Episode 09: Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)

We have finally reached the end (until the reboot comes out, at least) of our journey with Lt. Frank Drebin of Police Squad! with Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). And oh what a journey it has been. The boys are back in L.A. (did they ever really leave?) with mostly new jokes and a new villain, played by Fred Ward. The plot, such as it is, is even hinkier than the previous two entries but now we've got Anna Nicole Smith thrown into the mix. That subtitle is looking particularly on the nose when all's said and done. Enjoy!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hollywood's next big bomb will be setoff by this terrorism. All right,
drop your gun, kick him overhere, and if anyone can stop in
so we get Frank Grimmin Detective LieutenantBrasquard. Yeah, and I'm Robert de
Niro, Christ DeNiro. We've gotto get inside. It's my pleasure to
visit Naked Gun thirty three and athird The Final Insult. Ready, Big

(00:27):
either Nan starts Friday, March eighteen. That beats everywhere. Welcome too from
the files of Police Squad in Color. I'm your host, Mike White.
Joining me is mister Christasshew. Iprefer to go by my prison name Randy
McGirk. And of course back withus again this mister Mark Begley. Well,
it's not exactly the backyard, butit'll do. On this episode,

(00:50):
we are wrapping things up with NakedGun thirty three and a third, the
Final Insult. And Yeah, oneof my younger co workers was saying,
what's called thirty three and a third? That doesn't make any sense. That
joke did not last, gentlemen.It is outdated. It was outdated when
they made the joke. It wouldhave made a little more sense if they

(01:12):
had kept their original subtitle for it, which was just for the record,
Naked Gun thirty three and a thirdjust for the record, which is a
funny ass title like that's it makesit hilarious. Oh yeah, And then
they decided, well, that's noone's going to get that, And I'm
like, well, if no one'sgoing to get that, who the fuck
is going to get thirty three anda third? Right? Change that too

(01:34):
then, But if they watch themovie, they'll understand the final insult part
as the film does an insult toyour intelligence. Changed the numeric aspect of
it to three something or three andthree quarters? What I mean, you
know, keep that going or makeit a decimal this time instead of two
and a half? Why thirty threeand a third if you're not going to

(01:57):
keep just for the record, andalso nobody calls it that? Can we
just point this out, like whenwe've been referring to this movie at any
point during this show or in ourprivate conversations about police Squad, you'd be
surprised how many of those there are. And also in any of the conversations
any of us have probably had withpeople letting them know we're doing this show,
I would be surprised. If anyof us referred to this as Naked

(02:21):
Gun thirty three and a third,we probably called it Naked Gun three.
It's not like Hotshots Part two,where they've done something funny with the number
and you can't avoid it, likeyou just said, like this is completely
avoidable, and it's just called NakedGun three. Like, I'm sorry,
that's what this is. Yeah,I don't get why they were so beholden
with the thirty three and a thirdbecause it was two and a half,

(02:46):
right, which was funny, Liketwo and a half is funny. The
movie's opening gag doesn't even make sense. The poster gag doesn't make sense.
This is the first of these tonot be directed by a Zucker and abrahams
or a Zucker. It is directedby Peter Siegel, not to be confused

(03:07):
with Peter Sagel, the guy whohosts Wait Waite, Don't Tell Me on
NPR. This is a totally differentguy. This is a guy who fell
into some really bad movies. That'san understatement. Oh boy, I mean
he's got some good stuff in theretoo. I really like the remake of

(03:28):
The Longest Yard. I kind oflike fifty First Dates, but not really.
The rest of these aren't so goodman. How much can you hate
a movie that has Sean Aston init? Well, not at all.
I don't know that Body Swat moviewas Sean Aston isn't burned? Oh I've
never actually seen Tommy Boy. Guys, what's yeah? Wow, I've seen

(03:52):
that he hooked his wagon to thewhat is that production? Come in their
train? Yeah? The Madison,Appy Madison and Gary and then it would.
I think Gary Sanchez Too is kindof a offshoot of that. Gary
Sanchez Productions. Tommy Boys pretty great. I mean, look, Tommy Boy
could have been directed by a nutlasschimp. Frankly, it has a seminal

(04:15):
pairing of David Spade and Chris Farley, who would have been Abbott and Costello
for their day and age if ChrisFarley had not succumbed to his personal demons.
There's none of that here. There'snone of that here, folks.
It's oh, you're right. Thisguy directs comedies, and almost exclusively comedies.
Oh yeah, I also haven't seenMy spy, that one with the

(04:40):
Bautista, which unfortunately fell victim ofthe pandemic in a hard way. Poster
and trailer for that years before itwas finally available. Is that with him
and a little kid? Yeah?Yeah, one of those. It is
the wrestler has to go and bea father to a child movie, just
like The Rock did with that football. You guys remember that the game Plan?

(05:03):
Oh, I thought you were talkingabout tooth Fairy or there was also
as a Nanny with Hulk Horatio Hogan. Also there was what's the what's the
one with Triple h the Chaperone wherehe's like a chaperone at a school with
Michael Rappaport. Wow, Barton Finkwrite it? Does he have that Barton

(05:26):
Fink feeling? Could be a pit? WELLI Beery is a wrestler. I
want to know his hopes, hisdreams. Naturally you have to get mixed
up with a bad element and romanticinterest, you know, romantic interest or
as a young kid at what doyou think, Lou will he a little
too old for romantic interest? Lookat me a writer in the room,

(05:48):
and I'm asking Lou what the goddamnstory should be? Which is buen Dame
both Maybe so he's also working ona sequel to My Spy and a new
version of Hervey. I think thismight be the third filmed version of Harvey,

(06:10):
so we'll see how that goes.I don't know if Mental Illness will
play as funny in twenty twenty twentyfour as it did back when old Jimmy
Stewart was kind of a nut.I wouldn't want to tackle that project in
twenty twenty three me personally. Hey, you know what they have and Nick
had done thirty three and a thirdthe cigarette gag. Yeah, baby,

(06:35):
the posters correct, mostly new jokes. Thank god it showed up for the
third movie. Huh, Yeah,it is. Actually, I don't think
there's a lot of callbacks to theshow, other than that it's the most
different from the show of these threefilms. I think it's the most different

(06:56):
from all of the other things,even really like even from the other movies.
Right, Like, this is aweird. When we were watching it,
because you and I Mark have watchedthese now together. When we were
watching it, the thing that youpointed out was beyond astute. And it's
what these things have evolved into,which is specific parodies of specific things in
specific movies. This movie and thenwrongfully accused and everything after this just like

(07:19):
leans on it so hard as muchas I like Mafia, I know that
Mafia is specifically parroting specific scenes fromspecific movies, which happens to work there
because they're doing all Mafia movies andthat's the genre of movie that they're doing,
so you've got a lot of roomto play in. This could be

(07:40):
playing in the crime police world,and it just decides not to. It
starts parroting random things completely, andto the point where, again I wonder,
why are we making a third oneor a thirty third one? Yeah,
I don't know. I think Ilike this one better than you guys,

(08:01):
but I don't like it a ton. I like some of the scenes
that they have in here. Ilike the whole thing with the Untouchables at
the beginning, even though it's kindof a cheat that it's a dream sequence,
total cheat. Yeah, there's kindof makes more sense though that it
is right the only way it makessense. Why are they doing this right?

(08:24):
Plus that movie at that point wasseven years old. For Pete's sake.
The scene of them in the seventiesbar doesn't work at all for me
because they're using that as kind ofa send up of the disco era.
We've already seen that in Airplane,the whole thing with Norberg and the huge
frow. It's kind of funny,but not that funny. They're really using

(08:48):
it for introducing Anna Nicole Smith's characterand that she knows Frank, and there's
no reason why she should know Frank. It's just it's really kind of sloppy
writing in that regard, and they'rereally taking a lot of time to telegraph
all of these things and give usall the machinations of Rocco, the fred

(09:09):
Ward character and him being hired byPathshmir and the whole relationship with his mother,
and then just it was just like, Okay, Wow, this is
like the most plot heavy of thenaked guns of any of these zaz Ish
films that I think I've ever seen. Not to split hairs and be that

(09:31):
guy again, but her looking exactlythe same in the seventies as she does
in nineteen ninety four is a bitof a stretch. Not even the different
haircut. Yeah, well, theyshould have given her like a comical hairstyle
or something they did with everybody else. They gave Leslie Nielsen, you know,
a crazy haircut, and O.J. Simpson's entire point of being

(09:52):
in that scene is to have theafro, which if you watch the trailer
for this movie, they completely spoilthat gag, which is such a waste
because spoiling it in the trailer isa waste because it's not really funny,
But to show it for free iseven less funny because when you see it
in the movie, you're like,Okay, all right, I saw well,
remember that from the trailer. WhatI don't understand about this movie is

(10:15):
it feels a lot like a mashupof the first movie and the second movie
together. The third act is completelyisolated to this one essentially Room which mirror.
I guess Mirror is the second movietoo, but the first movie a
lot. And then it has athing that the first movie doesn't have but

(10:37):
the second movie does, which islike several villains that Frank has to contend
with, which kind of adds toI think the plot contrivances that we run
into because when it was just thereVincent Ludberg or whatever the fuck Ricardo multi
Bond's character's name is the character heplays, Vincent Ludwig. It's just him
and Frank. That's it. There'snot I mean, there's the goons,

(10:58):
but not any but he else inthe second movie has to contend with all
those kind of other people, youknow, the I guess the Manheimer and
then and whatever the hell Robert Gulay'scharacter is. I just think this movie
has way too many people, waytoo much going on, and Anatochole Smith
completely in the movie. For onesingular gag at the end of the movie,

(11:20):
that is not funny. It's notfunny. I don't even know what
it is, but it's not funny. It's shocking. The crying game gag.
Yeah, it might be offensive.The word might be offensive. I
would say it's offensive. I'm nottrans, so I don't want to speak
for the trans community. I wouldbe offended if they made a gag like
that about Frank being gay, butthey already did and it actually kind of

(11:43):
worked. With the throwing around tothe pigskin, that entire scene is pretty
funny. I find it to beprobably the best part of the entire movie.
There's a lot of gay panic inthis movie, yeah, and a
lot of race and a lot ofjust like casual racism too. Yeah.
Directed by the Zuckers though, what'sup with that? I mean? And

(12:03):
then also just very anti feminist too. With the whole right. We no,
no, And it didn't make senseeither that it was a woman who
was the defense attorney, because it'slike all of these women all have their
hyphenated names, and they all havebabies and all this kind of stuff,

(12:26):
and I know it's supposed to triggerlike Jay not having a baby and her
being, you know, really weirdabout that. Why have the prosecuting or
defense attorney breastfeeding and she's got evenmore hyphenated names and stuff, and those
hyphenated names that could have been alot funnier too, Like you could have
really mixed, like you know,an Irish name, an Italian name,

(12:50):
an African like some sort of likereally odd combination of names. But they
weren't even that funny. Also,the optics are weird of the main character
in this movie wanting to have ababy when they're both old enough to be
the baby's grandparents. Oh Jesus Christ, Yeah, it is kind of fucking
weird because Leslie Nielsen at this pointis how old. I know, Priscilla

(13:11):
Presley is forty nine at the time. I mean again, not commenting on
her looks or anything else, justthe optics of what this movie is going
for are so antithetical to what iseven funny in this series, and not
to mention, and they've done itnow twice. In the first movie,
it worked, the second movie,it kind of worked. Third movie,
I don't think it did. Whydo they keep separating them and having them

(13:33):
have to come back together and they'rebreaking up and coming back to the fucking
drop it movie at the end ofthe second movie. There shouldn't have been
any more of this bullshit. Thereshouldn't have been any more of them going
around in a circle chasing each other, even if it is like, oh,
I didn't understand that he was onthe case and he went to the
sperm clinic, Like all you gottado is just tell that, Like it's
just contrived writing because they don't haveany idea of what they're trying to do

(13:56):
here anymore. It's just like,let's make funny far peepee jokes and like
weird gay bating jokes and translating jokes. Like it's kind of a meme movie
more so than the first two were. To one end, there's just some
odd, odd things in here,and like, I don't think they take
some jokes far enough. I thinkit would have been funny, Like the

(14:18):
whole relationship between Rocco and his motherto me, is very white heat and
just go for it when it comesto like incestuous stuff and make it like
a total incest relationship between Rocco andhis mom, Like why not go that
far? If you're going to gofor comedy and taboo, break that taboo,

(14:39):
you know, make him more attractedto her than to Tanya. Speaking
of Tanya, my daughter was inthe room and I was watching it today
but not really paying attention. Shedid happen to catch the extended legs scene,
and which I think is one ofthe better gags in the film,
and she enjoyed it a bit.She's like, what what's going on?

(15:01):
That doesn't look right? Why doesshe have Barbie legs? And then oh
no, two knees does that evenwork? It's the knees that really do
it for me. It's that secondset of knees that just really I mean,
that's the thing. This movie,I think, more or less has
completely rejected the smart, dialogue drivencomedy of the previous two movies. And

(15:26):
this is leaning hard on kind ofwhat we were talking about at the beginning,
which is this like sight gag drivenpop culture, e specific thing that
it's like really going for. Idon't know why. I mean, I
do know. I feel like wecould agree why that it's way harder to
do one over the other. Butwhat Police Squad was known for was that

(15:46):
smart, well written dialogue and thosefunny word play jokes, and there's like
none of it in this movie.Not zero, but pretty close. I
was editing the starting to edit thesixth episode of Police Squad today and we
were already bemoaning how different that wasfrom you, especially those first three episodes

(16:12):
of the show. I had justwatched this again and like, this is
so much even from that sixth episode. This is so much further away that
you don't get any of that nameplay. You don't get anything like a
green screen scene of Rome behind,nothing like that. Even it's just there's

(16:36):
too much plot, having the storytake over everything. And I think that's
why they've got again them being separated, which is annoying. Like you said,
Chris, that whole thing, itfeels like it's just to get hurt
to that hideout. It's like youcouldn't have done it another way. They
had to parody Thelma and yeah,yeah, fucking sustained Thelma and Luis parody

(17:03):
that feels like ten minutes doesn't payoff though, well no, no,
no, the payoff is funny.Guy gets hit by a car and then
is perfectly fine. That's hilarious.I was laughing, just in tears.
But there's one more beat to thatjoke that they cut out, which was
Ellen Green, who I didn't realizewas playing the other character, the Thelma

(17:25):
to her Louise or Luisa or Thelma, that she then starts making out with
the guy with the offensive hat,the guy that got hit by the truck.
And that's where that joke. Thatwas the button for that joke.
I don't think it was a goodbutton. And how disappointed was I that
we finally get to go to StatesvillePrison and we don't get any reference to

(17:47):
any of the criminals that Frank sentaway all those years ago. It's a
massive missed opportunity, right, Mark, you mentioned it, the Statesville prison
thing, Well, we were watchingit. If you're gonna do that,
which they did it in the showover and over and over and over again.
And David Zucker's name is still onthis even if he didn't direct it.

(18:07):
They could have at least had himwalking down those cells with there was
a shot of people already in theircells. You could have just had the
names above Sally Decker, Dadada,Da Dad Dad. But you know what,
this movie's not great, but Iwould have appreciated that note of continuity,
because again we're led to believe thisis all within the same continuity.

(18:30):
Anyways, No, we're not wellnow we are squarely in Los Angeles,
right, there's no more pretending thatwe're any place ells because there's no mention
of the Academy Awards at all throughoutthis entire movie, than suddenly boom,
we end up at the Academy Awards. Right, total freak out. Aside
from the fact that they keep mentioninghow bad LA is, because oh,

(18:55):
don't you forget, we're right inprime La riot time. So that's fun
and really a look that they parodythe Rodney King. Yeah, you know
that hurts when you do that ina movie. The guy's trying to quell
the rioting, gives a sincere pleaabout people getting along, and then they

(19:18):
turn it into a joke, andI'm like, wow, that's really bad
from the creators of an American Carol. Yeah. The problem here with some
of this is it hadn't aged well. It's problematic, but it wasn't great
at the time. Again, atthe time, I don't know if it's
offensive. It's just more frankly,even though I wasn't able to watch us

(19:40):
in ninety four, this is lowhanging fruit. Then wow, and La
is a terrible place joke. Wow, you're so creative, except not like
this isn't me being some sort ofwoke hipster type guy, just like,
oh my god, I'm so offendedby this stuff. It's just that it
was such easy comedy, you know, all right, you got your Untouchables,

(20:02):
you got your thumb and Louise,you got your White Heat, or
any other of these prison movies.I was even thinking of Shawshank, which
I think came out about the sameyear. But when they're digging the tunnel,
I was just like, Oh,there's going to be a poster hanging
over right, and the poster isgoing to be hilarious. No, that
came a little bit later, butit was just like, Okay, you
got all of these beats and thenwe end up and I would say a

(20:27):
fairly solid, if over long endsequence all taking place at the Academy Awards,
which feels like that was cut froma different cloth than the rest of
this film. Well, all ofa sudden, they're really forced to focus
the comedy, and there's a tickingI mean as a ticking bomb, obviously,

(20:47):
but that level of steaks actually lightsa fire under the ass of the
writers to give us some interesting jokesand some interesting gags, and there are
some shitty ones thrown in there,like all of the really weird to fake
movies, Like the fake movies theycome up with aren't very funny. I
mean Mother Teresa dancing around hitting smallchildren. I mean, I guess it's
funny, but to what end?I mean they had weird al right there.

(21:14):
They should have had him pitching someideas about this stuff. I mean,
Conan the Librarian, Gandhi two.They are so much funnier than this
one, like the four with thewomen and the whole like struggle against blas
set against the whatever's of whatever,like that kind of works. And that
actually, like when they cut awayand they're supposed to be doing like physical

(21:36):
comedy, I'm listening to those moviedescriptions, I'm like, these are funnier
than what's actually going on on screen, and just the caliber of actresses that
they have for that stuff. Butthen you throw in Olympia Ducoccus and James
Earl Jones, and I'm like,why are these two here? Like we
have all of these like Z levelcelebrities, I mean, and Muriel Hemmingway

(21:56):
and Ellie Gould. They don't fitin eas Ellie and Gould is there,
and then and Mary lou Retton andall of these like strange celebs that you
would see show up on like Idon't know, Hollywood Squares or something,
And then you throw in these folks. I mean, I thought Raquel Welch
was hilarious, but she doesn't reallyfit with the rest of the caliber.

(22:19):
But she at least interacts with Frankin that scene. But like Pia Zadora
is like the queen of cheese,and to have a music number by her,
I was like, well, that'sappropriate, that fits with the movie.
But some of these other people justdon't whatsoever. I thought you were
going to get a big kick outto see an Elliott Gould in this movie

(22:40):
randomly, for literally no reason.Gould sighting is owis an appreciated thing.
Honestly, that's the other thing.This movie again kind of leans on the
same thing that some of these laterepic movie disaster movies do, where it's
random celebrity cameos just because they havenothing. It's not like Charlie Sheen being

(23:00):
cast in Scary Movie three, wherehe's playing a main character in that movie.
I mean, he was still anactor at the time. He's not
like this personality I guess he isnow. But most of the people in
this movie that are the cameos completelyrandom, Like you just said, Elliot
goold Florence Henderson makes sense only becauseshe's already been on this franchise. And

(23:22):
there's also some sort of theme ofthe Brady Bunch going through here because I've
got amb Davis showing up as well. While why not have Mike Lookinland be
the director instead of bringing back theguy from the wharf in the first movie.
I mean, he's a great guy, he's a great character actor.
I love when he shows up.And I was really glad to see Earl

(23:44):
Bowen Rip playing another psychiatrist in thismovie. Yeah, Joe Graffossi's role in
this movie is so much better thanin the first one. He's so good.
He plays that role perfectly, theharried manager of the control room.
He so good. It's it's great, he's fan. It's sad because the
third act of this movie is actuallypretty fun. The fact that it gets

(24:07):
so low to where we need toget rather high. I mean, I
think the third act of this movieis pretty close to the third act of
the Verse movie in a lot ofways, very click in terms of quality,
even setting and everything else. Here. What's more iconic than the Academy
Awards. I'd love Elliott Gould too, but they're not really jokes. But

(24:27):
nothing really lands when the presenters arepresenting. No, it's so dry,
and it's not that dry humor,you know, none, to your point
from earlier, Chris, none ofthat verbal humor is here, None of
that. But that's not important rightnow, Like none of that deadpan Joe
Friday delivery that we're getting in theTV series. That's a thing of the

(24:49):
past. We are so far awayfrom that now and I just miss it
so much. There was one linehe says when he's talking to again.
There were a couple of that.He's oblivious to what's going on, and
I can't remember what any of themmarble that was it? If there were
any at all, that was it? Maybe maybe one or two when he's

(25:12):
back at the police station, whicheven though he goes to police squad a
couple of times, George Kennedy andOJ are pretty much out of the picture
in this one. It's Priscilla Pressleydoing the leg work as opposed to them,
right, they're just like, where'sFrank And they just show up at

(25:32):
the ostras because they see him onTV exactly and oh, that's where the
bomb must be. And then theydo that gag from the second movie again
where the doors get blocked on thevehicles and they can't get out, and
it was just as it's not thatit's unfunny, it's just not a thing
to laugh at, like two dudestrying to get out of a car,
Like, why are you wasting timeon this movie? You've already done it.

(25:52):
What's why are we why are wechasing? I just don't understand why
they chase their tails on some ofthese jokes. I guess at some point
was just we'd expecting that the audience'sexpectation are we're going to hit some of
the same notes, so here's someof those same notes. I guess that's
what it's got to be. Butat the same time, they completely ignore
any dialogue comedy in this movie.So I don't know what they thought the

(26:15):
audience wanted. Frankly, people stillshowed up for this movie. This movie
was still immensely successful. It's justwasn't critically successful. It wasn't, but
financially this movie still made money.So maybe people just wanted more dumb less
highbrow. It's not even highbrow.It's just smart comedy, interesting comedy,
unique comedy, not just the samegags over and over again you hang a

(26:37):
lantern on it, mostly new jokes. Wow, to give credit where credit
is due. And apparently this wasa joke they thought of on set the
day of was Fred Ward coming downoff of his Apple box and actually showing
him jumping down off of his applebox when he was standing next to I

(26:57):
keep going to saying Nicole Brown Simpsonand a Nicole Smith upset that the like
the killer of Ron and Nicole wasnever found. Right now, I'm not
going to discuss any of that.I yeah, I think that's a pretty
obvious question, but I'm not gettingin that I'm not going that was hilarious

(27:18):
to me. Well, it's likethe gag in the second movie with the
heels, right where Priscilla Presley's wearingthose crazy tall heels. Yeah, that
gang's hilarious again. Fred Ward ispretty good in this. He is a
good actor to cast opposite Leslie Nielsen. Honestly, it feels like they didn't
get enough screen time For me.I would have preferred to see them just

(27:41):
go back and forth because fred Wardcalling Leslie Nielsen McGirk never gets old.
Oh yeah, because fred Ward can'ttalk out of the front of his mouth.
He only talks out of the sideof his mouth at all times.
You've got so many prison tropes youcould be playing with when they're in prison,

(28:02):
and it really doesn't make any senseto me. When Arley Ermie comes
up and finds their plan and theyhave the whole prison riot, I'm like,
do they just straight up murder ArleyArmy? Is that how he doesn't
report that they have a plan?He's gone, that's his However longermat scene
is with him, he disappears afterthat. He must have been on the

(28:25):
Paramount back lot and they were justlike, hey, Arley or I mean,
what the fuck is the point ofhaving him in anything in the nineties
if he's not just playing this role. Holy shit, talk about someone who
made a killing for like what adecade and a half on just one role,
one singular thing, yelling at peopleand calling them I guess probably in

(28:47):
fullmetal jacket terrible things. And thishe just kind of butter cheeks. Yeah,
like it's not anything remotely offensive here, Oh yea from now on,
your Private Snowball? Do you likethat name? Yes, there's one thing
that you won't like, Private Snowball. They don't serve bride, chicken and
watermelon on a daily basis in mymess all. Oh yes, where nell

(29:08):
are you from anyway? Private Sar? Texas? Sir, Holy dogs?
You have Texas only stairs and queerscome from Texas. Private Cowboy, and
you don't much look like a stairto me, so that kind of narrows
it down. Do you suck dicks, sir? No, sir, bullshit.
I'll bet you could suck a golfball through a garden home. Sir.
No, sir, I don't likethe name Lawrence. Only faggots and

(29:29):
sailors are called Lawrence. From nowon, your golber Pile. He occasionally
would show up and do drama,like very rarely, and when he did,
it was like, oh, wow, he's really good, Like I
really would have liked to have seenmore of him. And the one guy
who I really like, he doesn'teven get credit in the credits. Bruce
A. Young is Tyrone, whoI really love when he shows up and

(29:53):
I love all the stuff that he'sdoing, and then he just goes to
solitary confinement. We never see himagain. I was trying to find him
on IMDb. I'm like, who'splaying the other guy? Because I know
I've seen him and stuff, AndI looked kept looking through the list to
see his face or the name,and I couldn't find it. What is

(30:15):
that all about? While they weresaying in the commentary that they really had
to convince him to be in themovie, that he didn't want to do
it, I don't know why,but apparently he probably said, yeah,
don't give me credit. He's notcredited. Raquel Welch isn't credited. I
mean, there's a lot of people, James Earl Jones, Mariel Hemingway,

(30:37):
there's a lot of people that don'thave credits in this I mean, ourly
Army doesn't even have credit. Ican kind of understand the cameos, but
I'm like, wait, I knowthis guy from all kinds of stuff.
It's in Durassic Park. Yeah.I thought I was losing my mind for
a minute there because I could notfind his face or the character name on
the credits list. But you knowwho is build in this film, Future

(31:00):
All Star director Paul Fieg in theaudience front end motherfucking center. Yeah,
doing his his hilarious. He's sucha good director. His reactions are great.
He has like one which is justputting his hand over his mouth and
pointing, which is what he doeslike four times. Oh man, Yeah,
I was pretty disappointed to see him. Why does he gore a credit

(31:22):
friend of the director, Michigan's ownPaul Fieg? Mind you, Oh,
I don't want anything to do withthat. We don't hold that against the
state of Michigan. One of theother things that we noticed when we were
watching it, Chris, was whenEd and Nordberg always called Norberg, but
it's Nordberg go to Frank's house,and that weird scene where they're eating the

(31:49):
cupcakes and oj is looking off.Oh yeah, try to pay a little
closer attention to it today while Iwas watching it, and I think he
was getting direction and they just didn'tcut the scene at the right time,
because he goes up with the cupcakeand then looks, takes it back down,
goes back up, never takes abite. He's not looking at Frank.

(32:14):
Frank is up and a little tohis left, but his eyeline is
down and to their right. I'mlike, what it's going on? Wow,
Yeah, it's real bad. Hisline reading through the rest of the
film are atrocious anyway, but thatwhole thing. I was just like,
what he is he even in thesame scene right now in his head?

(32:37):
Bizarre. Well, you know,we've kind of mentioned it a couple of
times now, but I think it'sfair to say, oh J Simpson not
a good actor. No no.And it's just even funnier that this is
right before all hell breaks loose hislife. This comes out like three months
before this ship goes down. It'sprobably still cashing those checks. Many he

(32:59):
may have what the gloves and theknife with money he made from Naked Gun
thirty three and a third. Justthink about that. Oh my god.
The commentary was pretty funny. Whenthey're talking about directing Nicole and Nicole Smith
and that He's like, you seethat, see that? That was her
going, C stand, sandbag cstand. That's what he had to tell

(33:22):
her, was like, you lookhere, you look here, and then
you look here, and that's itbecause she is the worst actress and they
managed to get a somewhat decent performanceout of her. I mean, she
just has to stand around. Yeah. I will give her credit for being
better than OJ in this. Yeah, oh yeah, point out the lowest

(33:45):
of low bars to cross, butI don't know. You could have made
it a lower bar heard across.But I'm not sure how. I don't
recall having seen any of her otherperformances, so I can't gauge it against
those. Not even that video Isent you where it's all the outtakes from
that. No oh no, dieHard rip off. Oh boy, that's

(34:07):
amazing. Skyscraper Yeah, oh mygod. She was in The Hudsucker Proxy.
Oh yeah, I remember that.She was in a couple movies.
But this is it for her really, Like this is the big role is
this movie? If anybody could churna performance out of somebody, I think

(34:28):
it's the Cohen Brothers. Well,speaking of Cohen Brothers, you get Randall
TeX's Cobbin here totally wasted. Ohmy god, wasted again. Yeah,
I've just put under used for allthese people. Yeah yeah, Well,
and he's one of the great characteractors of all time. And then he
disappears total piece of shit from thesound of it, like real life.
But he's he looks so menacing,like you could have made the case it

(34:52):
should have been him getting out ofprison with red Ward. Just I always
kind of remember the movie that hedoes, but I always can vince myself
he's in this movie more than heis. I really always think he's like,
oh he's in the end of themovie. Nope, yeah, he
should have escaped, maybe not withthem, but after them, and shown
up as another danger or another threatat the Oscars. I mean, as

(35:15):
much as I like Catherine Freeman asan actress, she's not intimidating. No,
she's not an intimidating force that Ireally am worried that Leslie Nielsen won't
be able to handle like she's afive foot tall woman who's in her sixties.
Yeah. I like her a lotas well, but I feel like,
she's pretty wasted in this. It'sa shame because she's really funny.
She's great in one of my favoritemovies, Gremlins too, as the woman

(35:37):
with the microwave. She's hilarious withthe Gremlins in the what is it like?
The set for the infomer So she'sreally good. I just don't know
why they didn't give her anything otherthan like weird creepy jokes with Leslie Nielsen
that are I guess they kind ofland, but yeah, it's like the
Fairy Brothers would do that so muchbetter with Lynn Shay and Dumb and Dummer

(35:58):
or sorry Kingpinn. I also liketo point out Leslie Nielsen and Kathleen Freeman
are three years apart. I thinkshe's probably older than that. Yeah,
she was born in twenty three andLeslie Nielsen was born in twenty six,
and Priscilla was forty five. Theoptics of like the ages in this movie
are yeah, forty nine, fortynine, Holy shit, looking good for

(36:22):
forty nine. I mean, PriscillaPresley looks great, but she's just again
given nothing to do. She's justthere to be. I don't even know
what she's there for at this point. Frankly, then the first movie it
made sense, and the second moviemade sense. In this movie, she
really feels just forced into the plotof the movie. I mean, the
stuff in the sperm bank goes onfor way too long, and apparently there

(36:44):
was even more of that stuff.There was like another go at it that
is on the TV version, andit's like, oh my gosh, I
was done with that after the firsttime, and especially after the second time,
and we just keep going back.I mean, it was next to
see Julie Strange show up in thatdominatrix outfit, but that was about it

(37:05):
for me. Where do you takethat gag? Isn't that the woman in
a dominatrix outfit the logical final stepfor that gang, right right? Why
did they need anything else? Idon't know. I mean, they've done
that before with this franchise, wherethey take the jokes to their silliest conclusion.
This one they didn't work. Wheneverthey did it well, I like

(37:27):
to when they show restraint. Ifyou look at Airplane and Police Squad the
series, they rarely did that thingof escalation in this one. It seems
odd. Even with the previous moviesand definitely with the show or with Airplane
the things that we've talked about onthe show that escalation doesn't that is more
when this stuff starts to happen inthe mid nineties with other comedies, where

(37:50):
you go as far as you canuntil it's not funny anymore, and then
you go another step further. AndI think I talked about that, like
that's the A and Powers set up. So apparently what was supposed to happen
was that he is shown after theJulie strain bit. He's shown being wheeled
out by a male nurse who askedhim to fill out some forms apparently,

(38:15):
and then while he's writing down hisname, he sees Tony receive a phone
call and tries to get near herto listen in. Then, when the
male nurse returns, Dreben hides ona gurney and a different nurse inadvertently wheels
him into a gurney, sorry,wheels a gurney into the r which says
penal implants on it. And thenwhat might have been happening with the Norberg

(38:42):
and this is me giving a lotof credit the Norberg and Frank thing that
you're talking about was that apparently there'san extra scene in there where Dreben and
Norberg talk about a TV soap opera, because now Frank is domesticated, so
he's all about the soaps and stuff. So I'm wondering if Norberg was looking
at the soap opera, maybe yeah, maybe a hell of a stretch it

(39:07):
would explain because it's odd. It'sreally weird. The one thing I just
read about two was that there's moreof them trying to get away, and
the way that they pop up indifferent places. So they pop up on
a football field right, one ofthem has the ball on their head for
like the kick that would have beengood. I mean the way that it

(39:28):
just goes like escape Funeral, SouthCentral LA. Again, super dangerous place,
them showing up there and then gettingchased away. I mean, it's
like what I was talking about therule of threes and we just don't have
that. That gag was done bettera year earlier in a movie that's much

(39:49):
funnier than this one, which isalso a parody movie that has its shit
together, which is National Lampoons LoadedWeapon One. They do that sewer gag
one time in the movie at thefinal third act, and it is one
of the funniest gags in the entiremovie, Mike, you know what I'm
talking about Where they come up outof the sewer similar to this, and

(40:09):
it's Emilio Estevez and he just comesup onto I guess in the background is
the teenage Ninja Turtles movie, rightfucking hilarious, And that's it, and
then he goes down into the sewer. They don't need to do it eight
times, you see, to doit if it's funny, you only need
to do it once. If it'sreally funny, you don't need to do
him jerking off four times. Asmuch as I think that's funny, I

(40:31):
actually think the funniest part of thatscene is the lead up to it,
where they're talking about throwing around thepigskin in the backyard and my uncle was
helping me. See. That's wherethe movie actually sings for a moment,
because it's back to the dialogue stuffexactly. Movie just completely just forgot about
that is pretty damn funny. Themisunderstanding thing that we've had before in things,

(40:52):
and I wish they would have moreof it. You don't get anything
like what's that or the back andforth with names. There's no kid Detroit
from Cincinnati and all that good stuff. None of that, I mean,
and Pat Proft was credited as awriter on this and he was good for

(41:13):
those. Well what mix a manis this and this and this, or
like the thing at the end ofthe last movie where it's like, why
would to be free to be dothis and to do this and to what
was it eat an otter or whatever, and it's just like, you know,
I us have those like the rulesof three and getting that last one,
the last one is the most outrageous, and it's like, yeah,
there's none of that here. Theykind of just brush past some of these

(41:37):
jokes that they could have had.In a lot of ways. Leslie Nielsen
Frank Drebin feels like a non characterin the movie. He doesn't feel like
as well defined a character as hedid in the first one and the second
one because most of his definition camethrough his interactions with other people as at

(41:57):
times straight man and at times bumblingidiot. There's just none of it here.
It really does just boil down toa whole lot of visual gags,
like just replete with visual gags,which, again, if that's what you're
into, you're going to be infor a good time. There are plenty
of visual gags. Oh yeah,Leslie Nielsen is a funny actor when he
has given the opportunity to just playit straight. They don't even want to

(42:20):
do that in this movie, whichmeans they've lost sight of what made this
police squad slash naked gun to beginwith. That's my theory. I think
part of that is him, thoughI don't think he wanted to be the
straight man. Watching those trailers justreinforce that to me, like this is
what he thought was funny and hewanted to be a comedic actor. He

(42:44):
is funniest to me, at leastin Airplane and those first few episodes of
Police Squad where his delivery is onestraight and deadpan. Those are the things
that make me laugh. This pickingup a quarter in the middle of a
gunfight on the steps of the busdepot and going, oh, I found

(43:07):
a quar That isn't funny to me. It really isn't. What about him
detaching shopping carts from one another witha blowtorch absolutely unfunny. But I did
appreciate when he grabbed the breasts ofthe woman from the first movie. He
callback, yeah, there we go, there's a good callback. Yeah,
melon lady, he did an assaulther with a concrete dildo, so opportunity

(43:30):
really missed. He had a giantcucumber in his cart too. Well.
I was probably for Priscilla Presley,given the lingerie that she apparently has for
their nights together. That's I meana pretty good visual her with the Yeah
yeah, there are some good visuals, but it turns back. Yeah.

(43:52):
Well, then they kind of repeatthe gag with Leslie Nielsen in prison with
his metal Chassidy belt low hanging fora joke, but kind of works.
I think, Yeah, it feelslike yeah, yeah, bro, they
really could have done a lot morewhen it came to just building up that

(44:14):
scene with Randall tech scab, allthe men running out and all that,
like, it could have just builtup even more. Well, shouldn't we
be led to believe that if it'snot consensual, that's a problem obviously,
But I don't think Frank drebbon isA is any kind of a mysterious stranger
to gay sex the way he talkedabout it in that series. Oh yeah,

(44:36):
living with that other guy, andpretty soon the neighbors start to talk
and I'm just pointing out what FrankDrebon is saying. I'm just just unpacking
what he has to say. It'sdefinitely in his history. Yeah, if
the show is Cannon, which itvery well should be, just so many
of those things, just so manyof the police procedural things. You know.

(44:57):
I was checking out this case andI heard about this on the radio.
My boss, of course, wasthere already. Yeah, like,
none of that thing, you know, I don't even know. Do he
get a voice over in this movie. It's there in his car at one
point. No trash Cans doesn't knowit's a perkey meter and it shoots the

(45:17):
quarters everywhere, right, which isa gag that was like stripped directly out
of Fletch Lives, which came outfour years earlier. To the point that
in that movie Fletch, he doesthe thing that Leslie Nielsen should have done,
which is Fletch picks the thing up, takes one of the quarters and
sticks it in and then drops itback on the ground. I mean,
that's funny him just hitting it andthen going and walking off and looking at

(45:42):
the camera and g brue ain't funny. I think you're right, Mark Leslie
Nielsen playing the straight man is notfunny for him, so why would he
want to do it right? Right? He's so good at it though,
I know it's no one sat himdown and said, do you realize how
many people love and laughed at yourdon't call me Shirley line? Oh yeah,

(46:04):
let's watch that again, Leslie,and look, let's look at this.
I would wat talking to actors abouttheir movies. You know, this
is what people love you for.Right. I've kind of wonder did he
not know that, like that lineis funny because it's fucking straight as an
arrow? Yeah, I just wantyou to know that we're all really counting

(46:27):
on you, right, some ofhis best lines it's a really big building
with a lot of patients inside,But that's not important right now. His
best line as far as I'm concerned, That and those first couple of episodes
of the show where he is stillplaying it completely straight, are the funniest
things for me. Even that firstmovie. He plays it pretty straight.

(46:49):
That first movie is a little bitof a return to form for the show.
Well, even think of just thatjoke of is this some kind of
a bust? Yes, ma'am.Very impressive, right, totally straight,
not like gool you know exactly.One of the best gags in the first
movie is everywhere I look reminds meof her And there's no reaction shot of
people going blue to the breasts,the giant cone, that the cone,

(47:14):
but whatever the hell those are,there's nobody mugg into that. I don't
know where they thought the mugging wasfunnier, it, guess, is my
question, Like what did they seeor what were they reading or what information
were they getting back from people thatwould lead them to believe the mugging was
funnier, because again, we knowthey can. It's not like we don't
know they can write good comedy.We know they can. It's that they've

(47:37):
deviated away from it. So Idon't know what would cause them to deviate
away from it because they know itwas successful and they know that people thought
it was funny, because that's whatthey cut their teeth on for a decade,
and they're still testing this stuff likecrazy. They're still going out and
showing it to audiences and just liketaking a straight razor and cutting things out,

(47:58):
it's a lot of stuff they cutout sounds like could be hilarious.
Like them when he goes into prison. There's supposed to be like an lion
in one of the cages. Aresupposed to be a mime holding on the
fake bars, you know, likeI could I'm with like a cup,
you know, like going across.That would have been hilarious, and that's
just not there. Like when theydo the visit to Rocco in prison and

(48:20):
it's all of the people, likethe hockey goalie and the bank teller,
bank teller, yeah exactly, andjust the aquarium, all of these things,
like all of those jokes, andshe's like, boom boom boom boom
boom, we're not pointing to thesethings are just happening on screen, and
then we get to Rocco and that'sit. It feels like the Rocco scene
like there should have been more toit, Like I I like when his

(48:44):
mother is talking about and Nicole Smithand he's just like, oh, mom
giving me boy cramps. But otherwiseit's like there's not a whole lot to
that scene. And like Pepshmir,why would you hire a guy who's in
jail rather than a guy who's alreadywalking around now free. Why is Pat
Schmir in this movie? To begetright? That's what I was asking myself

(49:05):
today. Why him well, andhe's talking about terrorism. It's like he's
still in the pocket of all thoseterrorists from the first movie, and it's
like, guys, nobody remembers Patschmir. I'm sorry, he just was not
that memorable. Had I not watchedthese pretty much three in a row,
I would not have remembered that thatguy was in the first film. It

(49:25):
was not a character in the firstmovie, and he's really not a character
in this movie. I guess hegets less screen time in this movie than
it does in the first one becausehe has that hole back and well,
now it's probably about the same.I guess we dies in this one.
So at least there's that he wassuch a memorable villain who cares well.
At least it's better than having SaddamHussein. Even though we get the Bill
Clinton impersonator, the Pope John Paulthe second impersonator, and then we get

(49:51):
a really good terrorists joke as well, and you even have to throw in
some adr to say disgruntled postal workers. Can I point out that Jean Graytech
is one of my favorite actors.I'd never heard of until looking into him.
Guy was in nothing but movies playingthe pope and he was a real
estate broker and he had the permissionto perform as the pope and impersonate him

(50:14):
from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.So wow, he looks like John Paul
the Second in a way that Again, I've seen this movie plenty of times,
but I always forget when you canfind an impersonator who doesn't have to
talk but just looks like him,like the Queen of England in the first
movie. It does work. Hehas the nose man just oh yeah,
perfect. It's a lot better thanhearing that George Bush an impersonator from the

(50:37):
second one, or even this BillClinton. Yeah yeah, this movie had
how much money in a budget?And that was the Bill Clinton impersonator they
hired. Jeez, was one ofthe worst that I've seen. I was
really excited to learn that there wasa fourth movie that was supposed to come
out two thousands, Like the latetwo thousands, early tens. There was

(51:00):
a script kicking around called Naked GunWhat four, which is a pretty good
title. That is apparently it wasgoing to parody movies like Infernal Affairs and
then departed like corrupt cop movies andhave Leslie Nielsen be the ob one,
as it was put. I havenot read the script, but I have

(51:21):
read people talking about the script,and he was going to hand off police
squad to a new generation. Sokind of what they talked about with a
lot of the franchises from the eightiesand nineties in the two thousands, what
they tried to do, they weregoing to try to do that here.
They wanted to reduce Leslie Nielsen's partin the movie, and then they completely
took it out. And then theguy who wrote the scripts head, I'm

(51:42):
not doing this anymore. That's ashame, I guess. I mean,
two thousand and nine would have beenscary movie. Three scary movie for Leslie
Nielsen. He could have thrown thejacket back on his Frank Dreban one more
time. I feel he wasn't allthose other movies he made. I was
just gonna say, he's run iton plenty of time. Yeah, speak
about a transition into things people shouldn'tbe talking about. Well, I don't

(52:06):
know if anybody's doing an episode ofa podcast on Wrongfully Accused in twenty twenty
three or two thousand and one,a space travesty. Oh boy, Yeah,
Well, I mean when you makeyour bread and butter doing one thing,
people are gonna want you to doit for them to diminishing returns.
What was the one with weird Althe Disney Oh Safety Patrol. That was

(52:30):
the weird one that we stumbled across. It is a Disney Channel movie with
Bug Hall, the kid who playsalf Al from the Little Rascals movie who
is a like safety patrol kid athis school, and Leslie Nielsen is in
the movie, and so is weirdAl. And weird Al makes a song
in the movie about how terrible aliteral ten year old is and sings it

(52:51):
in front of a group of children, and it's like you're a piece of
shit, essentially, like just callinghim like him and in front of a
group of kids, while the likethe good kids are cheer bring him on.
So it's very weird. We wentdown a very deep, dark rabbit
hole with this movie into the LeslieNielsen assorted media of years post Naked Gun
thirty three and a third Wow endingwith the Mister Magoo trailer, which I

(53:15):
feel is what he liked to do, being the bumbling idiot with the constant
mugging. I honestly don't remember dislikingthat mister McGoo movie. That was a
movie I saw. I saw ita lot as a kid. I mean,
it was a Disney movie from thenineties, so I probably just equated
it to this movie. I probablyremember things from it, thinking that it's

(53:37):
Leslie Nielsen playing Frank Drebbin in thismovie, because again, it's a lot
of physical comedy, a lot ofthe stuff that we didn't like with this
movie. Like Mark said in thetrailer for that movie, you can see
it's a lot of physical slapstick.Which that's guess what Leslie Nielsen really wanted
to do. That was what hereally yearned to do, and I'm glad
that people let him do it,but hey, more power to him.

(53:59):
Then. Yeah, it wasn't thefunniest stuff that he could provide. That's
the shame really, because he wasa funny straight man. But I get
why you wouldn't want to be thestraight man if you think you're funny,
because the straight man is a thanklessjob. Like you're the dude who helps
make everybody else laugh, but you'renot the one making people laugh. And
back to the mugging. This wasmentioned earlier as to why it veered in

(54:21):
that direction, And I think it'sjust not trusting an audience to get a
joke without a visual queue of eitherhim making a face at the camera or
the other characters making a face ateach other. That happens a lot in
the films, doesn't happen on theshow. Doesn't happen an airplane where he'll

(54:42):
say an idiotic thing and then thetwo other people in the scene will look
at each other. Fred Warden anda Nicole Smith do that a couple of
times, And I think it's aqueue to the audience that that was a
funny line. Well, it's likean applause button, right right, that's
not funny, Like it actively makesthings un money if the audience isn't getting
it, I don't see how thevisual cue from someone in the movie all

(55:07):
of a sudden makes it funny.Also, if the audience isn't getting it,
was it actually funny to begin with? Sorry, my mind just flashed
to the Where's Waldo reference? They'relike a naked gun thirty three and a
third flashback? Yeah, well Ijust had another one. Guys. He's
still relevant, right, Yeah,He's still relevant. If people still look

(55:32):
at those books, where's Waldo?I don't know. Don't kids have phones
now? They don't need to lookat fucking I mean, I'm still looking
for him. Mike is still fightingthe good fight for the rest of us.
He's in the audience of the Oscarsnineteen ninety four Oscars. So there
you go. You don't need tolook anymore. I don't think we should

(55:53):
have Phil Donahue back next year.That whole thing. That was one of
my favorite line. The fact thatLeslie Nielsen does look like Phil Donna Hue
with glasses on is funny. It'sthat is not a wasted gag, but
it's almost done into the ground.But it's not wasted, that's for sure.
I guess it's smart that they don'tshow the real Phil Donahue at any

(56:15):
point to remind you, yeah,exactly what he looks like. The smartest
way to do it would have beenhaving Phill Donna Hue watching him doing it
been like, what the fuck,I'm getting super angry about yes, growing
a chair. Yeah, that wasErldo's show man. We've come a long

(56:36):
way in these last ten weeks,sentleman. All the way from airplane to
hear Yeah. Yes, the trajectorylooks something like this. It's just a
steep crash into the ground and he'spretty Unfortunately, I do think it is
a downward trajectory, at least forme personally. I have enjoyed everything just

(57:02):
a little bit less as we've goneon, but I think that'll pick back
up when we take a right turninto top secret Land. I am very
much looking forward to that. Ihope so. And I'm sure Mark you've
seen it before. Chris, haveyou seen this one? Have you seen
top Secret? No? Well,I'm very curious to get your impression of
it. I'm excited to watch itbecause it's something again I've never seen it.

(57:24):
I did want to mention as wekind of start heading towards the end
of the Police Squad experience something worthwatching past this show that not only scratches
the itch of this show, atleast the show part of this not the
movies so much, but the constantgags and funny dialogue heavy gags the show

(57:47):
from sky one A touch of cloth, which is a euphemism for pooping.
By today, do shit oneself isdrowning, as I like to call it
around today. I learned touching clockmeans too shit oneself. It stars John
Hannah, who plays the brother inthe Mummy in the New Mummy films,

(58:07):
not the Tom Cruise one, andhe plays a Leslie Nielsen Frank Drebbin type
cop in the first two seasons andin the third season it kind of goes
more into like bosh more I don'tknow, like contemporary cop shows. It's
still a contemporary show. But thefirst season is two episodes forty minutes.

(58:30):
Each second season is two episodes fortyminutes. Third is the same. The
first two seasons are what I wantedfrom this show and then some and it
is totally worth checking out. It'sa little hard to track down. It
only got three seasons, but eachseason's only two episodes. You could watch
it in an afternoon. But itreally captures the feeling of this show and

(58:51):
takes it in some interesting, kindof fun directions that this show probably would
have gone in if given the opportunity. Like one of the best guys in
the show that just kind of remindsme of this show and this franchise.
At one point, you have acharacter with its back to the screen,
another character talking and the character withtheir back to the screen is talking but
saying and we left this scene inso in case we had to come back

(59:13):
and fix something that you guys thatwe forgot to mention in the script.
That's why this is here. Sothat's why you can't see me. Wow
kind of Garth Marenghi more or less. I mean it has that British sensibility
to it that this show love right. I would say it's almost like the
British version of Police Squad. Butsome of the jokes if you do watch
it, you're gonna go, ohright, that was in Police Squad,

(59:34):
So it is British Police Squad.But at the same time, like it
really is just kind of that nextstep in the right direction. Third season
it's okay, but the first twoseasons are amazing. And John Hannah,
I had not seen him in anythingother than The Mummy, but he is
really good. He's as good asLeslie Nielsen is, frankly, which is
saying a lot the Galbot co starswith him, and it is in just

(59:57):
a million things that my wife andI watch on brittin Box or PBS.
She's in a gazillion British Police procedurals. She's always playing the tough DC or
DCI, and when you pass thatalong, I looked at it and I'm
like, is that the same gal? Oh my god. It'll be interesting
to see her in a comedic rolebecause everything else has been deadly serious with

(01:00:21):
major ramifications. Well, she's alsoin Gentleman Jack, which is on HBO
Max, which is pretty good aswell, but you guys should check it
out. And if you're listening tothis and you are a fan of Police
Squad, which that's why you're here, you should totally check it out as
well. It is worth tracking down. However you go about tracking it down.
It is so much in the veinof this that it would be a

(01:00:42):
shame to not mention it, becauseI have never heard anybody else talk about
it. I've never heard anybody elsemention it. The only reason I found
it is because we are doing thisshow, and it's at the bottom of
the Wikipedia with some other entries.One of them is a show that I
think we may have mentioned last timethat I was an as good, Angie
Tribeca, which you guys kind ofsaid wasn't great. And then the other

(01:01:04):
one, sledge Hammer, the guywho wrote Sledgehammer is the guy who wrote
the script for that Fourth Naked Gunmovie that never came out. That makes
sense, So they're all kind ofconnected. But for me, like I
love Police Squad, but this show, it takes it and just does something
interesting with it. So definitely checkit out here. I'm gonna step up
my soapbox. Well, I'm goingto watch it on your you can edit

(01:01:28):
this too. Yeah, I'm gonnagenerate a tone for that on there for
you. I'm gonna watch it.Well, I don't know where else you
would watch it, so that wouldbe where you can find it, or
on YouTube probably. So the thingis with these kinds of shows, like

(01:01:50):
we've already talked about, they're sohard to do well that when you find
one that's done well, you justwant to tell everybody else who likes them,
because if you have not heard themtalk about it, they may not
know about it either. I feltthe same way when I first saw Mafia
for the first time, like Ihad never seen it and I saw it,
I was like, this is amazing. So I kind of felt the
same way with this. I waslaughing out loud watching the first two seasons

(01:02:10):
of this show more excited to watchTop Secret, frankly, because that's the
people who are making this being funny, making Police Squad even though they don't
like it because it didn't make verymuch money. It's been a long time
since I watched it, but Iremember liking it a lot. Yeah,
I'm excited too. I've been meaningto watch it actually for the last couple

(01:02:31):
of years and just have never.I'm now at this point really burned out
on comedies. I don't watch thismuch comedy usually. I don't like to
laugh. Yeah. Mark Begley losthis smile ladies and gentlemen. He's been
looking for it ever since he hadto watch Naked Gun thirty three and a
third. I will tell you guys, Airplane. I own that one on

(01:02:54):
DVD and I have for years,and it's one that I will go back
to. Top se Grit same definitely. It's a rewatchability thing for me.
You know. I watched the originalPolice Squad when it was on TV,
and then I watched it again afew years ago, just did a rewatch
it off of the DVDs. ButNaked Gun, it's like, I think

(01:03:15):
I've seen each of these movies otherthan maybe on Cable. I think I've
seen them all just once theatrically,and that was it. I feel a
little validated, like, okay,yeah, like there's some good bits in
here, but it's really just I'mokay, sticking with the three things that
I just mentioned, and every oncein a while too, I'll do a
Kentucky Fried movie. But with KentuckyFried movie, it's like there's a couple

(01:03:38):
of the skits that I like,but for the most part, it's that
fistful of chopsticks part that I justsorry fistful again, that I just absolutely
love. And that is kind oflike the last thirty minutes of this movie
and the last thirty minutes of thefirst movie. It's kind of self contained,
and you don't really need to watcha whole lot more than that.

(01:04:00):
They should have taken the third actof the first movie, third act second
movie, third act of the thirdmovie, strung those together and you got
an hour and a half movie.I we don't need anything else. Great,
Hey go, Why didn't they everjust put Leslie Nielsen in a skyscraper
like fucking Bruce Willis? How wasthat something that? Nope? How did
nobody do that? How was thatnot the logical direction to go with one

(01:04:21):
of these movies. The biggest actionmovies at the time is what they should
have been paroding if that's where thisis going, and they didn't parody die
Hard, he's a cop for FoxZag. So this movie was eighty two
minutes with six minutes of end creditsand at least a minute of the opening
with the car going through everywhere.I did appreciate the pinball machine gag in

(01:04:45):
this one. It's the best onein all of them. So it's technically
about seventy six minutes of movie andit doesn't feel that short. So there's
that it's oversea, it's welcome.If for some wild reason my daughter's like,
hey, let's watch one of thenaked gun movies, I'll be like,
okay, sure, let's try thefirst one again. Maybe. I

(01:05:10):
mean, there's still a couple oflines, Hey, it's Enrico Palazzo,
like some of those things. That'sgreat, not nearly the quotability. Yeah,
there's always a handful of jokes thatland really well, but this one
they're few and far between, andthere's too much plot going on. All
right, how we're gonna wrap thiswhole show? Up guys. Oh well,

(01:05:30):
I guess there's only one way towrap this up. The next time
you hear us, we're gonna betalking about Naked Gun the reboot, folks.
But who knows when I mean whoknows? Right, we'll come back
to that at some point in thenear future. We'll post an episode of
the three of us talking about amovie that feels like a joke right now.

(01:05:53):
Yeah, Oh, are We're goingto do a trailer reaction video?
Yeah, only if we can poston the thumbnail you going, okay,
you got it, you gotta deal. Okay, cool Mike Wis reaction to
the Naked Gun trailer. Mind blow. I can't believe they brought the cigarette

(01:06:15):
again. Whip you jump out thewindow on fire like that guy? Yeah?
And Alan North's opening. Yeah.Look, all I want is one
thing from the reboot or sequel,Leslie Nielsen or les Liam Neeson to be
Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley's child.That's all I want. Nothing else.

(01:06:38):
Great, this is just the stupidestthing possible would be for him to be
Leslie Nielsen's child. Well, hedid try to adopt that seventeen year old
Korean girl. Yes, subtle,h boy, the most subtle of digs,
frankly, oh man, and thatone lands one of the few.

(01:07:01):
And there's a couple references in this, and I think they're baseball references that
I'm just like, I don't getthis one at all. Like towards the
end, there's one line where hesays something and drops the name, and
I'm just like, I don't knowwhat you're talking about. And I don't
know how many people honestly remember theWoody Allen bit. Oh well, yeah,

(01:07:24):
I'm of that age. Yeah,I mean I am too. We
caught it when we watched it,But I'm just wondering, since there's no
actual mention of him, Yes,that'll just be like, well, what's
that? It'll just seem like aweird sex thing. It does seem like
a weird sex thing without the context. It works on that level as well.

(01:07:45):
Is it a weird No, Iguess it is a Woody Allen reference,
right, it's gotta be. Yeah, Hey, you know what.
At least you can still go andwatch ads for Dutch telephones with Leslie Nails
Dutch telephones and then also selling whatis it? What was it? Mark
Red Rock Cider play Frank Drebbin.Basically, yes, the Fraud Squad.

(01:08:05):
They even had like there were visualgags, there were dialogue gags. Those
are the real sequels to the NakedGun or Police Squad show? Are these
Like it's like six minutes long onYouTube. It's like the Red Rock Cider
Fraud Squad with Leslie Nielsen and aguy who kind of looks like the dude
from Police Squad, Like he's alwaysbeing followed around by like some lackey who

(01:08:28):
talks to him too, kind oflike Al did or I guess Nordberg did
in the show, So Al Hockinin the show, So yeah, he's
he was just doing this man forever, Like good on him, I guess.
And there's a couple of gags anda few of those ads that are
better than any of the gags inthe movies, to be honest with you,
Yeah, like straight up, someof them are pretty like actually laugh

(01:08:49):
out loud funny. So again,just worth mentioning all these other weird Naked
Gun pieces of ephemera that like existsbecause I guess Naked Gun has been a
popular enough franchise for all these weirdthings to exist, Like a Naked Gun
Point and click computer game that cameout in twenty twelve, featuring Frank Drebin
Junior Liam Neeson. Well, hopefullyI don't know where all the love comes

(01:09:12):
from, because it's not like Ihear people my age talking about Naked Gun
all right, Hey, yeah,I mean it was around for what fourteen
no, twelve years? Twelve years? Yeah, I'm pretty good, chunk
and have three movies come out prettyclose succession. Definitely took a lot less
time to make these on it didto make a Star Wars film. Not

(01:09:34):
much less, though. All thedaging that they had to do on Leslie
Nielsen really took up time and effort. And hey, we didn't even mention
the ending of the movie. Themost bizarre way to end this series of
films with a Nordberg fucked your wifegag. Yeah, what, I guess
I missed it. Yeahs at theend of a movie, Rank and Nordberger

(01:10:00):
in the delivery room clear, ohyeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yea, yeah yeah, and it'sa it's a black baby, right,
it's not hers, They're in thewrong room. So I guess I didn't.
I didn't attatch that. I'm alittle slow I'm not a smart man,
but I know what love is.That's why it's like Nordberg. Yeah,
but that's the way I end thisseries, all right, No freeze

(01:10:26):
frame, Nope, no, no, what a missed opportunity in any of
the films, especially like if likeOJ was running down the hall and had
to stop and then it was likefreezing like that and then would start to
fall over. Yeah. I don'twrite these movies better than these guys.
Like a joke, like a funnything, like something we might laugh at,

(01:10:46):
like that, like one of thosehuh. Yeah. That's the sad
thing about watching movies critically, especiallycomedies, is if it doesn't work for
you, there's not a lot elseto really watch in a movie, especially
a comedy. A lot of thetimes it's if what you are watching isn't
funny, there's not gonna be muchelse for you to spend your time watching.

(01:11:08):
I'm with you, Mark, Idon't watch a lot of comedies,
primarily because I don't like to watchones I've never seen, for fear of
them being terrible and me just havingto suffer through them for an hour and
a half two hours. Tend tostay away from them. Hey, do.
Two are very few comedies that Ican even recommend that have come out
over the last ten years. Same, which is why I'm so worried about

(01:11:29):
a Naked Gun sequel being written by. One of the people is Seth McFarlane,
who was so funny when he wrotefor Liam Neeson last Time in a
Thousand Ways to Die in the West. So, oh my god, whom
are we torturing ourselves here? Folks? Like what we're doing this to ourselves?
This is self inflicted at this point, and I think part of it

(01:11:51):
is we don't have a lot ofIt's not like comedies are constantly coming out
either, Like I like Stepbrothers.Think one of the more recent comedies that
we've all enjoyed as a family iswhat is it called The Good Boys?
Is it a Good Boys? Yeah? Jacob Tremble movie. Yeah, get

(01:12:15):
a kick out of that. We'vewatched it a couple of times, but
yeah, a lot of times.I think I have a very particular taste
in what I find funny, andmost films don't deliver that. And that's
not the film's fault, that's me. That's like I have come to realize
I have a very peculiar and particularidea of what's funny. Murder by Death,

(01:12:38):
I find funny, Young Frankenstein,I find funny. Airplane, I
find funny Naked Gun. Not asmuch. I enjoyed Date Night quite a
bit, but I think a lotof that was Jesse Plemons just being amazing.
Oh yeah, game Night, GameNight, thank you. Yeah,
date Night was a totally different movie. Game Night is very good, Hey

(01:12:59):
Night, the one with Steve Horrell. It was like, what movies date
Night? What movie is game Night? I think know which movies you're talking
about that brings in Jason Bateman,and then all those films like Office,
Christmas Party or whatever, Horrible,Horrible Bosses, so those things, it's
like I watch them and I'm like, h they tow that line. Not

(01:13:24):
as bad as the Paul fig riffathons, but I feel like still a lot
of that is going on, Likelet's just keep saying stuff until we find
something funny and then that's what we'lluse. The game Night is very good.
Yes, yeah, I thought thatwas solid. I want to say
I remember liking cock Blockers a littlebit as well, or I think they

(01:13:45):
might have just called it blockers withJohn Cena. Oh yeah, yeah,
I remember that movie. I wantedto watch that one, and then him
like, you can take the restof the movie and just shove it up
your ass. But they won withAmy Schumer, is it yeah, John
Cena, Bill Hayter, Oh,oh my god, Sina in that movie

(01:14:06):
is fucking fantastic. I will findyou on grinder absolute yeah, no,
he John Cena is fucking hilarious likethat. I think that's the problem now
with modern comedy is spoofs and stuffare fine, but they're so sparse and
so infrequent that all we get arestuff like what we're talking about this,

(01:14:29):
like character based comedy, Judd Apatow. Stuff in and of itself all feels
very sandy because of stuff, becauseof how successful forty year Old Virgin was.
I'm with you, Mark, like, I have a hard time with
comedy because this was one lane ofcomedy that was dominant for so long,
and then in the mid two thousandsanother lane of comedy took over, and
now we're in the I would say, we're in like the Dan Harmon comedy

(01:14:54):
world now where it's like subversive,weird shit all the time, like Rick
and Morty and High Unline Life andwhatever the hell the other shows that he
and Justin Royland do that are alljust Rick and Morty over and over and
over again. No offense to youfans of Rick and Morty, but one
show is fine. Eight shows.I don't need it over and over again.
But like all of those lanes nowexist at the same time, they're

(01:15:16):
not making the kinds of movies thatI like anymore. So I'm more interested
in watching the stuff that I've alreadyseen or watching older stuff that I've never
seen, because I don't the spoofsthat they're making now they don't interest me
the way that the old ones do. Like Holmes and Watson is a spoof,
Okay, that movie's fucking nightmare,like a genuine cinematic nightmare. So

(01:15:38):
they're just not doing what I wantwith comedy and so I think, similar
to yourself, Mark, I'm justnot searching them out anymore. Like as
much as we have kind of raggedon Naked Gun one, two and three
movies are more in my wheelhouse thanmost stuff coming out, at least from
what I want from a comedy movieor what I'm expecting from a comedy or
what my intention to laugh is atleast I will tell you that of all

(01:16:01):
the spoof movies that have come outover the last however many years, Like
we've talked a little bit about someof the scary movies, but what was
that one? Was that? Notanother teen movie? Yeah, the one
with like Chris evans Is and thatyeah, yeah, yeah, very early
Chris Evans. I found a lotof that to be hilarious. I don't
understand all the jokes about people shittingon each other, like literally shitting on

(01:16:26):
each other, but some of thatother stuff, like especially the parody of
the detention scene from Breakfast Club thatI watch very often, I think of
something else from the nineties similar tothat, Like Basketball is a fucking great
parody movie. It's a great movie. Like it's a spoof, and it's
directed by Lucky LOOKI who fucking directedit, David Zucker for Fox's sake.

(01:16:51):
Like, it's not like they can'tmake good movies. It's clear. I
think to the three of us thatthe Zuckers, at least the Zuckers,
maybe not Jim Abraham or Abrams,they are very emotionally driven people. If
they don't like Top Secret because itdidn't make the money. That's putting a
horse before a cart in a veryobvious and apparent way. I think Naked

(01:17:13):
Gun was clearly a means to anend, and at some point it just
became a money factory. Right.We'll pump out a script and then they'll
pump us full of money and they'vemade how much money they made like double
to triple the budget on each ofthese movies. You know, Basketball didn't
make like any money, so andI would put it above all of the
Naked Gun movies period. I thinkthat's a funnier movie overall, directed by

(01:17:38):
David Zucker, made no money,nothing came of it afterwards. They can
make good things. I just thinkNaked Gun made them so much money that,
like wide else, did jud Apatowkeep making forty year old virgin style
movies because they've made tons of money. It's complacency and it's being lazy.
At least we have Police Squad thefirst three episodes of the show. At
least we still have that. Well, Chris, until we come back and

(01:18:02):
talk again about the Liam Neeson versionof Naked Gun. Where can people find
my work? Your work, markswork, everybody who's doing good work out
there? Weirdingwaymedia dot com is yourplace to go for this show. And
like Mike mentioned, Mark Begley's WakeUp Heavy, Mike White's a Projection Booth,

(01:18:23):
and well the Culture Cast for me. All of our shows plus many
more can be found over at weirdingwaymediadot com. And if you can't find
it over there, well just letus know if you want to hear it.
Maybe we'll put a show on thenetwork that you would like. I
don't know. Try to be nice, civil to people. Why not?
It works? Just make suggestions andquick. If anything, a suggestion box

(01:18:44):
will be funny to laugh at.That's all right, clip yeah,