Police Squad! (1982– )

Sight-gags and non-sequiturs dominate this spoof of police dramas. The six episodes formed the basis for later very successful "Naked Gun" movies.

Creators:

Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker

Stars:

Leslie Nielsen, Alan North, Rex Hamilton

Nominated for 2 Primetime Emmys. Another 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete series cast summary:
Leslie Nielsen	...	Det. Frank Drebin (6 episodes, 1982)
Alan North	...	Capt. Ed Hocken (6 episodes, 1982)
Rex Hamilton	...	Abraham Lincoln (6 episodes, 1982)
Ed Williams	...	Mr. Olson (6 episodes, 1982)
William Duell	...	Johnny (6 episodes, 1982)
Peter Lupus	...	Norberg (4 episodes, 1982)

Storyline

Marginally a "straight" police drama in the Jack Webb/Quinn Martin school, Police Squad occurs in a strange universe where everything is taken literally (when a name "rings a bell" we here bells go off everytime someone mentions it), non sequiturs occur (a mime tries to spell out a ransom note, and Officer Nordberg guesses "Theme From a Summer Place") and sight gags abound (while looking for a corpse, someone wants to know the time and the dead man's hand drops out of a tree).

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Plot Keywords:

police | spoof | cult tv | police detective | police officer | 

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Taglines:

There are 8 million stories in the Naked City. Here are six.

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

4 March 1982 (USA)

Also Known As:

Agárralo como puedas - La serie original

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

30 min 30 min (6 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The original video release of the series (before DVD) seems not to have obtained the rights to all the songs used in the original show. Songs such as "Happy Birthday" (that are copyrighted and therefore require a royalty) were replaced with alternates that were presumably royalty-free.

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Quotes

Det. Frank Drebin: [running gag] Cigarette?
Various: Yes, I know.

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Crazy Credits

The opening credits format, with the announcer intoning "'Police Squad!', in color!" and on-screen act numbers after commercial breaks(Act I, Act II, etc.) was a parody of Quinn Martin Productions' crime dramas which had a similar format.

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Connections

Spin-off Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)

User Reviews

"Airplane!" Meets QM Productions

This was a funny show. It had an "Airplane!" flavor to it and it parodied the Quinn Martin Productions shows that were popular in the 60s and 70s ("The Streets of San Francisco", "Barnaby Jones", "Cannon", etc). If you're familiar with these shows, they all had the same type of beginnings; Same announcer who would go through the starring cast, that night's guest stars, special guest stars (if any) and the name of "tonight's episode". As well as the on screen act numbers and the epilogue after commercial breaks.

It was everything like "Airplane!", in the sense that you had to watch the show to see the gags and other hidden gags that were in the background along with the verbal jokes and gags.

It was a shame that only 6 episodes were produced, since this was one of my favorite shows. Unlike "The Naked Gun" movies, although funny, the problem with those movies were, the show lampooned QM Productions shows, it was probably hard to transfer that to the big screen. It just didn't have the same feeling to it as the tv show.