From the DVD of ‘Police Squad!’

Act II: Gesundheit

Police Squad! DVD?

Yes, it is.

Detective Frank Drebin will help you get out of this sewer.

Before they gave us the Naked Gun movies, but after they gave us Airplane!, they gave us Police Squad! for six whole episodes in 1982.

And “they” are series creators Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker as well as the series star, the late, great Leslie Nielsen.

Police Squad! is a comedy, but it is no ordinary sitcom. The humor is relentless. They commit to absurdity, and I salute them for it. The show refuses to miss any opportunity for a sight gag. It will seize every chance to one-up “Who’s on First?” Hyper-literal communication dominates all discourse, and the jokes are crammed into nearly every second and every frame. If individual gags don’t work for you, they will eventually overwhelm you with sheer numbers and you will laugh.

And it’s all done with a straight face.

If you’ve seen Airplane! and the Naked Gun movies (as I have countless times), it’s the same type of humor but in episodic form. Each week, the characters attempt to solve a crime, oblivious to how ridiculous their world is. To the characters, this is all dead serious, and the juxtaposition is perfection.

It’s similar to what the 1960s Batman show did. The acting styles of Adam West and Leslie Nielsen aren’t all that far apart. West’s Batman didn’t wink at the audience, and Nielsen’s Frank Drebin doesn’t either. Nielsen anchors everything with his straight, deadpan delivery of lines like “We’re sorry to bother you at a time like this, Mrs. Twice. We would have come earlier, but your husband wasn’t dead then.”

I’m reminded of that famous exchange in Airplane!: “Surely, you can’t be serious.” “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.” That’s basically the mission statement.

Police Squad! episodes stick to the same formula and reuse many of the same gags each week, but the writers keep finding new jokes within them, always pushing themselves to be as creatively ridiculous as possible. It’s like they’re working with a repertory company of gags, and every new performance allows each gag a chance to shine in a new way.

This begins right in the theme song as it introduces the cast: Nielsen, Alan North, and Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln.

The announcer then reveals the episode’s special guest star, a famous actor such as Lorne Greene or William Shatner, all of whom die in melodramatic fashion and thus appear in the actual episode precisely as much as Rex Hamilton does.

The intro concludes with the episode title. Fitting the tone of the series, the titles are all pulpy seriousness, but the announcer gets them completely wrong. We’ll read “Ring of Fear” as he confidently says “A Dangerous Assignment.”

Within the episodes, an especially clever recurring gag involves a shoeshine guy, Johnny (William Duell). Each week, Detective Drebin visits Johnny to dig up some dirt about his case. Johnny always claims ignorance before Drebin hands him some cash, and then this man on the street suddenly knows whatever the plot requires him to.

But the actual gag immediately follows. Once Drebin leaves, a cameo guest star sits down and asks Johnny for information that pertains to an entirely different profession. For example, a doctor asks about the surgery he’s about to perform. Johnny says he wouldn’t know anything about that, so the doctor hands him some money, and then Johnny suddenly demonstrates extensive medical expertise as he tells the doctor precisely how to treat his patient. In another episode, Dick Clark gets his shoes shined and asks for information about ska music, and Johnny provides an insightful analysis.

It's a brilliant gag. It takes the cliché of the informer who’s almost supernaturally attuned to the word on the street, then casually spins it off into absurd tangents. Nonchalant silliness.

A recurring sight gag occurs in the elevator at the police station. Drebin and his captain discuss their case as they ride the elevator, both totally serious as the elevator makes random stops along the way—to a swimming pool, a battlefield, and so on. A flaming arrow shoots above the captain’s head and sticks into the wall, but he and Drebin continue their conversation unfazed.

Smaller sight gags abound, but you need to watch closely to spot them all. At police headquarters, the door says “POLICE DAUQS,” and out the window, you can see such sights as the Eiffel Tower.

Each episode concludes with a “freeze frame.” But it’s actually just the actors freezing in place and utterly committing to freezing, even as the coffee continues to pour or a lone unfrozen person attempts to navigate the tableau.

Some gags come so quickly that you might miss them if you happen to blink at the wrong moment. In one scene, Drebin tells an officer, “See that girl over there? When she leaves, put a tail on her.” The officer glances at the individual in question, nods his understanding, then opens a drawer and pulls out a tail. The scene cuts away.

No lingering. No making sure you got it. No laugh track.

And that explains why this delightful show lasted only six episodes in 1982.

The DVD includes a short interview with Nielsen, and he expresses his disappointment about the show’s cancellation, especially as he and others had such high hopes for it. Nielsen says he was told that “the series didn’t work because you had to watch it.” And yes, Police Squad! is a show that rewards you for paying attention to every single moment.

It was ahead of its time. Television favored casual viewing back then. VCRs were still a fairly recent innovation, and smaller screens displayed poorer image quality. TV simply couldn’t be as immersive as going to a theater to see a movie. What worked great for test audiences failed in people’s homes.

The show never could have lasted nine seasons or anything like that—the gags would have grown plenty stale by then. But like Batman, it could have enjoyed a solid three-year run. Had it debuted 20 years later, it could have gone toe-to-toe with Arrested Development.

Fortunately, since everyone realized bigger screens were what they needed, they went and got bigger screens. And Police Squad! spun off into a series of Naked Gun movies. They recast some parts (for O.J. Simpson commentary, I’ll direct you to Norm Macdonald), but they kept the most essential ingredient of the entire series: the irreplaceable Leslie Nielsen.

Apparently, plans are in the works for a Naked Gun relaunch, with Liam Neeson playing Frank Drebin, Jr. Nothing against Neeson, but he is not Nielsen, shared initials and syllables notwithstanding. Some reboots are simply pointless without the original star. It might end up being funny, but it also might as well just be a new thing.

Just watch (or rewatch) Police Squad! and each of the Naked Gun movies, the first one through the thirty-third and a third.