Episode 06: Dead Men Don't Laugh

Mark, Chris, and Mike reach the end of the show with, "Dead Men Don't Laugh," aka, "Testimony of Evil." Joe Dante is back in the director's chair, but neither he nor Dick Miller can save this episode.

If you like watching Leslie Nielsen ham it up, then this is the episode for you. We also talk about the script for the unproduced seventh episode, "Testimony of Terror," and how it relates (and doesn't) to the show and the film Top Secret.

On that note, there will be no new episode next week, instead head on over to The Projection Booth where the boys will be talking about Top Secret! We will back March 1 with our episode on the first Naked Gun film.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
A Lease Squad in Color starring LeslieNielson, Alston starring Ellen North and Rex

(00:29):
Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln. The night'sspecial guest star William Conrad to night's episode
dead Men Don't Laugh. Welcome tofrom the files of Police Squad in Color.

(00:56):
I'm your host. Mike Kwait joinedme, of course, is mister
Mark Begley. I do not havea clever catch phrase this episode because there
were no clever catch phrases this episode. Oh come on, married one child
that didn't work out? Sorry,married a chrome woman as the best gag
in this sentire episode. Yeah good, that was too long to you,

(01:19):
so it's the only one I havewritten down. And of course joining us
as well as mister Chris Dash.You've caught me in the middle of my
midnight routine, which includes applying DickClark's secret formula youth cream to my face.
M Thanks Johnny. We are talkingabout the final episode of Police Squad,

(01:40):
but don't worry, we'll be back. I'm saying that right now.
We'll be back next week talking aboutNaked Gun. But for now we're talking
about Testimony of Evil, which wasthe last episode produced. The last episode
aired all the way back in Julyof nineteen eighty two, July eighth to
be exact, directed by poor JoeDante, who was just given a big

(02:04):
old shit sandwich by Tino and Sannaand Robert wool. I'm sorry, I'm
telegraphing it right now. Not afan of this episode as much as others.
Yes, there's a couple of reallygood lines, a couple of good
bits, but overall, this oneleft me the coldest every episode I did
not like. Dick Miller could notsave this episode. Yes, Dick Miller,

(02:27):
Oh my god, it was sogreat when he showed up. And
I love Danny Dayton who plays thestand up comedian slash drug runner who gets
killed, but he's barely in thisepisode. Yeah it's not funny. No,
no it's not. I mean theytry, and they get some places
of this whole thing of Frank beingthis ultimate comedian entertainer thing is pretty good,

(02:51):
but yeah, is it. Iwas like, wait a second,
I wrote this is a suck.Yeah, there was like twenty It felt
like the entire episode took place inthat nightclub with the camera on Leslie Nielson,
the entire and that's that mugging.I don't like and I know what

(03:12):
he's acting that way on purpose,but yeah, it wrinkled me kind of
where we're going with all of this. By the time we get to the
end of the third movie, Ifeel like we're on a roller coaster right
now. We're at the bottom here. We're gonna go back up for the
first movie, gonna hit a littlebit of a low for the second movie,
and that's gonna be were plumbed,the tracks not even finished, and

(03:37):
we're just plummeting into the oblivion withthe third movie. This is as low
as we're going to get until weget to the third movie. Just a
pre prefacing all of this. SoI said on our first episode where we
talked about Police Squad, So thesecond episode of this series, I believe
I talked about how William Conrad wassupposed to be in that episode, that

(03:57):
he's in the script. Well,they finally got him, but they didn't
rate a new gag for him.He's being thrown out of a moving car,
which is the exact same thing thathappened to Lauren Green in the first
episode. It's like it was reallyfunny that time. They could have used
the John Belushi gag that they hadto throw out because they filmed and couldn't

(04:17):
use man for those are the listenersthat don't know what is the John Belushi
gag? The John Belushi gag.He went to them and wanted to be
I guess, one of the gueststars that gets killed during the opening credits.
And his idea was the camera wouldpan over to a body on the

(04:38):
ground with a needle in its arm, and they said, no, we're
not going to do that, andso thank god, so it turned into
like a mob hit where you seeconcrete blocks going down in the water and
then the chains and then Belushi's bodyand apparently he choked for real during at

(05:00):
and then when they brought him up, everybody was giving their O bits,
you know, oh remember John Belushifor just this and that, his time
in Sarah Live and Animal House.And he died of a drug overdose a
couple of months after that, andbut before that was aired they were able
to pull it. And I'm notsure which episode it was supposed to go

(05:23):
with. Maybe with this it couldhave been it could have been yeah,
yikes, dodged a bullet on that. Somebody's got that film somewhere I'm assuming
maybe maybe they had the heart todestroy it back then. Who knows.
Yeah, wow, that's something.Well, it's like when they were doing

(05:45):
all that Chris Farley stuff about himbeing an alcoholic on SNL. It's like,
hey, guys, you're not helping, right, and not only are
you not helping, you make youmight be making this worse. Yeah,
weird, weird. Yeah, Sothis one is like I said, there's
a drug runner who works at anightclub, basically this whole nightclub. Mister

(06:09):
VS. Is a front. Idon't know why it wasn't that Flamingo club
that would have been yeah, butno, instead it's uh, mister vs.
Which doesn't make any sense because it'sa woman that owns it. Whatever
is it mysteries? Is that supposedto be mysteries or is supposed to be
like mister vs. A is itmister Vas? Yeah? I don't know

(06:31):
that it's funny, but it wasn'tfunny at all. No one is lower
bottom of the barrel humor, andone is like just a one tier above
it. Right. They kept showingthe sign and it was always kind of
a severe close up, and itwasn't designed very well either, because I'm
like, what is that even supposedto be? It was stylized, but

(06:54):
it was odd. I don't know, just maybe we missed the gag.
Yeah, that's why I kept lookingat it, like what am I missing
here? That is this supposed tobe funny somehow other than the owner being
a woman, which is I meanhilarious you know, just to think about,
right, ha ha ha, misterv himself or herself as Claudette Nevins,
who I thought was pretty good.There's this whole gag of her crushing

(07:16):
walnuts that really never comes back forme. It's just you constantly see her
doing it, but it doesn't comeback. It doesn't pay off. I
just and that's what this whole episodeis is like a lot of setups without
a lot of payoffs for me.But there's a point where there's a ventriloquist
doll that Leslie Nielsen has to fight. Isn't that funny? No? And

(07:36):
the ventriloquist doll is the one thatgets a cigarette. Yes I know,
line yes, yes, which Ican appreciate. That worked for me,
Yeah, it worked that he wasthe one that said, yes, I
know. I think the walnuts gagis a reference to something I want to
say, like either an old copshow or that was somebody's thing. I

(08:00):
feel like she's just a ball breaker. Is that what it's supposed to be?
That's the way I yeah, yeah, that's right. Oh I just
read on the Source of all KnowledgeWikipedia that it was actually Florence Henderson was
the replacement for John Belushi. Yeah, Florence Henderson. Bid is still great,
So it's not like they replaced itwith a bad one, right,

(08:20):
It's not like they replaced it withthe same gag twice or anything exactly.
Za Z would never let such athing happen on their show, right.
What is there to say about thisone? This one is really tough to
talk about. A hard time talkingabout the last one. I was really
worried halfway through the last episode ofwhat this episode was going to look like,

(08:41):
because this is worse than the lastepisode by a country mile and then
some Yeah, I mean even thewhole thing with mister Olson. Oh here,
Tina, give me your crying doll, and I'll put in this trash
compactor and then for some reason itwill re arrange the molecules of the dolls,
so the harm is sticking out ofthe head and his line is weird

(09:05):
too. I don't get the line. Next week we'll learn why cows look
forward to giving milk. Is ita tit joke? I think so they
like being jerk what's the jerk offjoke? Which doesn't I assume it?
But here's the thing. It's like, cows aren't coming from having I'm I
know, guys are adults. Youknow that that's not where the milk comes

(09:28):
from. Yeah, well that's wherethe milk comes from. But you're not
jerking a cow off. This isnews to someone. Email us at cow
milkers at Yahoo at weird dot com. Are we supposed to assume that cows
enjoy feeling milk grabbing the women enjoytheir breastplate? I think if if a
cow doesn't get milked regularly, itwill start to hurt, the utters start

(09:54):
to hurt. But I don't getit. I like you explaining it,
Mike. Is you wondering why whatthe explanation is is funnier than the gag
an the other? Thank you?You're just going does that to cows?
And that put too much milk?What do you do with all the milk?
Yeah, there's sort of a repeatof the it's not the rear or

(10:16):
the green screen in the back,but Joey's drive where he's seen all the
stuff after being poisoned as sort ofa play on that. And I kind
of enjoyed that the disembodied skull.And then I used to watch Battlestar Galactica
when I was a kid, soI recognized the Cylon spaceships. Yeah,
and then the roller coaster and thenthe three stooges at the end. I

(10:39):
don't know, it was just aweird mishmash. Speaking of rear projection,
is this the episode that has theelevator gag? Or was that the last
one? We both had elevator gags. Okay, that's what they were well,
which is weird because, like wesaid in the last episode, these
were shot out of order, sothey would have had the or wait,
no, by now, I guessthe fifth and sixth episodes there we go

(11:01):
had elevator gags. It's like nowthey're relying on it. And then when
we talked about the seventh episode thathad an alligator alligator elevator gag as well.
I think the Civil War gag isfunny only because you have Ed Hawkins
standing there when that arrow comes rightby, real real close. Yeah,
they very close to him. Andand the end of the episode, Gag

(11:24):
has a lot of similar things goingon where it's like, I wouldn't want
to be on set for that.It's just like I wouldn't want to be
on set with the chimpanzee. Iwouldn't want to be on the set when
it's falling apart intentionally, I mean, this is a perfect place to end
this. Oh yeah, set fallingapart around there exactly yet really smacked on

(11:48):
the head. Yeah, he getsit. That's why he didn't want to
do the movie. I bet hedoesn't want to get fucking injured while making
another naked gun thing. He's askittish dude. He's you know, he's
the one that jumped during the shootoutat the an abandoned key store. Yeah,
what about my abandoned key star?Yea man, remember when the show

(12:09):
was good, like two episodes ago. Well, and then Joe Dante reminds
us about it because Mary is inthe car I was driving home Mary the
boxer's wife from the second episode.Is that the other one that he directed?
Yes, So I was like,wait a minute, what what why

(12:30):
is the right eyes flipping around?Yeah, this episode doesn't have as much
of that weird cartoony niche, whichfrankly all Honesty could have used it.
Yeah, it could have used more. I mean, like I was hoping,
like, so, we see Joeyget poisoned and he starts to have

(12:50):
all of these hallucinations before he crasheshis car. Later on in the episode,
I'm thinking that Frank gets poisoned,but then he starts to spit all
the stuff out so much that wetake a commercial break and come back and
still spitting the stuff out, whichI kind of like that. But I
was hoping like he would get poisonedat some point and then he would have
hallucinations. And then that wasn't FrankTribbin. That was Tony too wonderful.

(13:13):
Yeah that's mister and ed Hawk andgetting a signed photo that. So I
really liked the original guy who wassupposed to be the entertainment and had taped
a game off of TV. Youknow, well it was just me.
I just watched myself, Okay,Yeah, I invited some friends over.

(13:35):
Yeah, I charged them a coupleof dollars and they have Alan North doing
the whole bit from the thing youwere watching a baseball game outside. It's
like, God damn, I've neverseen anybody do that joke before it lands
here. It actually works. Ratherin a desert of jokes, this is
the There are a few oasises.That is one of them that in the
try Marrying. That GAG's pretty fuckedup. That gag is great. The

(14:01):
stuff with the corner doesn't really workso much for me. Oh and please
explain this one to me. Whosephoto is that in the drawer? I
think it's Alexander Haig. Oh wow, I think what a fucking what a
stretch it. This is way beforeDavid Zucker went off the deep end with

(14:24):
the right wing stuff. Then wow, I think it's him. And I
didn't bother even to read the Wikipediapage because they probably would have bear much.
Okay, yes, they were sogood with kind of laying out the
jokes for most of the other episodes. Oh yeah, but my energy was
drained so much that I didn't evenbother with the commentary. I didn't look

(14:46):
up the Wikipedia page, I didn'tlook at the IMDb page. I just
didn't care. I do believe thatwas Alexander Haig, which is a hell
of a stretch for a joke.Yeah, I mean I guess at the
time, right, yeah, Imean people used to wear shirts and said
what was it? Oh no,it's a niece is a pig, But
it didn't say Haigue. But peoplehated Alexander Haigue as well. I remember

(15:07):
I counted myself as one of them. It's a weird picture to use,
though, because it's like a midbody shot. It's not like a yeah,
I would wager a guess that itwas supposed to be something else or
there was something else, because again, the way it shot, it could
be whatever. Yeah, right,literally could be them looking at a pile

(15:28):
of rotting food. Right. Theydon't even respond to it outside of just
going They probably just said, justback, disgusted, We'll put something in
there. It's honestly, it's thejoke this episode deserves, because this is
this episode really just like we youknow, finished, you know, getting
over the finish line. It's likeno, no, this like not just

(15:50):
limps over the finish line. It'slike having somebody else dragged it across the
finess, like someone attached your corpseto the back of a tow truck and
the towing your body across the finishline. It's not even trying. It's
so bizarre to me how long wespend in a twenty five minute episode.
We spend fifteen minutes in a nightclub, and thirteen of those fifteen minutes are
not funny at all. It's justLeslie Nielsen goofing around and they just filmed

(16:15):
it. It's like Paul Fieg steppedin for an hour and was like,
let me let me show you guysa thing or two about improvly the lead
up to that Alexander Haig gag,even with the toe tags. Yeah,
so you go through the toe tagsand they become you know, this little
piggy went to whatever, and thenthat pile of bodies and there's just like

(16:37):
a cheap hunk of cardboard with irregularsor something written right like, yeah,
hurry, we need something to puton that pile of bodies to explain what
this. It was the three rightlike they had. The one gag was
the two left feet, and thenthe next gag was all the piggies being
labeled, and then I guess thethird gag was the miscellaneous body part a

(17:00):
bit it didn't you know, Andthey do that I mean, the laws
of threes are all through this episode, because there's also the thing of gosh,
what was it? Like, whatdangerous is that? Frank says,
it's um, it's dangerous is ohgosh? Because the third one, Oh,

(17:21):
you take a chance getting up inthe morning, you take a chance
crossing the street or sticking your facein a fan. So there's the third
one with that one, or there'swhen Dick Miller says to him, I've
seen the greatest Sinatra, Wayne Newton, Carl Yaster, Carl Yastrumski. Yeah,
So it's like each time they're doinglike and I think even with the
hallucinations that Joey sees, but Ithink the hallucinations go on for too long.

(17:45):
I think there's like four three orfour more at least four, yeah,
because there's a skeleton THEA for Galactica, right roller coaster and the three
Stoller coaster. Yes, yeah,And it's like, come on, just
you gotta cut it at three.You can't have that last one in there.
They'll self restraint never hurt anybody,especially when it comes to comedy,

(18:07):
leave them wanting more. And youknow that is the thing about this show
when people talk about this show,because I've told some friends of mine that
we're working on this show and theywere like, oh my god, I
didn't know there was a TV show, Or if they do know, but
they've never seen it, they go, it's only six episodes, how is
that possible? And my answer toboth the people is effectively the same.

(18:27):
It's because it doesn't really work.Even when it does work, it barely
is working. Like this show barelyworks even when it does work because it's
funny. If when it's not funny, it doesn't work at all. And
the problem with this show is itis such a fine line at what's funny
and not funny, and the momentthey just start hitting x's, it's like,

(18:48):
you couldn't get a laugh out ofme after you've failed so many times,
I just can't laugh. I don'twant to laugh. It's not funny.
No matter what you do, youcan't salvage how bad this episode has
been, how many just missed jokesand missed opportunities there's been because to your
point mark about the Irregulars thing,then there's a gag of them doing the
thing that they've done before. Similarly, in the first episode with the corpse

(19:12):
going in and it's too Oh yeah, they have them sticking the corpses into
the shopping doesn't work. It doesn'tland at all. No, I can't
tell if it's because they're too closeto them behind them, if it's the
coroner and Leslie Nielsen are blocking ittoo much. It's blocked really weirdly.
It's blocked out in a way wherethey're blocking the action. You're supposed to

(19:34):
find funny, and the problem isit's not even funny. You've done it
before, and you kind of alreadydid it in the scene because the thing
that they're stuffing in has like threearms. You know. It's that irregulars
gag taken further. It's not funnyeither way. Why are you going all
in on this gag? That's notfunny to begin with? I was talking
about the law of the threes.Where are you from, sir? Milwaukee?

(19:56):
Oh my hometown? Where are youfrom? Seattle? Hey, that's
my hometown. Where are you fromChicago? Hey, that's your hometown?
Was not funny? Was not funny? I left it that one doesn't another
person though? After that, evendoesn't it go on for another one?
It's implied to keep going on afterthe fact. Yeah, so maybe the

(20:18):
your hometown one would have been theperfect spot to stop to cut that right
exactly, because you've got the threes, plus you've also got well, he's
changed it up a little bit ifyou're interested in, you know, keeping
the flow of your episode moving andnot bogging it down. But hey,
Dick Clark is in this episode,so that's fun. I kind of like
that. And I like this wholething of Johnny explaining SKA. I thought

(20:41):
that was the explanation of sky.I've ever heard the backbeat. They think
they changed the backbeat. It'll nevercatch on. Oh gosh, from your
mouth to God's ears, what aship. Explain the Act two gag in

(21:02):
this one for me, because thisone I did not get o acto liber.
Oh it's Act two liber Okay,yeah, I only know that from
playing Wolfenstein. I mean, Iget that it's German, but I'm right,
Is that mean Act three in Germanor two seeing five or something?

(21:27):
Most of those Act two gags haveto be said out loud. Oh yeah,
that is what I appreciate about that. That is kind of the sharedness
of the gag, is that theykeep doing the same thing. Act two
you know, Gazoon Tai Like,don't you know it's like the logical This
episode just feels like the logical conclusionsthe way. There's no other way this

(21:48):
show could end other than the wayit ended, which was to just like
fall apart. I'm the actors.It feels like they knew even though they
didn't. But it feels that way. Like I said, I think first
episode, or maybe in the airplaneepisode, I can't imagine this going for
twenty two episodes, like a normalseason of TV back then was at least

(22:10):
twenty something episodes, not as alive action show. I've essentially gone on
the record I think in the secondor third episode saying this is very similar
to the Simpsons. A lot ofthe things that we see in this show
would have worked better in an animatedformat. This show would have killed as
an animated show. Oh my god. There shows on like this now.
You know. There are shows wherethe bumbling hero is, you know,

(22:32):
doing weird things like Archer for Fox'ssake, I mean, you know,
yeah, I'm not saying Archer islike naked Gun, but it kind of
is naked Gun. The naked gunsetup of the bumbling idiot that's your hero.
That's what Archer is. It's kindof the same thing. So if
you had a naked gun cartoon,that would have been something really exciting.

(22:55):
But this show just, my god, what an insurmountable amount of work you
have to do on every episode toget it right. It's like writing a
movie on every episode. The amountof fine tuning that this really takes is
not for the faint of heart.And I'm really surprised that Zaz were up
to this task, but I don'tthink they really were. I think they

(23:15):
were up to it for the movies. Even then, it's diminishing returns in
that regard for those and we'll seethat when we get to the movies.
Because this doesn't feel like the sameshow that we started with. It really
doesn't know. And that's what Iremember from that first watch all the way
through, just a couple of yearsago, like boy, it went downhill

(23:37):
rapidly by the time you hit thatfifth and sixth episode. It's a boy.
It's hard for me to remember howgood the first and second episodes were.
Especially that first episode. I foundmyself quoting it, he's a lot
less as they went along, andwith this one, I wasn't quoting this
at all. There was no timewhere I was just like, oh,
he's going to say this and sayit along with the screen kind of thing.

(24:00):
No, yeah, not at all. I mean it could be the
last two aired in July, afew months after the other ones. They're
basically buried, and so maybe Imissed them the first time around and didn't
watch them, you know and memorizethem when I was a kid, But
they just didn't hit. That's theterm I would use if you're airing it.
However, many months later they buriedit. They might as well stuck

(24:21):
it at Sunday night at six pmexactly. Give it a kiss a death
way, you know, set itduring any major sports sporting event like Thursday
night, say at seven o'clock.Do that and see how many people tunedly.
But to be fair, if you'rewatching along with us, honestly,
the show does a pretty good jobof showing you why it only ran six
episodes, Like if you get tothe end of this episode, you want

(24:44):
more were you're paying attention, LikeI can't imagine as the studio exects at
the time, watching this and going, yeah, I don't think we need
to see any more of this.Guys like you guys want to do like
long form. Sure, but thistruncate format ain't working. Obviously. The
reason we get the movies is becausethis just doesn't work. It's not like

(25:06):
the movies wait twenty years to comeout. It's like six years eighty two
to eighty eight, and then themovie comes out in eighty eight. Well,
they do top secret in between,right, But then they come back
to this. I mean again,this was a viable idea clearly to them,
at least one worth remining. Ihave to wonder what Zaz's response,

(25:26):
because we don't have the commentary forthis episode with them. It's with mister
talks a lot. I can't imaginethey watched this and went, oh,
this is great. This isn't keepingin line with our original visions, right.
Run That commentary from the fifth episode, though, sort of covers the
whole thing. Where like, it'stoo difficult to get everybody on the same

(25:47):
page and have people that approach comedydifferently. Nowadays you've got these writing rooms
and you have the bible for theshow and all this. You know,
I'm just thinking of those Mike FlanaganNetflix shows that have a bunch of different
directors and writers for episodes, butthey all have the same I mean,

(26:07):
there are going to be some touchesthat are specific to a director, but
you don't go away think, youknow, this person didn't understand what the
point of this show was. Likehere, it seems like the writers and
maybe even partly Joe Dante didn't understandthe zaz model. You kind of think

(26:29):
you do because you might have avisual pun or you might have one of
those literalisms, but it's just notquite right. So I think they would
have had to have either been moreinvolved, or written all the episodes or
directed all the episodes or something that'sa lot of work for, you know,

(26:49):
for people who, for one thing, weren't familiar with TV work.
Up to that point, it doesn'tfeel like they had a strong showrunner.
You know. I'm gonna say,look at something like David Lynch's third season
a Twin Peaks. We're talking aboutTwin Peaks before you start recording, right,
There's no fucking way I thought Lynchwas going to be involved with every
episode. He was, But yetthe show feels like a singular, cohesive

(27:14):
idea that is in line with thefirst and oft maligned second season rightfully of
the show. If you were makingthis now za Z would have to be
involved completely. I would never signoff on this project with somebody else other
than the three of them involved fromA to B to C two D because
this is what happens. This isexactly what happens. You have people who
come in and go, why sawairplane? Yeah, me too, But

(27:37):
I'm not gonna go fucking write airplaneif over the three of us tackling this,
I think the way to tackle somethinglike this is write a script for
an episode a Felony Squad or mSquad, and then once you've done that,
go back in and find the comedyin that, because that's what fucking
police Squad is. That's what ithas been so about playing it straight,

(27:59):
but making it funny because of howridiculous it is on its own. Not
well, here's some dumb fucking gagsthat we came up with that don't fit
here, that don't fit within thecontext of the story that's being told,
and that, ultimately, in mymind, is why these last two episodes
have really failed, as they don'teven feel like this is the same show.

(28:19):
If you can't even place me inthe show that I'm already in with
some markers that I recognize you failedright out of the game. Well,
it's very strange because Robert K.Weiss produced all of these, I would
consider him probably the showrunner. Thenhe also had David Mish who's the executive
story editor for all of these aswell. And then it's so strange.

(28:40):
I know we'll talk about this ina little bit here, but the seventh
episode that wasn't produced, wasn't evermade, was a David miss script,
and I think he wrote it alongwith Wool and Sona again, and it
is so not a police squad script. It doesn't follow the rules of police
squads. So it's like, well, what are you doing if you can't

(29:04):
even follow your own rules? Andthis episode is kind of like we are
starting to veer way of course withthis stuff. And I don't know if
it's missus fault or Weiss's or who's, or just was nobody at the tiller
with this stuff? Where was Zazlooking at something else by this time already?
But we're six episodes in. Comeon, guys, you know you've

(29:25):
really got to keep looking ahead andseeing where you can go with this thing
because they're about too If the seventhepisode ever got made, they were going
to just veer right off of acliff, just like Johnny or Joey.
Sorry. I was reading a bookthat you sent me recently, Mike,
that had your essay about Airplane twoin it, and it may it kind

(29:45):
of brought an interesting question into mymind. Could an airplane TV show have
worked? We've seen what they didwith Airplane, we will be seeing where
they go with Police Squad, Butit begs the question does the Zaz style
work as a TV show to beginwith? That's why I asked could there
have been an airplane TV show?I think the answer is an unequivocal note

(30:08):
looking at how this show is,and I wonder why Zaz wanted to do
a show to begin with, becauseI can't imagine the three of them sitting
in a room together and going,we're setting somebody else up for success by
having such a specific and unique stylethat is very hard to replicate. And
then we're just we're not doing anythingwith the show other than created by how

(30:30):
are you setting the show up forsuccess by not being involved with it?
Your essay on Airplane two gets tothe idea of why Airplane two in and
of itself is a weird thing.It's somebody trying to copy Zaz, just
like these last two episodes, andtechnically five of the six episodes are trying
to copy their style to varying degreesof success. But I would contend nothing

(30:53):
past the first episode of the showhas really been that successful comparatively, not
saying take the whole show and throwit out, baby with the bathwater,
but just like one or two goodepisodes, and I think for the most
part, everything else is just kindof the same thing over and over again.
I mean, now you're looking forthe jokes, You're just like,
oh, I haven't had a jokein a while that I've laughed at,

(31:15):
whereas the first couple episodes, Yeah, it's just like joke after joke after
joke, and it's kind of likeAirplane where you're almost gasping for breath because
there's so much funny stuff. Don'tgive me an opportunity as an audience member
to stop laughing. Really, Idid like the bit with the car.
It's so French connection. Yes,that's what I was like, Okay,

(31:37):
how are they going to riff onthat? Because they have to put that
whole car back together in the Frenchconnection in that quick time to get it
back to those guys, and youknow, you miss that whole part of
it, of them pushing off.The guys are trying to pick up their
car at the impound and saying it'sit's been misplaced. We don't know where
it is or whatever they're doing toson that's in there. But I thought,

(32:00):
okay, this is obviously what they'reriffing on. The glove box joke
comes back in a way with thecoke was right here in the glove box.
The car's all tone apart and theyput it back together, but they
have a few spare pieces and it'sa totally different you know, instead of
a sedan, it's a coop orsomething, a totally different make and model,

(32:21):
and it's kind of nice. Yeah, it's shrunk by quite a few
feet because they really do make agreat point of like look at this continental
and then right and then it's alittle sports car. There was one gag
and I don't quite I mean,I get it, but I liked it
just for its odd nature. WhenDrevn is talking to mister V they do

(32:45):
the close up thing, but it'snot a close up of her eyes.
It's a close up of her nose. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
the quick jump cuts into a zoom. For whatever reason, that one
tickled me as well as Norberg gettingstoned. Yeah, yeah, for no
reason other than just because and notreally doing what you do when you're high

(33:06):
on a coke. He gets themunchees and that's not a coach right now,
Yeah, the wrong one, bro. Yeah, that was really strange.
And this is nineteen eighty two.They know what cocaine is doing.
He should have been like rubbing histeeth and all that stuff and super jittery.
I mean you mentioned in the lastepisode they knew John Belushi, so

(33:27):
they know. Yeah, they knowabout eight balls. There's no way they
don't exactly the whole bit with thedocks. You don't have to get the
docks. That was nice. Thatwas nice. And then it comes back
to where not only is that athrowaway gag, but the doctor is implicated
in this whole drug thing, sothey have to go back and arrest him

(33:50):
those couple of things in the middleof surgery. In the middle of surgery,
of course, in the patient flatlines, Yata that's about all I
got out of this one. Sofor me, one of my favorite lines
was one of the last lines ofthe episode where he's like, well,
Frank case is all wrapped up.Veronica Rivers confessed to killing Joey Couldest,

(34:10):
and we've got her and Vic andthe frenchman on the dope smuggling rap and
from now on they'll be up theretogether in Statesville Prison, yep, right,
along with Martin and Dutch and LanaThames and Sally Decker. It's like,
there you go. I love it. You know, that's what I
was waiting for. You know,it's just every episode, give me more

(34:32):
and again they he fucks it up. In that script for the seventh episode,
he actually says from now on theycan pedal their corruption at Statesville Prison,
along with Martin Dutch, Lana Thames, Sally Decker, and Veronica Rivers.
And it's like, no, youalways end yeah, for fuck's sake,

(34:53):
don't you know your own fucking show. Well, this show was canceled
too early. Okay, you don'tunderstand this show was canceled too early by
ABC. Okay, and you knowwhy they canceled it because the viewer had
to watch it in order to appreciateit. That was their reasoning. No,
the reasoning should have been this becausethe show wasn't very funny anymore.

(35:15):
And if people have a problem withthat being the reality, go watch the
show. This is our opinion.Sure, it's very apparent where the show
was heading with the unproduced seventh script. I genuinely believe the show was going
to get into weird parody territory,and it kind of got there where they
were gonna have, Oh we're gonnahave iron sides. Oh we're gonna have

(35:36):
Perry Mason as character. Oh we'regonna have at fuck it. If the
show it kept going, we'll havea Columbo character. And I feel like
this is where the show was headed. And that kind attracts because that's not
fucking naked gun at all. Thatis scary movie. That is murder by
death. Even watch it, butthat's good. I'm not well' very I'm

(36:00):
not comparing quality because scary movie isa good movie too. Them doing this
kind of thing in this show isnot naked gun. It's something else.
I'm assuming we're getting into that seventhscript now, Yeah, let's talk about
it. So I have a reallybig problem with, for one thing,
introducing a chief that's never been mentionedpreviously. So that's the first thing that

(36:23):
threw me off. Like Mike said, no, your fucking show right,
he's a riff on Iron Side.Did they mention maybe I missed it?
Did they mention that he's in awheelchair. I don't think they do.
I think it's just that they turnhim into an iron Block. Yeah,
and he's like smashing and hitting peopleright right. But it's add that literalism

(36:45):
of his name being that and himgetting turned into that right also doesn't work
for me. They mentioned in anote. Throughout the scene, iron Block
is viewed in close up or frombehind. So I wonder if, right
in my mind, this is whatI would have done, I would have
had a different actor in the wheelchairthan the actor that is portraying Iron Block

(37:05):
and never showing his face. ButI also wonder if that's supposed to be
a blow felled gag, because theyhave shown that they're not above doing James
Bond gags. Not that it's abad thing or anything, but that's it
made me wonder either they were goingto have a different actor in the chair
with close ups or they were goingto have a blow felled thing where they
never see his face because they mentionedit's in close ups or from behind,

(37:27):
So maybe I don't know, it'sfucking weird, just that that's like first
page, my first page there isa runaway wheelchair gag though I just remember
there was a runaway wheelchair gag andI assume that that's him in that.
I wonder if that's what they repurposefor the wheelchair gag going down the steps
at the stadium in Oh yeah,whichever naked gun one. That's sad when

(37:51):
I mean, like I honestly thoughtthat this was a fake script, Like
I had to go out to DavidMisha's website, I had to go to
is Twitter. I had to lookand make sure that this was like the
real David Mish And yeah, hetalks about how he produced the episodes and
how he wrote this one and it'slegit, which is just bizarre, absolutely

(38:15):
bizarre. Like even the subtitle aKitten for Amy, There is no Amy
in this episode whatsoever. And Iunderstand that, like the subtitles don't necessarily
line up with the episodes. That'skind of one of the jokes. But
there's nothing in here. It's justit feels so throwaway all of the time.

(38:35):
Those subtitles relate like dead men don'tLaugh, Like that's like a noirrish
right title. Usually the one that'son the screen is the one that meant,
you know, like the butler didit right? If the butler did
it A bird in the hand doesn'tmake any sense really in that episode,
but it's one of those. It'sit's one of those common crime story titles,

(38:58):
right, Or maybe I'm missing thekitten for anything. Yeah, I
thought that the fake and title wasfunny, but I also find humor in
the stupidest shit, So there isthat I personally think that or I'm actually
walked this back. I'm shocked thatthe act gag in the script wasn't actually
used in the show, the Acttwo gag and the script is Act four

(39:22):
one, I mean three. Sorrythat I'm surprised that that didn't have a
spot in the show. But thenyou come off of that and there's just
all these like it's a big fatzero. What's that it pulls out a
giant zero, like right right,when you do something good, you just
start hamming it up with literalism,and I can imagine them just hamming for

(39:44):
the camera because that's where we arenow at this, so we should say
that that's iron Block gag is thatthe chief gets crushed in this car and
that they then end up using thatin top secret. And it's pretty funny,
but it's basically like one joke,you know, it is Omar Shariff

(40:05):
gets crushed in that car and thenthe next time you see him, the
door opens and he comes stumbling inthese little legs and this big metallic block
that lands and they go over tohim. You know, you're okay all
this stuff, you know, oh, it's in my left pocket. And
then you hear the horn go andthen at one point you see the antenna
go up to indicate that he hasan erection or something. You get all

(40:30):
this kind of stuff. It's onegag. It's not twenty five episodes of
a TV show. Because this getsreally tiresome really fast. They have like
and then they break like they've gotIn Olsen's bit, he shows them a
film strip about iron Block people.Yes, and then when he goes to

(40:51):
Johnny, it's Johnny and iron Block, and iron Block starts telling Johnny like,
I need that information, right,now and he's like, no,
no, let me handle this,and they gives Johnny money. There's no
second person that comes or a thirdin this case that comes to the shoe
sign stand like you lost that joketoo, even Olson beforehand. So I'm
vascillating between both of them. ButOlson is like, oh, here,

(41:14):
I'll show you how nuclear energy works. But yet it doesn't endanger the kid
that much, and I'm like,no, no, everything is supposed to
put these poor kids in danger,and it's supposed to be very inappropriate and
all this, and it's not.That's why when you message that it seemed
like a fake script. That's allI could think about it as because I
was like halfway through reading it andhad just gotten to the lab scene,

(41:37):
and I'm like, this nuclear experimentthing doesn't make any sense so compared to
previous episodes at all the film.I mean, they've looked at film before,
but to take that literalism so faras to this squishing thing as a
problem, and there are people aroundthe world that live as iron blocks,

(41:59):
or they continue it with the therapistwith iron Block. It's only like a
page long, but it's a slogto get through what is the purpose of
continuing this joke so far into theepisode, instead of it being he's a
block for one scene and then thenext scene he's back to normal, right,

(42:21):
which is what they would have donein a movie. You know,
you there doesn't need to be continuitythroughout, like with Leslie Nielsen's nose an
airplane right excite, or then beingon instruments for a second, where you
take that chief and you just pushhim right out of the story. He
comes back later and he has foundtrue love and it's a woman who's an
iron block and brought yes, yes, something like that. Well again,

(42:44):
I think it just speaks to wherethe show is at this point, right,
it's lost its way. There's nobodywho has the show's best intentions in
mind is at the wheel here.If this is the script that they were
going to produce, I'm really gladwe don't have to watch it. Oh
yeah, I'm glad that we're readingit. I'm glad that it exists in
the world to read. But Iam so thankful that it was not actually

(43:06):
turned into an episode, because therewould be there's very little to say about
it as a script. There wouldbe even less to say about it as
an episode, you get the runninggag of the little newsboy who is narrating
basically, and there's this whole thingof like he knows as much as we
as the audience know, and he'slike, you know, extra extra police
baffle blah blah blah, and it'slike, Okay, that's kind of funny.

(43:30):
But that's the extent of the humorin this script. There was no
place where I was just like,oh, that would have really worked.
Like I said, the Block thingworks in top secret when you have it
for one scene, doesn't work aslike a full police thing where you just
completely lose the thread of what we'veseen in the show before. If Colombo

(43:53):
was in the show, it wouldbe a guide dressed up like the country
of Colombia, the entire for Columbus. Y. Yeah, oh yeah,
there it is, there you go. That would have been funny that the
fact that the final credit role hasthe Iron Block character as part of it
goes to show you that just likeyou don't understand what you're you don't understand

(44:15):
what you're being asked to write.Here, you're being asked to write jokes
that are different, that are funny, that can relate to each other.
But don't have to. You're notbeing asked to write a fucking through line
through the entire episode. None ofthe other episodes have done that. None
of Zaz's other stuff has done that. Even in something like Airplane, the
running gag shows up three times,right, the guy in the taxi,

(44:38):
the guy in the taxi again,and then the guy at the taxi at
the end. It's not every twofucking seconds, we're gonna get check in
with the guy in the taxi.And that's what the iron block thing reminded
me. It's like, you don'tneed to keep reminding me. And inserting
him in Frank Drebin is the funniestpart of the show. Don't try to
have him share the space of somebodyelse, please exactly or it happened to

(45:00):
Nordberg or something right, No,even the epilogue, the epilogue is three
scenes. The epilogue is always onescene. The epilogue is them wrapping it
up and having the freeze frame,but instead it goes from police squad room
to an auto junk yard back tothe police squad room, and it's like,
what are you doing? You cannotdo that, I mean, you

(45:23):
are breaking your show's rules left andright. That's what would have continued happen.
It would have the show at theend of it head lasted. Even
if it was a half season thirteenepisodes, that thirteen twenty second episode whatever
wouldn't have had hardly any connection withthe first as far as the setup,

(45:47):
Like you said, Chris, keepmining those old TV shows like they did
with The m Squad. They tookthat whole framework and just changed things like
Bookie to an orthodonus that's the joke. Take those really dry, dull tropes
from those shows. So I guessthis is more like, Okay, well,

(46:10):
you know the show Ironside, theguy's in a wheelchair, ha ha.
So we're taking that and turn itinto a literal iron block. And
I don't know how many times theypunched that line, like, oh,
you're literally a twenty five hundred poundblock of iron. Oh that's ironic.
I mean, I think they haveDrebb and even saying that at some point,
Oh, how ironic. Hardy harhar. You don't point out the

(46:32):
irony. You don't have a characterpointing out the irony of your jokes in
the show. That's a different show, right, Yeah, that's what I
mean. That's it would have endedas a totally different show. Yeah,
well, I would contend it ithas ended as a completely different show.
It was definitely getting different. Yeah, I don't know how far you guys

(46:53):
looked into other police crime things.A recent one Rashida Jones in it that
ran for four seasons. I hadnot heard of. It sounds interesting.
And then there's one from twenty twelvewith John Hannah in it, which is
immensely interesting to me as someone who'sa fan of the Mummy, The Mummy,

(47:14):
I would be interested to see whattheir version of spoofing is of police
procedurals, given that now the policeprocedural genre is so broad in what it
encompasses. You know what a hugePaul Sheer fan I am, but he
oh yes, recale me with talesof how much you love Paul Sheer,

(47:37):
please, that's how I like tostart off with almost every sentence. But
he was in a very funny policeprocedural called NTSF SD SUV, so it
was really playing on NCIS and CSISVU and yeah, all those things.
That was an adult swim thing,right, It was an adult swim thing.

(47:58):
And the episodes are nice and shortand sweet. I can't remember how
I think they're eleven minutes long,and there's thirty nine of them. They
ran from two eleven to twenty thirteen. And what's her name, Jane Way
Kate mulgrew is in there. She'sfucking fantastic everybody that's in there. And
I've only watched maybe I probably watchedten episodes because they're so quick and they

(48:23):
go down so easily, and theyparody so much of what we see on
all of these other shows and justreally amp up the ridiculousness. I thought
I was pretty well done what Isaw, and that one, I would
say, is as close to policeSquad as we're going to get for a
long time. But I am curiousabout this John Hannah show for sure,

(48:43):
because I was like when he showsup and suck yeah, man, And
it's got a great name. Atouch of cloth, which is not I
don't think that's a term we Americansuse, but touching cloth means like shit
yourself. I believe right. Anyof you international listeners correct me, but
I believe touching cloth means like shityourself. It sounded kind of pervy to
me. The Angie t Rebecca showsounds interesting just by the amount of like

(49:05):
random cameos Angie Tribecca. I watchedthe first one, and I think it's
it was awful. It was morelike where this show was going. It
was bad. Yeah, I didn'ttry to watch that too, and I'll
watch just about anything she's in justto watch her. And I was like,
yeah, I don't think I'm gonnacontinue with this. Yeah, that

(49:29):
was real bad. Huh, that'sa shame. I mean I wanted that
to be good as well. Andyeah, I haven't seen it, but
I have seen this and I knowhow bad this is, so yeah,
it is a shame. But Ithink you know, now, if the
show were to exist, it wouldbe like ten minutes long, thirteen minutes

(49:51):
tops. It would be like asketch show. Like, yeah, I
think you should leave Tim Robinson Showon Netflix thirteen minutes long. I don't
need any more than that. You'vetaken all your sketches and you've done all
of them, and then you've takenthe ones out of the best ones and
you're giving me like five of them. Awesome. Great. That whole thing
of we're looking for the people thatdid this as he's dressed in the hot

(50:12):
dog suit and it was the hotdog car that smashed. That's from the
show. Yeah, yeah, andthat's from the show. That's one of
the gags in the show. That'sone of the thirteen fourteen minutes of the
show. Is that, Like,that's all you need. The through line
can be frank driven. The throughline doesn't have to be fucking plot.
There doesn't need to be a plot. Yes, and Naked Gun the movie,

(50:32):
we're going to get a plot,but the plot exists to be the
car that takes us through the landof the jokes. We don't give a
shit what the kind of car is. We just want to be enthralled by
all the funny laugh laughs. Andat the end of this there was not
a whole lot There was no laughingat the end of this show, just
a lot of groaning. That's script, man. I think you're right,
it's a you imagine if we hadto watch that episode, Oh no,

(50:55):
thank you says Can you imagine whatthe iron block effect with look like an
eighty two on a TV show that'sessentially on the way out that's going to
be canceled, which can you imaginehow fucking atrocious. The effect would be
like, I mean, it wouldlook very similar to what the mar Sharif
effect is. But again, hewalks for a few feet before he falls

(51:17):
down. This has to be likea more well thought out thing that they
can shoot for you know, twentyminutes or where the fuck it is?
Yeah, you know again looking atall the stuff about the pre appraisal of
the show, because that's what we'redoing and reappraising the show. Obviously,
the real appraisals of the show areinteresting. They're very positive. This show

(51:40):
should never have been canceled. Whywas it canceled? I can't believe it
was canceled. The top list ofall the canceled to shoot soon shows,
this isn't like the top ten,Like are you guys high on the cocaine
that Nordberg was eating? It didn'thave a chance to get bad. That
it's saving grace. It was stoppedbefore it did really tank, because I

(52:06):
think it would have eventually tanked.It's like a ravenous dog. You can't
keep up this level of comedy withouta strong showrunner saying okay, this is
how can't have a storyline with ajoke that's running throughout one of the characters.
Can't be the joke for the wholeepisode that goes against these rules.

(52:27):
That doesn't make any sense in thisuniverse. Toss this script out, Go
write another comedic show if that's whatyou want to do. It's not Naked
Gun though. That's the problem.Probably a lot of those people didn't see
it when it aired. I don'teven know if I saw the last two
episodes. Yeah, as we know, it showed months later, and who
knows if I even caught. Thosepeople are seeing probably the best of what

(52:52):
it could have possibly been, eventhen, only with six episodes, so
six times twenty five minutes, you'reonly talking about whenever that I'm out,
not very many minutes. Six hours, right, no, closer to closer
to three Yeah, yeah, no, I guess you're right. Yeah,
so two movies worth essentially. Yeah, it didn't get a chance to get
really bad. But even with that, with only less than three hours,

(53:16):
the last half hour ain't that great? Yeah? Oh yeah, the last
forty five minutes ain't that great.It's sad, well it is. And
what's gonna be even sadder is,like I said, we're gonna we're gonna
get to the top of this peakagain with the first movie, because the
first movie has some pretty good moments, and I think overall, I think
we're gonna three enjoy it, eventhough again, like you mentioned, Mike,

(53:36):
it's like Doc Brown's fucking Delorian.They're recycling a lot at the first
movie and the second movie in thethird movie, but the lows in the
third movie are going to be likethe lows here. You gave up whatever,
like you made the third movie.You just had to go and make
a third movie, didn't you.That's what this show feels like. It's
like you just had to go anddo more than the first episode. You

(53:59):
could have just stopped at the firstepisode. I will say, if we're
looking at this, I think whatour suggestion would be, what watch the
first four episodes? Yeah, Iwould say do that in the right order.
First, in the right order,so one, two, five,
and four, because that's probably yougo by the titles of how they are

(54:22):
on our show. You talked aboutthem in the correct order, and if
you made it this far and watchthose last two episodes, sorry Heaven help
you. Yeah, we know yourpain. At least, Yeah, not
the worst fifty minutes of TV I'veever watched No, No, I saw
the finale of Lost. Yes,I'll say I watched the last episodes of

(54:45):
Game of Thrones and Dexter, soyeah, we know pain and this is
not nearly as bad as those,but it's they're still not good. And
what hurts more is that those firstfew episodes were amazing episodes, fucking great.
That first episode is as good asthe first movie. This is twenty
five minutes long. Yeah, goodGod in heaven, guys. It's such

(55:07):
a drastic fall. It's not like, oh, the first two seasons of
Tales from the Crypt are good,and then the third and four seasons get
dodgy, and then the fifth andsixth seasons are bad. It's like one
is good, everything else kind oftake it or leave it. Really like,
even if you want to watch thefirst four episodes, go for it.
But it really is like, thefirst episode of this show is good.

(55:29):
But that's also because the people whomade everything else involved with this worked
on that episode. They directed itand wrote it and everything else. They
had their hands directly in it,so of course it was good. They're
gonna do with that everything they've donewith Airplane and all the other things they've
worked on. They're gonna micromanage theshit out of it and make it as
perfect as humanly possible. And thatis not what we get with all these

(55:52):
other ones. These are like firstdrafts. They have to be at least
that unfinished Script's got to be anunfinished draft, my God asks me,
I'm gonna get go back and fixit, to follow the own your own
rules. Yeah, well, that'sjust the most egregious of the ball is
you not understanding the show that you'rewriting for right? What the actual fuck

(56:15):
is going on here? But yetsomehow Leslie Nielsen still got nominated for an
Emmy, So yeah, what dowe know? Well, we will be
back next week to talk about thefirst Naked Gun film, which I think
that's called the Naked Gun from thefiles of Police Squad and boya boy is
it ever, So we'll be talkingabout that. Who would remember though,

(56:37):
who would remember all those that's fromsix years earlier where the freaks mark where
the freaks that walked into the NakedGun and said, oh, I've seen
all these jokes before because I watchedthe show. We're in the minority,
so you know, fuck us right? Well, and again I mean,
most people that you say about thisproperty too don't even know there's a tea

(57:00):
the show. So there you go, you know whatever, like awesome,
you don't know there's a TV show, And frankly, you made your enjoyment
of Naked Gun. The movies maybe better off for it. We'll see,
because I this is the closest I'vewatched the show to the movies ever,
so we'll see if it negatively affectsmy enjoyment of Naked Gun. Because

(57:20):
I will say this before we endthis episode. I absolutely love Naked Gun.
It is one of my favorite comedicmovies. It has some of the
funniest lines I can think of,including assault with a concrete Deldo. Frank
that is one of the best linesin a movie. And I hope that
this show doesn't retroactively affect my enjoymentbecause that's gonna be It's gonna be a

(57:43):
real bummer. I don't think I'veseen it since it played theatrically, so
I'm excited to see it again afterall these years. Hopefully I'll walk in
and enjoy it more and see whatgood stuff they managed to call from these
episodes. But until then, Chriswhy don't you tell people where everybody can
be found here? In the nextsix months, the three of us will

(58:05):
probably be indicted for something, SoSam Quentin is where you can find Yeah,
Statesville Bellevue, I think of theBellevue even gets a name drop in
one of these episodes. Shout outto Barney Miller. But you can find
the three of us at Weirdingwaymedia dotcom, which is the podcast network that
we all post our shows on.Mark Begley's Wake Up Heavy, Mike White's

(58:27):
The Projection Booth, and my TheCulture Cast are all there, along with
the whole boatload of other things thatyou should be listening to if you're not
already. Hey, folks, thisis Mark with a programming change to note
we will not be back next weekwith the episode on the first Naked Gun
film. Instead, please take atrip over to Mike's main podcast, The

(58:52):
Projection Booth, where Mike, Chrisand I will be discussing Top Secret,
the film that came between Police Squad, the Show and the Naked Gun films.
And in true Projection Booth fashion,there is a whole slate of interviews
lined up, including co writers anddirectors Jim Abrams and David Sucker. So

(59:15):
February twenty second, head on overto the projection booth and we will be
back on March first with our episodeon the first naked gun film Are you

(59:46):
sure? If you? And innext week for another exciting story from the
files of police Squad