Basketball. But then, yeah, you get
to stuff like anything, like Isaid, past Scary Movie three, and
(41:22):
I was like, never mind,American Carol, folks, you don't get
to talk about comedy if you madethat movie. Just gonna point this out,
I have more to say about comedybecause I didn't make that movie.
Okay, Jesus and Leslie Nielsen's inthat movie. Oh yeah, playing Osama
bin Nielsen because even Leslie needed tocheck there at the end. And that's
(41:45):
okay. God, you gotta paythose teeth whitening bills. Yeah, yes,
man. In that the case,they were the unsung heroes of this
genre, right, and I thinkstill are. I don't think anybody else
is doing this. I don't thinkthey're unsung. Yeah, that's fair.
(42:09):
Whoa may maybe they are. Whoknows. There's three of them, one
of the three probably law of averages. Yeah, just think about this call
right now. Yeah, they're veryfair. It is just a testament though,
that this show still works. Itdoes still work. They're not making
(42:30):
very specific references in this show.They're more or less just tramps, screwdriver.
Yeah, there's a Gillette joke,but there's not even There is nothing
even on the level of Elephant Manin this episode. There's an on the
waterfront joke, I guess, butyeah, that's pretty iconic. That's not
(42:51):
time specific either. It's not amovie from the previous year that they're riffing
on that maybe no one will everremember. Right. They even referenced the
Wizard of Oz. Yeah, that'stimeless. Yeah, who's going to stop
talking about the Wizard of Oz,noboddy, We're still talking about it now.
Plus it calls back to Airplane aswell, the whole echo thing.
They do the echo gag and airplanesame lines too, an Am and Toto
(43:15):
too? Is it that same?Well, I don't know. I know
that they just do the echo okay, the echo itself, I don't remember
specifically. Tunes into the sports saidyes, yes, yes, Manny Mota.
(43:37):
Yeah. Now coming into pitch hitfor pedro Borbond that joke and Airplane
doesn't work anymore, I guess.I guess I understand what the joke is
referencing, but that always made melaugh because it was a non sequitur,
which I think also to the pointof kind of what we're talking about last
episode. In this episode, evenwhen the jokes don't work because you don't
(43:59):
have a pop culture guidepost, ifit still works. I think that's a
testament to those who are writing andunderstanding that you can you don't necessarily have
to lean on the pop culture aspectof a joke to make it funny.
It could still be funny to peoplewho don't get the reference, don't get
the gag. We talked about airplane, like you mentioned Mark with I don't
know if people who know what SaturdayNight Fever is, they should still be
(44:21):
able to find that scene in thebar funny the Jaws thing at the beginning.
Maybe not, but you can stillfind it funny that they're having an
airplane going back and forth across screenand then flying up. Is it as
funny as the Saturday Night Fever gagis and its entirety? No, If
the joke works in spite of thepop culture reference, I think that's the
sign of people who understand how tonot only write comedy, but have mastered
(44:43):
comedy, because you can provide ajoke that's multi layered, like we've been
kind of talking about. And Idon't think you have to know who those
baseball players are to get that joke. No, I don't. It's the
announcer voice and the echo. Well, it's the fact that he's thinking about
baseball players in his head when he'sworrying about landing a plane. It turns
into that because they're riffing on theecho. Right. When you have a
(45:07):
memory like that, it's in anecho and what does an echo sound like?
Well, who you know when you'reat the baseball stadium when you're the
announcer talk, it's echoes. Okay, yeah, I guess people that have
never been to a sporting event inreal life might not get that gag.
Well, I guess the most likepop culture specific gag in any of these
episodes of the show are the openerswith George Stanford Brown. I did not
(45:34):
know who that was. I hadto look up who that was. Just
like Lauren Green in the last episode, there will be people who are the
Tonight's Special guest stars who are beyondrecognizable. The next episode has the eventual
villain from Naked Gun too, Andthen I want to say, there isn't
there's one with Shatner right there,Shatner, Florence Henderson, right, Riccardo
(45:57):
Multibon as well, right, isn'tregard on multipad in one. He's the
villain in one of them. Okay, Naked Gun movies for whatever reason have
this image of him in an opening. I don't know why. Yeah,
I'm not sure of all of them. I know that I've seen the Florence
Henderson and I remember William Shatner forsure, and then, like I said,
William Conrad, he does show upeventually in the sixth episode. I
(46:22):
mean, even when I was watchingthese when they first aired, I mean,
I knew who Lauren Green was.I never really watched Bonanza, but
he was on commercials and TV guestappearances. George Stanford Brown was on was
a police show? Yeah, serves, yeah, the rookies. Yes.
Sorry, while you're you're looking himup, I just remember we're talking about
(46:44):
the fifties garb and how they reallyplayed down current fashions from eighty two.
I forgot that. When we goto that fight, the boxing match,
That's what I really noticed. Thateveryone was in fifties garb, like really
old school, like, if notthirty scar but it looked really strange.
It was like they were really playingup this is an old boxing movie type
(47:07):
of thing. When I see oneor two characters, it doesn't really ring
a bell. But when I seeeverybody against on screen, all wearing these
outfits, I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I forgot that
we're doing this here. The bitwith the prosthetic chin that we watched could
apply that just maybe, so guys, I was like, oh, they're
(47:29):
doing the special effects right now.That's great, and then in the next
shot he's got the full effect on. You should mention George Stanford Brown actually
would direct a later episode of thisshow. Really, Oh that's funny.
Yeah, maybe that's how they ropedhim into the opening of this one.
We'll let you direct if you dothe opening right, get smashed by a
(47:51):
safe, I'll do it. Youcan count on me. We should talk
about the end of the episode.We'd be remissing if we didn't mention how
they take the freeze frame gag andbump it up to the nth degree.
And even before that though, thisis another one of those weird jokes.
Why is he his desk? Whyis hawking Dreben's desk? That's what I
(48:12):
was like. And Drebin comes insmoking, which I don't think we've He
has the cigarettes with them right andoffers them to people, but he's never
been shown smoking, And I'm like, is it just a set up the
gag that Hawkin is acting as hisdesk? And then that makes me think,
why is Hawkin acting ass his desk? Did I miss something? Did
they say they were refurnishing the placeor reorganizing. I don't know. It
(48:37):
just it's one of those ones.It just stands out to me, is
I don't get it non sequitors.I guess I don't want to give every
non sequitor. Well, it's justa non sequitor like bird anything necessarily,
but it's just kind of an oddthey pull back. I mean, he's
got all of his stuff on him, like he's a desk. Okay,
(49:00):
I have to tell you, Mark, I never noticed that. I never
picked up on that joke at all. Now I have to go back and
rewatch that. Yeah, he's literallysitting there with his feet out and that
everything is just on his legs.I never picked up on the phone the
ash tray, like you mentioned inthe last episode. It's because they have
foreground background stuff always going on.So that's all happening in the foreground,
(49:24):
and the credits are over it.They don't even care. This is the
freeze frame gag I've seen out ofa context the most and you have the
villain Martin who's played by Rudy Solari, running away after being captured because the
freeze frame, everybody freezes but him, and he starts looking around trying to
(49:45):
figure out what's going on, andthen he just tries to go out the
door. The door's locked, sohe tries to come through the screen and
get stopped by the I guess theglass on the cameras. What we're being
TV screen read to believe. Itis a really funny gag that I think
(50:06):
is what I remember this episode forthe most is that final upping of the
antie of that gag from the firstepisode, essentially the same gag. They
do something else with it, whichI appreciate because they could have just done
the same thing, literally the samething, and instead they go, no,
no, what's the next thing wecan do? Oh, we we'll
have one of the people in thescene not be frozen, And it just
(50:30):
happens to be the person they've beengoing after the entire episode. That is
an inherently funny setup, and whatthey do with it I think is really
funny. It kind of steals theshow almost. I think it almost steals
the entire episode that in the Acttwo brute a joke which obviously will never
not be funny again. They wentto something that everybody theoretically could know Shakespeare.
(50:52):
The next episode, we will beback talking about rendezvous at Big gulch.
Until then, Chris, do youwant to tell people? Where you
can find out more about you,about me, and about Mark. You
can find all of the shows thatthe three of us work on, create
and put out at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. We each have our main shows over
(51:13):
there, along with this show thatwe work on together, and a whole
host of other shows that we continueto workshop and create. And just go
to weirding Way Media. There's alwayssomething new. I guarantee you there's a
new episode of something almost every day. So that's where you can go Weirdingwaymedia
dot com. We're also on YouTubeWeirdingway Media. If you find that name,
it's probably us. Are you surethat you and in next week for
(51:59):
another exciting story from the files ofPolice Squad.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.