Episode 02: A Dangerous Assignment

Police Squad in Color, starring Leslie Nielsen, also starring Allen Norton and Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln. Tonight's special guest star George Stanford Brown Tonight's episode A Dangerous Assignment. Welcome to you from the files of Police Squad in Color. I'm your host by Kwhite. Joining me, of course, is mister Mark Begley.

Damn it, yes, slo I keep losing my clothes. That was funny on its own. Damn it. Yeah, the right paper Chris statues here as well, Get me a screwdriver? Do you want to drink?

No, I'm good. That gag. That gag will never not get old, only because Leslie Nielsen just going in the bottom of the frame is the is just fucking hilarious. On this episode, we were talking about Ring of Fear, directed by Joe Dante, written by Tino Insanna, Robert Wall and David Mish. It aired originally March eleventh, nineteen eighty two.

Just a little bit over a week. I mean, this is my math is off here? What is seven plus four? Yeah? That's okay, so we're one week after okay.

Good special guest star in this episode, mister George's stand for Brown who gets taken out by a big safe Oh my god, talk about an antiquated joke. Yeah, I was waiting for the Roadrunners Shop. Yeah that or even fucking Buster Keaton or something. Oh man. And we are in very familiar territory in this episode.

This is a boxing episode, so we get all of the corruption that has to do with boxing, taking dives, no sacks before the fight. This plays with a lot of tropes. I don't know if this is specifically based on any sort of m Squad or Felony Squad or any of these other shows that they would riff on, or if it's just a whole mashup of all of these different tropes that we've seen in boxing movies throughout the years. Because this is very familiar territory. Yeah, what's the rout sterling requiem for heavyweight?

Yeah, Like I haven't watched that in decades, so that's what I always think of. But I'm like, are they riffing on that? Is that like the first thing to have all these kind of jokes, the mob guys, the mall, the girl friend and all that. If that's where that originates from. I'm trying to think there was a parody movie from nineteen eighty six that the Zuckers had absolutely nothing to do with, which was called Ricky One by William T.

Nod That is a lot more rocky than this one is. Though. I think the reunion of our main character and his girlfriend at the end is very rocky esque. But I don't think they go too far into the rocky realm with this one, which was surprising. That's right what I was expecting.

Let me put it this way. Obviously, second episode, Like we mentioned at the end of the last episode, za Z are not really involved directly now, at least not with writing and directing. I think it shows almost immediately, and I will tell you why. All of a sudden, it has gotten to the point where they say, oh, there, he's over there with some tramps and they're hobo's there. They're doing a lot of the saying something and then showing that thing.

It's not bad, but it's not needed. Every time you say something. It's like the airplane gag of they're on instruments and then they're they're they're playing the instruments. They do that a lot in this episode, to a point of fault. I think like it's he becomes a little much.

I don't think Tino and Sonna and Robert Wool, Mike's favorite, Robert Wool, I don't think they are blind. I would say, given what we see here, they're not as in tune with the expectations of what is needed to write this kind of show. They're writing it as if they watched the show and are trying to mimic or ape what Zaz did again with a lot of success, but also a lot of just like thus same thing, the same kind of gag reoccurring a lot, a lot, a lot. Even I was trying to think of what's the term for that type of So you have that one, and then you have I'm going to get you out of this sewer, and then they'll literally come out of so literalisms, what's the because that's what I noticed was different tramps.

I guess is more of a pun because you could take that either way. But the sewer, the screwdriver joke. The screwdriver joke, is that akin to the building jokes an airplane or is it something different? It's kind of like the cigarette joke, right, that same idea where it's like cigarette, it's I think it is literalism. Just if the show was talking about lizard people, it would be a literal lizard person, a guy in a lizard suit.

It wouldn't be something else. It's bigfoot, it wouldn't be bigfoot, it would be a guy with big feet. It's like, yeah, and I just it's weird because this episode just launched right into it. The last episode it peppered those in the I'm Gonna get you out of the sewer is the one that and the the other one. They just stand down.

It's like Jesus Christ, like this joke is really just beaten into the ground, and this this kind of setup is beaten into the ground in this episode. The no dice joke is the same thing. I'm sorry, but all of these jokes you're mentioning made me laugh out loud last they're funny. It's not that they're unfunny. It's just for me, it's a matter of too many of the same kind, Like the same setup is just they're still funny.

But those setups just you gotta maybe a little bit more. Like when he says, well, I've got an ace in the hole, he pulls his gun out, that's not this kind of joke. But yeah, they they're on instruments, are they sitting with tramps, or they're in the sewer. It's like, guys, it's set up in delivery. It's more like typical joke structure.

They don't write jokes. I mean they are constantly saying that in their commentaries. And it's either the delivery that's funny or the irony then makes it funny, or the pun that makes it funny, or the absurdity of it or the absurdity. Yeah. Like at one point he's like I was, She's like I always wanted my own synagogue.

I was just like, okay, yeah, sure, odd right, I love it. And then you still have name gags in this gym's gym, the Johnny Cash thing, where he's like, I've also go, oh, yeah, you represent Johnny. I love that guy, whoever he is. That guy's oh my god, I'm free Tuesdays. Yeah, oh that was great erwin Keys.

He is a very familiar face. He's the guy that shows up with the dynamo, mite, the bum, the hatchet, all this stuff and press. He's got such a great face. Yes, and I confuse him with Robert Zadar because of that oversized Oh wow, and you know I'm Jack Elam than a Robert Ciar. Oh yeah.

I think of him as someone who would be right at home and Rob Zombies films. Strangely, he's in one of Rob Zombies films. He's in the House of a Thousand corpses. He has just a very distinct character actor. Look, I don't know.

I mean, he's a character actor. When I think of a character actor, I think of someone like Irwin Keys, or I think of someone like grand l Bush. Another fantastic Yes, yeah, I'll break your face. I was so happy. I posted about that on Facebook, about how great it was to see him, and then he liked the comment.

I was just agent Johnson, the other one. He's so good in this. Tag him when this releases. Oh yeah, he's so good in this. Oh yeah, he's great.

The acting other than our leads is a little iffy, even in the first episode, which is much stronger as far as writing, I think, and when you're comparing these two, at least you know, I know that they have tight turnaround with TV shooting four shows, you know. I think in the commentary they mentioned like you've got five days to shoot something which is amazing. Some of the acting maybe not so great. He is amazing in this and he's barely in it. You know that he came prepared and knew what he was doing.

He takes that small minute or so of screen time and it goes with it. He's brilliant. Almost all of the side characters in this are really strong, you know, And we mentioned the guys at the poker game. I really like is a Cooper the main baddie, the bad manager guy. I mean, I'm the cigar chopper, yes, or the cocktail wheney chumper.

He really gives it a real workout. But he could have been a little bit stronger. But he didn't need to do that much. He just needed to stand there and look good pretty much. I was like, man, that guy looks familiar.

He is in all kinds of stuff. I just saw him, I think last week on a show. He's always on cop shows, usually playing a detective that's no nonsense and gruff and all that, and I thought I knew he looked familiar with those blue eyes. I'm like, I've seen that face before. But man, he was young, still working today on SWAT.

Yeah, that's what I saw him on That's what I saw him on What's Funny Is Again, like when you just go and look at the IMDBs for the people who were the last episode the people were in this episode. It's like a stark contrast. Oh yeah, just the level automatically of the people like Irwin Keys and Grandel Bush alone raise the level with those two, and again irwin Keys is even is in this episode even less than Grandel Bushes. They make an impact, but they don't take away from Frank Drebbin being Frank Drebin and being a complete ding dong. I was thinking about it, contrasting it against the movie because I watched the movie pretty frequently, the original at least, he is so much more of a ding dong in the movies than he ever is in the TV show.

He's composed in these episodes in the movie, I just always think of him going nothing to see here, nothing to see here, as the fireworks factory is exploding in the background. That's what I think of when I think of Frank Drebin. I don't think of someone who could actually solve a crime, right, yeah, Well, though Johnny pretty much helps him out every time, yes, right, And what does Hawkin never do. I mean, he just really realizing how in it, and I have to remind myself he's supposedly his boss, right, Yeah, he's a higher rank to his Drebbin for his Barney Miller. I guess I think I called him captain earlier, but I meant sergeant for Drebbin, and then it's captain for Ed.

I think in the first episode, Drebbin is everything. He's a detective lieutenant, he's sergeant. God, Sally Decker calls him captain, sergeant and lieutenant in the same scene that I never picked up on that either. Wow, that's why I never knew what he is. And I'm thinking, oh, okay, that's why they made it confusing.

That's funny why. I don't know if you guys remember in the first movie he's in like he's doing wet works in the Middle East. Yea, his job title is floating at best. Yeah, or even that police squad as a special division of the police force. I'm like, well, nowhere else in the police squad do they have Gillette advertisement being shown through microscopes?

God, I love it. Yes, So in the voice over, he says he's sergeant Franked Rebban, active lieutenant okay, and then he gets called every other rank too. That is amazing. Yeah, I love the little ad in the microscope. I love this time Olson's just about to electricute that poor little girl in the electric chair.

Here hold dislike bulb. You know what does he tell her to bring back next my things from your mother's dress. Yes, he's such a pervert, but in a different direction. I remembered him. I just remember him from the movie.

I remember that character from the movie where he's just like here, ed just like this, and he gets ed in the neck with the thing. I mean, that's what I remember. I don't remember him just being like so lecherous, but it kind of kind of works. I mean it works. He plays it so straight that there's no way it wouldn't work.

That gag in the first episode where he's shooting through the Barbara Walters interview tapes, I mean, that was one of those gags that was burned into my brain. The whole thing of like, oh and this is where she asked Katherine Hepburn what kind of tree she'd like to be? Makes no sense? Yes, right, I made the mistake of looking at the goofs for that, and they're like mentioned that. I mean, they didn't mention that as a goof, but it just made me think, why would you even mention goofs for a show where continuity is out the window.

You're not going to see the same thing, oh god, And that's part of the joke. You're not going to see the same setup. They mentioned that in the Airplane commentary. You're going to see Frank Drebin's or whatever his name was in the movie in Airplane Nos grow, but it's not going to stay long. In the next scene.

You're going to forget about it and move on. The hiroglyphs on the floor might change, this might change. That was hilarious too. That's part of the bit. You move on, You tell the joke, and you move on.

All we want nowadays is continuity. Continuity, continuity, stand Begley. You can't cast Peggy Pope as the same character six times in your show. I guess different characters six times in your show, like they didn't Barney Miller. She has to be the same character every time.

Don't you know that that ruins my ability to enjoy things if continuity is not strictly adhered to Marvel style. I actually thought that the actress from the first episode was the same actress in the second episode, because I think they threw the same wig on. It's the same wig, Yeah, for sure. It's like wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute, which I think goes to what I said earlier about the timeless look they're going for because their fashions aren't very up to date, at least for the female characters. Right, they're all in like fifties sixties style wigs.

You're right, it's that airplane thing again, where we're just going to dress everybody like it's the fifties and not have to worry about fashions, which makes sense, except there are some current jokes too, not very many, but that shaving gag, I'm again, it's like the Uban gag and an airplane. Not very many people are going to get that past a certain age, now, you know. Then they would have mentioned so go ahead. I don't know. I was going to mention the shadow boxing, Oh yeah, which I believe I've seen in something else, probably a cartoon, maybe Bugs Bunny or something like that.

Feels very cartoonish. Yeah, And as soon as he started to do it, I was just like, oh yeah, this is that channel boxing gag. I mean again, all these gags are just right there. I mean from dusting for Prince with the French Maid. You know, I mentioned in the first episode how Frank and his voiceover was talking about all those naked models.

I like this one how he says, I'd just come from the stockyards. We've gotten a report of hundreds of cows being senselessly slaughtered in the area. But I couldn't find any evidence. I stopped off for a Hamburger and checked in with Edgers. Oh so good, couldn't find any evidence.

And maybe he's not that smart. Christ Just wait until we get to the movies. It's I know well, and it's crazy because again, the jokes in the movies are similar to the jokes in the show. They don't rely on him being an idiot in either capacity. In the movie, there's a couple gags with his car going awry on its own, right.

I know, well, I was just thinking about how he hits garbage cans every single time he tries something. Of course, of course, but they show it in the movie, but they play him up to be more of like a clutz. You know. There's the whole thing in the hospital with Nordberg, where he's like squishing him in the bend. I mean there's all of that, right, there's very little of that in the show, and I was expecting him to have I guess less character autonomy in the show.

He has a fair amount. Like they get their guy at the end, and he's not just dead. I mean, they get their guy at the end. I'll talk about it, but I like that he is not just this hapless ding dong that he ends up being in the movies, because yes, that is funny, but that doesn't have a lot of legs to it. And I think, at least for me, that's why those later movies stopped being as successful, because, yeah, he becomes the punchline himself, and that's a problem.

Like you mentioned on the Airplane episode, Mike, he just starts mugging for the camera. And mugging is fine, but not when that's your soul go to. Then it's just come on, like, come up with something funny, like or so say something funny, come on, say the things. No. I always prefer him playing it straight.

I just I don't like the mugging. I want to see how many times that cocktail sign comes up because I want to say that was in the first episode. And then for sure they're at the bar. That's the one where he gets the screwdriver. It's got that cocktail sign on there.

I imagine that we're going to see a lot of these same sets quite often. Well, it feels immensely set dound. Again, nothing Joe Dante could do could change that. Joe Dante, of all people, I think that's absolutely fine. I think that adds to the funniness of this.

I agree, it's just how fake the world is. You know, there are no shots of him driving without rear projection. You know, he is never going to leave this lot that they're on, And I think that's absolutely fine. That the walls look like their cardboard and that you just you know, knock into one and they just completely collapse, or that you walk around sets to get to the other. They do every time he goes to see it, goes to the lab, they just walk around the wall, walk around that.

The gag that got me on this one was the toothpick that Cooper is chomping on at the restaurant with the tramps again, because I don't think I've noticed it ever before, and he pulls it out, He's got a little cocktail weener on it. It's like the world and my daughter was like, that was weird. Yes, it was the one that got me. And this is a silly one. Was when Frank goes to Johnny to find out more information.

He's like, I'm looking for information about Mary. You mean Mary the boxer's wife that was just kidnapped. Yes, that one, or the random Saint Bernard dog in their apartment. Yes, I'm sitting next to another cartoon gag. That shot is hilarious of Leslie Nielsen sitting on the couch with the Saint Bernard just behind him.

Is she's so drunk that she's drinking the Saint Bernard alcohol? Is that what we're getting out? I think that's what I thought. Yeah, because as a kid, that would show up in cartoons like constantly, Oh you know the Saint Bernard with the xxx right roll. Remember he would take that barrel and then it would like shake it up and then like poor cocktails.

Yes, I was like, boy, that's yeah again. Would younger people would get that? What does the dog mean even with the barrel around its neck? Did you get it? Chris?

I did, but that's well, that's only because a huge fan of the film series Beethoven obviously, Yes, featuring Charles Groden. I think a lot of this comedy, at least a slapstick and visual gags, are more informed. And you guys have kind of already mentioned it by cartoons and animation. I mean it's the movies not so much. I mean, the movies have their moments, but the show definitely is almost it verges on live action cartoon.

Yeah, that's very I appreciate episode. Yeah, which is very appropriate for Joe Dante to be directing this. Yes. Yes, so that's a good point too, Grande Bush getting knocked out and then he has the you know, the dollars signs. Yeah, that is straight out of Looney Tunes, Like yeah, and I appreciate that sensibility being brought to this episode.

I wish they leaned on it more. At the same time, what they leaned on does work up until a point. And you know what, I'm not the biggest fan of Robert Wall either. I don't think he's very funny. I think he's kind of always does the same thing and if you like that thing, cool he has gone on to say, and I believe he's In the commentary, he says something the effective like, I didn't wasn't not a whole lot of connection to this show, to the character I was.

It was just a job. It was you know, six episodes and move on. I think he writes, what two, maybe at least two. Yeah, it kind of already shows that the people who are writing for this show just don't get it already. They get it enough, is what.

It feels like. The notes might be site gags. Oh yeah, they probably had such a show bible where they're just like, Okay, this is it. You know, Johnny comes in middle beat of act two, you follow this blueprint or else scrotic here. But even if you give them that direction, the interpretation, because I think the side gags are a little different, the visual puns are a little different.

Just from the first episode. Yeah, as we talk about it, thinking oh, yeah, this is really cartoon esque. I forgot about the no sales sign and thinking, boy, that sticks out in a show that doesn't really do this kind of thing. And I'm curious now if that'll show up in the next four episodes at all, that cartoon like aspect. I mean, I love bugs Bunny cartoons.

So if you're going to riff on that, I'm totally fine. You could have gotten that scarf anywhere. You could have gotten that person anywhere. This is Mary's toaster. Well, then they take that choke even further during that machine the blender.

Yeah, and then the final form of the gag that they repeat five times is the washing machine. And you know when it works every single time they do it, but it wouldn't have worked if they had done it five times in the same scene. The fact that they break it up with those three jokes and then they come back to it and they don't even say anything. They take those dialogue or script gags and then they turn it into a visual gag that's informed by those script gags. I appreciate when it's a joke within a joke, or kind of like a joke seption.

I don't want to call it that, but that joke and then changing the style of the delivery, but it's still the same joke. I really appreciate that, And there wasn't a lot of that in the last episode. This is kind of one of the first times we're seeing them keeping the joke going and then they come back to it again and beat it up again, and it still works. And that's not za Z doing it. That's Insana and Robert Wool and Meche doing it.

And I think it really, I think that gag really works. I just there could have been less of the tramps and whatever. There could have been less of that kind of stuff, because I think those gags they work, they just don't work as well and they're not as original obviously, especially there's you know, and the look he's over there with a with a bunch of whatever and there it is, or whether like you said, the seward thing. It's like, come on, just I don't need you to do that that many times I've found my intro line, Oh what was it? What's a goon?

Luca? That is a good one. Nice. I do like the use of the sound and everything. The big steam room scene.

How we just make the finale very cheap. We're just gonna play an animation of steam on screen. And works for me? Yeah, miss me? How about this time?

Not so good? You tease the act too title, and I didn't want to take that away from you. Act too Brute and Hue, which is a William Shakespeare Julius Caesar joke, anyone playing along at all. You know, every buddy who was sitting down to watch Police Squad as a huge fan of Julius Caesar, so good you probably had to suffer through it at some point in your educations. I love that gag.

I love the I mean you met we mentioned in the last episode, the title cards or the car, you know, the interstitial cards, every opportunity to tell a joke. I would say, for the most part, this episode lives up to the expectations of the first one. Yeah, it is somebody else writing a Naked Gun episode or a Police Squad episode, so they're gonna bring their own sensibilities to it. I think the sensibilities here really lead on like isn't it funny to literally see something like this? And yeah, it can be.

That's can't be your sole vehicle of delivery of the jokes. There's got to be more than that. That's what I think about when I think of Naked Gun or any other ZAC stuff. It's not just one thing. It is a mix, a very a varied mix of things.

You had the weird things like the have you had your kid today on the back of his robe, which is another head scratcher for me. I'm not for sale. And then he turns around and asked, oh okay, now, oh wait, no, no, no, I've yeah, Am I mixing up two jokes? I don't know. Yeah.

I look at that and I go, I don't really get the reference here. Was this like one of those dare things, like a national You know there are all these commercials. Have you hugged your kid today? That's what's going to keep them off drugs? Or?

Is it? Right? Intergirl to the story. Yeah, I think it's the way you're talking about. I think it's the idea of like a PSA type of thing that reminds me of It's ten o'clock.

Do you know where your children are? Yeah? Which, Chris, I don't know if you know, but that used to be a thing that would play on television at ten o'clock at night every single night. It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your children are?

It's eleven o'clock. Do you know where your children are? I told you late night? No, you know a safety thing. The toothpick gag is kind of a weird one that there's some weird jokes in this that aren't really in the first one either.

So you've got cartoon gags, you've got the literalisms, you've got weird jokes verging on non sequitaries, right, I mean, yeah, yeah, if anything were closer to that Seth McFarlane type of thing with this one, but still not fully Seth McFarland, Thank goodness. No. And the Seth McFarland gags and Family Guy they really do lean on in a lot of ways. And if you appreciate Family Guy or you like Family Guy, this is not meant as a dig at you, but more of a dig at Seth McFarlane. It always felt like he thought he was the smartest guy in the room, and he is making sure that you understand that he understands how smart you are by making smart informed pop culture gags, and sometimes they land, and sometimes they don't.

I like a good pop culture gag, a good Deadpool gag, where oh weren't you Wolverine Jackman? I appreciate those, but there is a point where those kinds of jokes go from funny to You're just trying to show how well informed pop culturally you are, and it's like it's that weird. Oh my god, thank you for bringing that that's that weird. Ryan Reynolds in Oh god him the Statham and Rock movie. Why am I blinking the name of that?

It was Hobbs and Shaw. Oh, Ryan Reynolds isn't inn where Suddenly yes he is, He's there. Oh, never seen it? Clearly. He also dubs the bad guy's voice at the end, so I don't know if he's supposed to be the bad guy or not.

It's very confusing, but he is their handler, and he just like out of nowhere, starts talking about the finale of Game of Thrones and you're just like, what, this is not going to age well at all. And that's the thing I think that we've mentioned several times talking about police Squad is these jokes are timeless. There are some things like have you helped your kid today or whatever, where it's probably very much of the moment, but the rest of these gags are you know, we're laughing again, forty years later, we're still laughing at these gags. Bannu was supposed to do the voice at the end of Hobbs and Show that you're talking about, but it is Ryan Reynolds doing the voice at the end, which makes it very confusing.

As an audience member, we were just like, wait, that's Ryan Reynolds's voice. He's a big actor. Just have him do it, Just have him back. Yeah, when are we going to get a sequel to that Ryan Reynolds rock Netflix movie with Gale Goodot Red Letter Red nut Letter? Yeah, what are we going to get a Red Letter Media?

Red Letter Media gonna make that? What are they going to make a sequel to Space Cop? Come on, God, I appreciate pandering to someone's pop culture knowledge, but it does not age well. And that's why you mentioned we mentioned the you know, my husband doesn't normally have two cups of coffee. That's a pop culture joke.

I don't know what else that is. And yes, those jokes will always work for the right audience. Okay, So in the original Naked Gun, they have the whole you know, he's coming back from the Middle East, and they're not here for you, Frank, They're here for weird Al Yankovic. That fucking joke only works because weird Alt still happens to be fucking topical and weird ape right apparently, But there is a universe where that joke has not worked since the first five years that movie came out, but yet we're still talking about weird Out today in twenty twenty two. That's the kind of joke that is a huge risk to take, but if it works, it's great.

Most of the time it doesn't work because you're making two specific reference you date yourself immediately. Oh, I just had this horrible vision of the future, Chris, as you were saying that I imagined the world in a hundred years when some a whole discovers weird Al Yankovicx's his whole body of work, and it's just like, did you know? And he's just like writing the Dangerous Minds article right now? Did you know that there was a guy back in the last century who made his entire living by taking other people's songs and making them his. Ow people like going through the archives discovering weird Al Yankovic.

I just my blood runs cold. Well just think about it, and nobody else has done it, nobody else has done it successfully. I mean, oh, what it must be to be the only guy doing parody music who doesn't even do it anymore. Those kinds of songs tend to also have the same problem that this movie does, or this show or you know any of the ZAC movies. You can't be too specific because if you're too specific, people twenty thirty forty years from now won't find it funny.

There's a reason I constantly missing Gangster's Paradise as Amish Paradise, unintentionally, un ironically, because I heard both of those songs one before the other. And if you know me, you know which song I heard first. And it wasn't Gangs's Paradise. It was fucking Amish Paradise. And that was a specific kind of reference being made.

But everything in that song is timeless. That's why weird al works. That's why Airplane still works for the most part. What there's like three pop culture gags an Airplane that don't work, not that they don't work, but they only work for an age group of a certain kind. Right, Yeah, there will come a point where you watch Airplane and nobody's gonna get the my husband doesn't have two cups of coffee joke, right, They might not even get the center to night Fever and Josh jokes.

Yeah. I mean, thanks for big ten pole movies for those parodies of that, And then you get to these things now, the disaster movie superhero movies, these kind of things, and you're just like, what the hell were they even referencing with that. It was like, you know somebody who was in the news cycle for a week, and they're just like, oh yeah, put that guy in there, put the double Rainbow guy in here. Let's not discount the fact that this show is based on a show that none of us are actively talking about in twenty twenty two. Nobody's talking about MS Squad or the Felony Squad for that matter.

Let me send you all the links to all the M Squad podcasts that are out there right now. Please do I think it's a testament to a cod right what we talked about it on the Airplane episode. You know, you don't need to watch Zero Hour anymore. You watch Airplane, you don't need to watch M Squad, just Launch Police Squad or Naked Gun like. They distill all those things down, but they are making references to specific things that we should not get quote unquote.

But it's such a timeless trope that they're aping that it doesn't matter that it's M Squad, a show that I have never laid a singular eye on. But yet I understand the tropes of what that show is. Inherently because it's a cop show from the sixties, I know what that's going to be, And even if I don't, I could still appreciate Police Squad. Yeah, that's amazing. In that first episode of Police Squad, how one for one and it is with the I guess it's the first episode of the second season of m Squad.

I was actually surprised because it seems like a hockey storyline to have her shoot two guys to steal the money from the job she's working out, and I'm like, oh, that's exactly what it was. Yeah, But then they take it and they say, who was it her bookie or some of her bookie of course, And is the Orthodonis he'd stab his own mother for twenty dollars? Well, they even do it an airplane, right, I mean you know an airplane. It's it's line for line. Oh yeah, a former pilot has to land the airplane.

That's still the gag in the movie. It's just the ridiculousness of it is played up, not the seriousness of it. I'm genuinely shocked, genuine only shocked. Nobody ever did like a die hard parody or something of that ilk where it's somebody locked in a building or something, and they aped die Hard because that movie was the biggest thing when it came out, right, I was massively successful. There was just an episode of Rick and Morty where the whole thing was to do a die Hard.

That was the entire joke through the entire episode, right. I mean, there were things like the Ben Stiller Show that did in the nineties. The die Hard was in a grocery store. Yeah, but Dabidabba Gooby, which I mean the Benstiller showed fucking a real underrated piece of TV comedy still there in the nineties. They were parodying a movie from the eighties, but they understood the timelessness of the source material, and that is a hard thing to determine in the time and the place.

I don't know. If you told me today write a parody of something current, I don't know what I would parody. First off, there's like eight million goddamn things you could do. Now, what could you parody now that you would be able to get seventy five percent or more of the people watching it to understand what you're parody. It may be a Marvel movie superhero movies that was well that and then give me something else that in forty years is going to be relevant as well.

So right by that time, I don't know if our cycle of superhero movies will have played out Fingers crossed, it will fingers crossed, it will so lasted this long. I'm kind of surprised as well. Yeah, me too. You can't be too topical in these things. That's the whole point, and that's why a lot of those maybe not so much the scary movie, but it's it's those other ones that have the ridiculously long titles, right, right, you know, the girl with the dragon tattoo, who married the forty year old from whatever they are, that group that does those, it's so of the moment that a year later you don't get half the jokes.

Well, the title alone is like a microcosm of it. Right, It's like da da dada, It's like it's specific to begin with. Scary movie, Got lucky? They fucking parody one of the biggest horror movies, one of the more influential horror movies of the nineties, right, I mean, which were yeah, right, yeah, we're talking about Scream In twenty twenty two because a scream movie called Scream came out this year. There you go, they benefited from luck.

But also again that first Scary movie is very similar to Naked Gun, very similar to Airplane. They had a lot of things to parody and they did it really well, but they didn't do it hyper specific. Yeah they parody Scream. Yeah, they parody I know what you did last summer. But they will still have legs now.

Yeah, it was a very specific cycle of films that they were going. Yeah. Yeah, but again, thankfully, Scream is still the one that has lasted. And I will give them credit. Scary Movie was the original tie for Scream, and that was the title for a scary movie, so they tied themselves directly to Scream.

Scream a successful But yeah, you can't just throw a hail Marry up. I'm gonna do a ted Lasso parody show, like, you don't know, ten years from now, anybody's gonna be talking about ted Lasso. You know, I'm gonna do a Hawaii five Oh parody show, like okay, like you're really just paroding a cop show. If you do something hyper specific, you're not going to have a good time. But if you kind of expand it and take some base elements and parody those.

I think it's easier. I just nobody does it anymore. This is this's a weird Al's not doing parody music anymore, Like even he kind of gave up the ghost and I get it, it's not It seems like a thankless job because all you're doing is really just riffing on everybody else's stuff. It wasn't even until tonight that I finally got what Trey Parker mat Stone we're talking about. Because years ago, before Team America World Police came out, they were talking about doing a remake of the Day After Tomorrow because I thought it was the most ridiculous film around, and they were saying we would play it straight, and if finally just dawned on me that they would basically do an airplane version of the Day After Tomorrow, which I think you could definitely do.

And I think there's so many of these disaster movies, you know, but Airplane already was the disaster movie. This Day After Tomorrow was just a disaster movie. Three decades later, Finally, you know, it dawns on me, and I think that's where Parker and Stone really mets sensibilities with like Basketball, because it had very much that same humor. And I know it was I can't remember if it was Zucker or Abrams or this sucker or that sucker, but those guys were together on that film, and I thought their sensibilities missed very well. Well.

We talked about earlier this year, you and I and Mike. We talked about Mafia, which is a really good parody movie for a specific kind of movie, good Fellas a see no Godfather, but like they waited how long to make that movie. They could have made a Godfather movie in the eighties or the nineties, they waited until ninety eight to parody Godfather and Casino and good Fellows and once upon a time, like every Mafia movie, they kind of just threw it into one big old pot and made a nasty ball and as out of it. But it works, and same with Basketball. But then, yeah, you get to stuff like anything, like I said, past Scary Movie three, and I was like, never mind, American Carol, folks, you don't get to talk about comedy if you made that movie.

Just gonna point this out, I have more to say about comedy because I didn't make that movie. Okay, Jesus and Leslie Nielsen's in that movie. Oh yeah, playing Osama bin Nielsen because even Leslie needed to check there at the end. And that's okay. God, you gotta pay those teeth whitening bills.

Yeah, yes, man. In that the case, they were the unsung heroes of this genre, right, and I think still are. I don't think anybody else is doing this. I don't think they're unsung. Yeah, that's fair.

Whoa may maybe they are. Who knows. There's three of them, one of the three probably law of averages. Yeah, just think about this call right now. Yeah, they're very fair.

It is just a testament though, that this show still works. It does still work. They're not making very specific references in this show. They're more or less just tramps, screwdriver. Yeah, there's a Gillette joke, but there's not even There is nothing even on the level of Elephant Man in this episode.

There's an on the waterfront joke, I guess, but yeah, that's pretty iconic. That's not time specific either. It's not a movie from the previous year that they're riffing on that maybe no one will ever remember. Right. They even referenced the Wizard of Oz.

Yeah, that's timeless. Yeah, who's going to stop talking about the Wizard of Oz, noboddy, We're still talking about it now. Plus it calls back to Airplane as well, the whole echo thing. They do the echo gag and airplane same lines too, an Am and Toto too? Is it that same?

Well, I don't know. I know that they just do the echo okay, the echo itself, I don't remember specifically. Tunes into the sports said yes, yes, yes, Manny Mota. Yeah. Now coming into pitch hit for pedro Borbond that joke and Airplane doesn't work anymore, I guess.

I guess I understand what the joke is referencing, but that always made me laugh because it was a non sequitur, which I think also to the point of kind of what we're talking about last episode. In this episode, even when the jokes don't work because you don't have a pop culture guidepost, if it still works. I think that's a testament to those who are writing and understanding that you can you don't necessarily have to lean on the pop culture aspect of a joke to make it funny. It could still be funny to people who don't get the reference, don't get the gag. We talked about airplane, like you mentioned Mark with I don't know if people who know what Saturday Night Fever is, they should still be able to find that scene in the bar funny the Jaws thing at the beginning.

Maybe not, but you can still find it funny that they're having an airplane going back and forth across screen and then flying up. Is it as funny as the Saturday Night Fever gag is and its entirety? No, If the joke works in spite of the pop culture reference, I think that's the sign of people who understand how to not only write comedy, but have mastered comedy, because you can provide a joke that's multi layered, like we've been kind of talking about. And I don't think you have to know who those baseball players are to get that joke. No, I don't.

It's the announcer voice and the echo. Well, it's the fact that he's thinking about baseball players in his head when he's worrying about landing a plane. It turns into that because they're riffing on the echo. Right. When you have a memory like that, it's in an echo and what does an echo sound like?

Well, who you know when you're at the baseball stadium when you're the announcer talk, it's echoes. Okay, yeah, I guess people that have never been to a sporting event in real life might not get that gag. Well, I guess the most like pop culture specific gag in any of these episodes of the show are the openers with George Stanford Brown. I did not know who that was. I had to look up who that was.

Just like Lauren Green in the last episode, there will be people who are the Tonight's Special guest stars who are beyond recognizable. The next episode has the eventual villain from Naked Gun too, And then I want to say, there isn't there's one with Shatner right there, Shatner, Florence Henderson, right, Riccardo Multibon as well, right, isn't regard on multipad in one. He's the villain in one of them. Okay, Naked Gun movies for whatever reason have this image of him in an opening. I don't know why.

Yeah, I'm not sure of all of them. I know that I've seen the Florence Henderson and I remember William Shatner for sure, and then, like I said, William Conrad, he does show up eventually in the sixth episode. I mean, even when I was watching these when they first aired, I mean, I knew who Lauren Green was. I never really watched Bonanza, but he was on commercials and TV guest appearances. George Stanford Brown was on was a police show?

Yeah, serves, yeah, the rookies. Yes. Sorry, while you're you're looking him up, I just remember we're talking about the fifties garb and how they really played down current fashions from eighty two. I forgot that. When we go to that fight, the boxing match, That's what I really noticed.

That everyone was in fifties garb, like really old school, like, if not thirty scar but it looked really strange. It was like they were really playing up this is an old boxing movie type of thing. When I see one or two characters, it doesn't really ring a bell. But when I see everybody against on screen, all wearing these outfits, I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I forgot that we're doing this here. The bit with the prosthetic chin that we watched could apply that just maybe, so guys, I was like, oh, they're doing the special effects right now.

That's great, and then in the next shot he's got the full effect on. You should mention George Stanford Brown actually would direct a later episode of this show. Really, Oh that's funny. Yeah, maybe that's how they roped him into the opening of this one. We'll let you direct if you do the opening right, get smashed by a safe, I'll do it.

You can count on me. We should talk about the end of the episode. We'd be remissing if we didn't mention how they take the freeze frame gag and bump it up to the nth degree. And even before that though, this is another one of those weird jokes. Why is he his desk?

Why is hawking Dreben's desk? That's what I was like. And Drebin comes in smoking, which I don't think we've He has the cigarettes with them right and offers them to people, but he's never been shown smoking, And I'm like, is it just a set up the gag that Hawkin is acting as his desk? And then that makes me think, why is Hawkin acting ass his desk? Did I miss something?

Did they say they were refurnishing the place or reorganizing. I don't know. It just it's one of those ones. It just stands out to me, is I don't get it non sequitors. I guess I don't want to give every non sequitor.

Well, it's just a non sequitor like bird anything necessarily, but it's just kind of an odd they pull back. I mean, he's got all of his stuff on him, like he's a desk. Okay, I have to tell you, Mark, I never noticed that. I never picked up on that joke at all. Now I have to go back and rewatch that.

Yeah, he's literally sitting there with his feet out and that everything is just on his legs. I never picked up on the phone the ash tray, like you mentioned in the last episode. It's because they have foreground background stuff always going on. So that's all happening in the foreground, and the credits are over it. They don't even care.

This is the freeze frame gag I've seen out of a context the most and you have the villain Martin who's played by Rudy Solari, running away after being captured because the freeze frame, everybody freezes but him, and he starts looking around trying to figure out what's going on, and then he just tries to go out the door. The door's locked, so he tries to come through the screen and get stopped by the I guess the glass on the cameras. What we're being TV screen read to believe. It is a really funny gag that I think is what I remember this episode for the most is that final upping of the antie of that gag from the first episode, essentially the same gag. They do something else with it, which I appreciate because they could have just done the same thing, literally the same thing, and instead they go, no, no, what's the next thing we can do?

Oh, we we'll have one of the people in the scene not be frozen, And it just happens to be the person they've been going after the entire episode. That is an inherently funny setup, and what they do with it I think is really funny. It kind of steals the show almost. I think it almost steals the entire episode that in the Act two brute a joke which obviously will never not be funny again. They went to something that everybody theoretically could know Shakespeare.

The next episode, we will be back talking about rendezvous at Big gulch. Until then, Chris, do you want to tell people? Where you can find out more about you, about me, and about Mark. You can find all of the shows that the three of us work on, create and put out at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. We each have our main shows over there, along with this show that we work on together, and a whole host of other shows that we continue to workshop and create.

And just go to weirding Way Media. There's always something new. I guarantee you there's a new episode of something almost every day. So that's where you can go Weirdingwaymedia dot com. We're also on YouTube Weirdingway Media.

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