Comedy Watch: The Naked Gun (1988)

Watched:  08/03/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Zucker/Abrahams/ Zucker

With the Liam Neeson-starring reboot out, I wanted to limber up those particular muscles again before seeing the new era of Naked Gun films.  

It's hard to know anymore if I'm laughing with The Naked Gun (1988) or with 13-year-old me who saw this in the theater and laughed so hard during just the opening bit with the police car driving through a variety of scenes that I literally slipped out of my seat at the Arbor IV theater.  

That kid, in 1988, was not prepared for what was coming for the next 80 minutes or so.  Or that he'd be quoting this movie in 2025.  Or still find it funny to just say "It's Enrico Palazzo!" for absolutely no reason, but find it makes him feel better.

I'm fairly certain if I had bracketed out all the comedies I like, this one *might* make it to the end as my favorite.  At least today that's true.  Leslie Nielsen is at his absolute apex of Nielsen-ness, the jokes land with a wry smile to a full laugh even now - and I've seen this movie maybe 25 times.  

I have no doubt this movie both plays to my sense of funny and helped shape it, just as Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker did for my entire generation with these movies, Top Secret! and the Airplane! flicks.  I mean, how many times as things are going south, do you hear someone say "looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue..."?

I miss Hollywood trying to be funny.  Look, my favorite show as the moment is probably The Bear, but it is insane that anyone is letting it get nominated for Emmy's as a comedy.  I can't remember the last time I paid to see a comedy in a movie theater that wasn't actually a genre film with a comedic bent - Google is claiming Knives Out is a comedy, and... maybe?  It literally may have been Crazy Rich Asians in 2018 - which was good.  Is there a sequel coming?  I feel like there is.

Anyway - Naked Gun would play well now, I think, even if I'm not sure what The Kids would make of timely and topical jokes (is Queen Elizabeth automatically funny in 2025?).  I'm far less worried about the un-PC jokes as they zip by - and we mostly knew they were in bad taste then, by the way, and that was the point.  And of course OJ's legacy did not turn out to be that of a wacky physical comedian.   But there's something timeless about accidentally setting off a player piano while the curtains are on fire or *gestures broadly at every baseball joke in the movie*.

I still love this movie, and I very much look forward to the new one, which I've heard from some corners is very, very good.