Police Squad!

One night I was listening to talk radio and they had Leslie Nielsen on the program. He went on to explain why there were only 6 shows. '

With TV shows like MASH you could go to the fridge to get a beer and as long as you heard what was going on you didn't miss anything. But with Police Squad, you HAD to watch the show, with the sight gags you missed a whole lot if you didn't see them. Who could forget "... the part of town known as "Little Italy"..." with the coliseum in the background.

Even the movies relied heavily on the sight gags, but then again being in the theater you were a captive audience.

Leslie also said the one reason the show, movies and other movies like Airplane were funny is because they didn't attempt to tell what was funny. It was up to the viewer to get the jokes.

Well that's just my 2 cents.

Endlessly Hilarious! I taped the first 5 shows years and years ago, and every so often I go back and watch them, and still they are as funny as they were the first time. In fact, there are so many sight gags and whatnot, that you will miss a lot of them the first few times you watch the shows! I see something new every time!! Absolutely hilarious, even more so than the films. Several of the gags are used repeatedly ("Cigarette? Yes it is", or the midget cop who is the intercom), but still manage to be funny each time. Too bad they didn't have Johnny the shoeshine guy in the movies. I wish I had the 6th show!!!

Highly recommended if you liked the Naked Gun or Airplane movies.

...a burlesque dancer to Det. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) as he approaches her in a dressing room...

"Yes, that's very impressive, but that's not why were here"...(Det. Drebin's deadpan response)

The best sight-gag comedy ever. But of course, it got crushed in the ratings and was yanked right away. Our loss.

I recently purchased a VHS tape with three episodes for my dad and watched 'em again with him. I'm happy to report that if you like the Zucker's style of humor (first unleashed in "Airplane"), you'll have a blast.

This was a truly unique show. Many of the comments in this section regret that there were only 6 episodes made. But to be honest, the show used so many jokes per episode, I don't see how they could have gone too much further without running out. The great thing about this show is that every one who watches it has a favorite one-liner that they remember, and like to repeat. One could say the same thing about the movie "Airplane". There are so few things that are really original, especially in television, the medium that thrives so much on imitation of previous success. So the time has come for this limited series to get its chance on DVD. But not just another release. Visualize this. The show did such a good job of satirizing police dramas from M Squad to the QM series, that the DVD should do the same this for DVD special features. In short, the DVD release should have all the usual special features, but they would all be send-ups of special features. Now that would make for a great DVD release of this great show.

This is the brief series that lead to the NAKED GUN trilogy. Leslie Nielsen gets to play madman with all the delicious relish he can bring to the part of the straight-faced detective.

The stories are parodies of all the very, very, very serious and very, very, very important police and crime shows on TV over the years. Nothing escapes the satiric bashing that goes on here. The guest stars each week are murdered in the opening scene and then are never heard of again. The titles of the episodes don't fit the narration. Nielsen's own narration is a wonderful satire of all the crime story voice-overs going back to film noir and DRAGNET. And -- wonder of wonders -- the show is "In Color!"

No pun goes un-punned. No sight-gag is left un-gagged. Nothing is spared. Imagine the Marx Brothers and Three Stooges in a crime movie setting, and that gives you a hint of what POLICE SQUAD is all about. This is one of the funniest shows ever made for TV, but since it is satire, it of course had only a short run. Nevertheless, I loved it.