PS: The Naked Gun (2025)

Hello, Wake up heavy listeners. Mark here, and I am excited to say that the Police Squad boys got together a little while ago to record an episode on the new The Naked Gun film starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. And it is finally available and we are making it available across all of our shows. If you happen to have missed our little limited series from the files of Police Squad in Color, you can catch all of those episodes on Wardingwaymedia dot com. And it was nice to dip our toes back into the Police Squad pool as it.

Was so enjoy. Comrades of comedy. Citizens of Cinema. Today we march not upon Rome, but upon the silver screen, to bear witness to the glorious rebirth of an empire of absurdity. For years, the sacred legacy of Frank Dreben lay in the archive.

It's a relic of slapstick past, but now under the bold banner of Naked Gun twenty twenty five, it returns faster, sharper, and more delirious than ever. We reject the tyranny of seriousness. We crush the dictatorship of dullness. In its place, we raise the banner of pretfalls, wordplay and sight gag so powerful they shall echo across the ages. Let the weak hearted critics tremble, let the humorless flee.

The people demand chaos, banana peals and exploding cufflinks, and we shall deliver them with the relentless force of a thousand punchlines. Comedy Forever, Dreven Forever Viva. Naked Gun. Yeah, I'm Mike White and welcome to from the files Police Squad in Color, and I am joined, of course by mister Christashue. Wow, Mike, that was horrifying and informative at the same time.

That was amazing. Actually pretty proud of myself just coming up with that. Off the exploding cufflink as that were. Yeah, no notes, no nothing, nothing. Also with us is mister Mark Begley UCLA.

I see it every day. You can't fight City Hall, Mark. I know it's a big building. Yes, we're back, rejoining the discussion of zucker Abram Zucker fills, specifically those around the Police Squad series and coming back with Itked Gun twenty twenty five aka Naked Gun four. I think I'm the only person that calls it Naked Gun four.

Otherwise it gets very confusing, or you can call it the Naked Gun, which I think it is actually the Naked Gun. It is title like the Suicide Squad. Yes, like the sus guys were the other ones the naked guns as well? Oh okay, yeah, I thought that was the distinction, and then I looked and I'm like, oh no, it was. No.

They're all that it was the naked Gun from the files of police Police Squad, the Naked Gun two and a half, and then Naked Gun three and a third. And there was no joke name that they're going for, even though apparently in the past there were joke names for this, including naked Gun for Nordberg. Did it one little joke? Just one little nod there to oh J Simpson. That was pretty good.

I'm glad they stuck with just the one joke. They had been talking about doing this film for a while, apparently even having a made for TV version of it, which would have been interesting where it was listening Nielsen kind of passing the torch over to somebody else. I don't think it would have been Liam Neeson at the time. There were talks about, also in the past having Ed Helms, who we were just talking about recently, right. That would not have worked.

No, you need somebody very serious in a role like this. I think that this One of the smartest things about this movie is the cast thing of Liam Nathan because he's been Pamela Anderson are really good together and they might be fucking in real life. I actually think they are David very long much. Something definitely happened on set. Natasha Richardson's sister has something to say about that screams the headlines.

Who gives a shit? Hey, they're happy, That's all that matters. Natasha Richardson ate it like twenty years ago. I thought he had their blessing. That's what I've been reading.

What does any tummy Lee's blessing too? Hey, yeah, he's gonna get talked with his all right, big Wayne long here. Okay, By the way, we will be spoiling things, as if you can spoil a movie like this, but that also means talking about a lot of the punchlines and some of the things that you are actually paying money to go to the theater to see. Though, I will admit when I saw this at the theater yesterday, it was one of those like twenty five seaters and there were maybe like six people in there. Though I don't think this is going to be at the theater too much longer.

I imagine this will be probably streaming by the time this episode comes out. My little insular world of Twitter, everybody was going crazy about it, so I thought it was doing Gangbusters and dumb comedies back and all that crap. I don't know, Maybe it isn't. I don't know. I actually had a fair amount of people that told me that they went and saw this movie in theaters.

I don't know. The movie seemed to do rather well. It seemed to be seemed to have made its money back already, so I think we're like two weeks removed for the movie coming out. There's that massive drop off even just on the second week. It's almost rare for a movie to make as much, if not more, the second week.

It just right down the cliff. And it's not a Marvel movie. I think the only way additional people are going to go see a movie like this is word of mouth, not like Curb Appeals. Not a Marvel movie. Though.

Wolverine Reunion here with Danny Houston and Kevin Durant, The Blob and. Who's playing like William Striker. The Striker, Yes, yeah, Striker Striker Striker aka Sally Decker. I have a few complaints about this movie. One of those complaints is Danny Houston and Liam Neeson speaking to each other.

It sounds like it's the same person talking to himselves. Okay, I wasn't the only one who's saying what line? Now? Danny Houston really starting to sound a lot like his dad. And I think that if he wanted to, if he wanted to just push just a little bit, he could do the John Houston voice impeccably.

Oh, I'm sure he does. He probably does it all the time. I'm sure like he's voiced his character his dad in different things like documentaries or something. Yeah, he does a great job. And Dan Houston fucking hilarious guy and Liam Neeson fucking hilarious guy.

And I love that they use Nissan's very cold, calculating, taken type persona much of this time, where it's like growling out these lines and having the voiceover was very smart as well. Of course we know that Frank Drubbitt had a voiceover, so given it to Liam Neeson here I thought was very smart. I enjoyed it. I guess in that insular world I live in, it got a little overhyped, so I was like, oooh, joke a second. And it wasn't as damn packed as the Naked Gun movies where you watch it five times because you've missed nineteen different things going on.

It's not quite like that. And I don't think there were early as many or I didn't notice a lot of that background foreground. Something serious was happening in the foreground. There was a joke going on in the background that didn't seem to be happening. Not that they need to follow the blueprint of those movies or of Zaz movies to a t, which I'm sure they didn't want to do, but it seemed a lot tamer as far as gags a second to me, And I didn't know if that was just me missing everything or if that's how the movie was.

You didn't miss anything. It is very much one layer of jokes. The closest they get to the multiple layers, they really hand you what's happening on that second layer, Like I think of when they're walking through police squad after cch Pounder yells it's a no day at police squad and then they cut to a guy getting his mugshot taken and there's like a wind machine and the photographers is very much a fashion photographer. And then we have Frank and Ed Paul Walter Hauser. I guess it's the summer of Paul Walter Hauser between this and Fantastic Four coming out within a few weeks, and them walking and talking and I'm like, okay, yeah, that was very obvious what that joke was.

There's not a lot of stuff going on in the background. I was definitely paying attention to that, trying to be like, okay, is there something funny else other than what's happening here? And yeah, the jokes per second, jokes per minute, jokes per maybe five minutes. There were a few times, especially at the beginning, where I was laughing out loud quite a bit. I loved little things like him putting on the rubber glove and then reaching in with the hand without the glove into the crashed car, some of the site gags and everything, but yeah, it felt like it was one layer of jokes happening at all times, which.

Is maybe better for a modern audience. I hate to say, do you have to direct everything to modern audience that can't keep up with stuff. But I felt like, okay, I don't have I'm I don't want to have to pay attention to every little corner of the screen and feel dumb for missing something because I knowing we're going to talk about it is a little bit different than just watching it for enjoyments. I did notice the beaver though, because that was very subtle to put a pin on it. I felt that there was a lot more absurdist stuff, like when Frank goes to the club that Danny Houston owns or sorry, it's more the event that he's doing, and there are all those posters like delivery and this and that, and then pumpkins, like him standing in a field with a bunch of pumpkins.

It's like, okay, yeah, that was funny, just absurd kind of stuff. And I was expecting a little bit more out of the screenwriters for this because I really liked the Chippindale movie that they did together Dan Gregor and Doug Manned. I'm not that familiar with the Kiva Schaeffer though, and I don't know if part of the Lonely Island, Oh that's right, thank you. Well, he's the guy in the Lonely Island with the facial hair. It is essentially the best way to putting in.

I know, I saw pop Star Never Stop, Never Stopping, and of course I've seen through it on the ground though I really feel that that skit kind of takes a shit at the end when they get to the Hollywood phonies part. But okay, yeah, he's got some good comedy chaps. I'm on a boat. And then of course he also directed Chippendale Rescue Rangers, Got the whole gang back here again. No Andy Sandberg though, no, but I meant as far.

As that Rescue Rangers thing. I enjoyed this movie a fair amount. I think it's a pretty worthy successor to what this franchise could be. I think it's also a rather interesting entry into the franchise given what it has to be now, given the environment that this movie has come out into, Because there's parts of this movie that are aping action movies that were not. This movie apes action movies at times, which Naked didn't really do back in the day.

And this is existing in a post John Wick, post taken world. That's the thing that I feel like is even more on the nose. And even funnier is putting Liam Neeson in this movie, given that he is actually an action star. Leslie Nielsen was just an actor, but he was not an action star, and he wasn't an action actor, and they didn't expect that of him in the Naked Gun movies. But in this it's almost like you expected Part and Parcel with Liam Neeson being cast in the movie, And that, for me is I think one of the smartest things about this movie is it does understand the world that it exists within now and it's not fighting it.

It's not trying to be it's not trying to exist in another time and place. This isn't Naked Gun movie made in twenty twenty five, for good and for bad in a lot of ways, like the main villain being essentially an Elon musk Tight, like a little bit on the nose, like a little on the nose, but not in a bad way, Like I almost think like there's no other way to make this movie other than to address it head on. That was my one complaint. I assumed since he one of his big things as electric cars, that this is an Elon musk Rip, But he's not weird enough. I wanted him to be weird.

Once I sussed that out, I'm like, oh, electric car guy, Okay, Elon Musk. He should have been an absolute weird. I maybe he does like the Black Eyed Peas. His plot, his world domination plot should have been more bizarre, not just plot devices making people regress to a prehistoric rage or whatever. It should have been really fucking weird.

Let's make this guy weird, not just that he's handing his balls or whatever he's doing with that machine, Like, make him really fucking weird. That's based off of some of that weirdo bro shit. Isn't it like that men are becoming too feminized and the way to not do that is to put like a red light on your ballsack or some shit like I've heard that in those like fucking Alex Jones jokes, fair Baby, Yeah, the mansphere. Jesus fucking Christ. So can you use red light therapy on your testes?

You may have seen a very popular article from Ben Greenfield. I was in Men's Health where he spoke about tripling his testosterone levels by shining a red light on his testes. Now, in this video, we want to discuss whether or not that is a good idea, and whether it's safe to aim a red light therapy device in that area. It just made me think of that guy that keeps replenishing his blood or whatever to stay or he's like, I think he has transfusions with his young son and he's supposed to. I don't know what his name is there anything, but they always show pictures of him.

Can you believe this man is forty seven? And I'm like, he looks worse than I do, and I'm fifty six. What are you talking about? It's like a fucking corpse. I have to admit that I was very confused during the scene where they're showing Frank his electric car.

The gift. I guess you can just get gifts from billionaires gifting to the police department, which is absolutely fine, especially in twenty twenty five. The guy who shows him what his car looks like, who's basically the I can't remember. I want to say ted, but that's not right. But anyway, honestly, when I saw him in the trailers, I thought he was Corey Feldman.

Chase Stephen Anderson, You, sir, can be in the Corey Feldman story because you can pull that look off, So maybe think about doing that, because even as I'm watching it in the theater, I'm like, holy fuck, does he look like Corey Feldman? It is ted by the way, Oh okay good in the first movie. Yeah, yeah he does. He does a k Feldman esque. The lab tech guy.

Is that who we're talking about here? Yeah? Yeah. I wanted a little more from him, a little more weirdness too, because that guy was always weird. Oh yeah, yeah, especially when they would come in they'd be talking with children and stuff like why don't you run along now, Katie?

And next week I'll show you why women can't play professional football. Yeah, the jokes felt kind of aimed. They didn't feel really like, oh wow, you just went there. Wow. It goes there a couple times, but it doesn't go there enough.

There are gags that go on for way too long, and there are gags that I wish they would mine a little bit more. And I'm sure that there is an version of this movie where there's alternate takes of scenes. There may not be a whole plethora of deleted scenes, but there definitely are alternate takes of scenes. There have to be. Yeah, the really only part that was gag A second was that opening in the bank where you have multiple gun gags, and I loved the part when he picked up the guy to use as a shield and it was an obvious dummy that was.

That was actually probably my biggest laugh of the whole movie. Honestly, it was more chuckles and a hahas throughout. I didn't It wasn't laugh a second for me, I guess is my overall feeling on it, and not that all of the naked gun movies are, but it feels like there is a little bit more to go back to, and this one, I don't know how much I'm going to be going back to it. The thing that we were talking about where who's in on the joke, right, it's that whole Frank Drebin is a complete moron and walks through the world with no one really questioning it, and everyone once in a while you'll get somebody who questions it, even like Nancy Marshaan was just like would roller eyes at times. But here there are times where he gets away with that where he just says stupid stuff and nobody calls him on it.

But then there are other times where they do call him on it, like when he comes in and he says to bust A rhymes twenty years for man's laughter. That must have been one hell of a joke. And then he's like, you mean manslaughter. He's like, oh yeah, and then puts the file down. I'm like, no, don't call him on it.

Just let it go, like and then take that and make it worse. Do one more on top of that. Yeah. I like the whole bit of the montage of the body cam stuff or the police cam. Though they had way too many angles for that footage.

I felt, let's not Cinema sends this movie. I think that every time that there's footage, Oh, man, who was directing this thing? Who was directing all that footage? Okay, Gamera two, Gamera three. I guess when it comes to the oh they went their thing, the first joke that comes to my mind is when he goes into the bar, the Silver Tiger or the Bengal Club or whatever that is, and there's that bartender that he talks to.

Played by Cody Rhodes, the wrestler of all people, does a great job. I felt he's talented. It's just random. You don't remember me, do you should I my brother. You shot him in the name of justice.

I could literally be thousands. Of people shot him in the back as he ran away, hundreds unarmed, at least fifty. He was white. So you're Tony Royland's brother. That was pretty good.

That was pretty good. I could have use a little bit more of that commentary throughout. The surprise they don't. But at the same time, I'm glad they didn't because I don't know. I don't know if I needed it.

In my Naked Gun movie. They are playing cops. The Baganda copaganda in twenty twenty five doesn't really fly. So they did it in gosh, I can't remember. I think it was one of the movies Eating the People and like just randomly beating people of color in one of the films just because that's what the cops do.

And they did it back in the late eighties early nineties because of the Rodney King stuff, so they could have done it here. One joke I felt went way too long was the crab people joke. When the founding fathers created this country, they sat in a room like this filled with men like us, and birthed an empire the USA. Yes, that's right, But as years went by, other people I wanted to get into that room. Fish people, what fish people?

Gills on their necks. I don't like mrmin and women. Mermaids right now, stop not fish people, ungrateful people, people that did not earn their seat at the table, people not built with the men in this. Run crab hans. They had crab hands instead of fingers.

Stop, I know what I mean, So just let me do the thing is. A crab hand. I've met him. Put the phone away. That was one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

I think had they gone farther with it and had everyone on that board believing in crab people or something, I thought that would have been a little bit better. But Ins said it was just those two guys going back and forth and just like drop it, just drop it, come on, let's go. I just felt like it lasted like two beats too long. I always attribute it to Austin powers, where you go you just keep going until it's not funny anymore, and then it comes back around to being absurd, and then it's funny again. And that's another thing that I felt was missing from this, but wasn't unhappy that it was missing.

From this because that does get old. I didn't really feel it for this, Like I'm sitting here listening to you on my crab people joke. What does he talk like? I totally forgot about it. But yeah, would it have been more memorable to me if it had been done a nauseum or come back up later in the movie or something.

It does come back one more time. Yeah, at the very end when weird Al, and I hope that was part of the version that you saw, because I know sometimes credits get cut off. But at the very end, weird Al comes back and he's playing at the Giggle Bunker room and it's just him with a whole bunch of empty tables, and he's like, hello, anybody, crazy billionaires, crab people. I'm glad that weird Al was in the movie again. Gotta keep that street, keep that streak going.

And yeah, I kind of wish that board of directors would have been either this guy is crazy or we are way more evil than he is, even just to really put that whole bunch of rich white people, even though they weren't all white people, bunch of rich older people all on the board at the same time. Sometimes Kevin Duran gives like little looks where he's like, I'm not really sure about this guy, but never really comes back. Speaking of Austin Powers, they cop directly from Austin Powers with the dog gag where it looks like they're having sex with his dog. Yeah, that whole kitchen scene. I was like, this was done.

And whichever one of those with Heather Graham and him in the tent. They do it twice in that movie. Too, Like the fruit stuff with him and Vanessa. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Or sorry, food stuff, it's not just fruit.

The scene with the snowman, which is effectively the naked gun from the first movie, there's that, like it's essentially like a music video. Yeah, it's that montage. Something tells me I'm into something good. Yeah, Herman's hermits. Yeah, it's like a mini movie.

I feel like if they had given the movie the rest of that energy, Like I enjoyed this movie immensely. I think I probably maybe even enjoyed it more than both of y'all. I will say though, like I think if the movie, to Mike's point and marx point as well, I think if the movie had been more absurd, I think it would have checked more boxes for me, and I think it just it goes there. But having rewatched all three of the original Naked Gun movies to prepare for this episode, like, they are a little bit more absurd. It's not like, it's not like terribly.

So I'm not saying that this movie is like, this is the most straightforward comedy I've ever seen, but like, there are parts of this movie that don't go far enough. And there are parts of this movie that like hold like really hold back, and I don't know why. I guess is it like And that's the other thing I guess, did this movie we need to be our? Is that what it is? In this day and age?

Did this movie have to be our? R? It's PG thirteen, Okay, so you're asking should we have gone farther? Should we have shared this in our? I mean, where were the bear boobs?

Come on? No bear boobs in this movie. I don't know if I want to see a bear, I don't know if I want to see a bear's boobs. They have a whole line of them. It's usually about eight or so, so many teats.

None of the Naked Gun films were any higher than a PG thirteen I'm sure so they're keeping it with that. But if that need to be something that they kept to is my point. You want dumb teen boys going to see your movie. So are boys that appreciate dumb humor or girls teens that appreciate dumb humor going to your movie? Maybe those teens don't exist.

I don't know. From what I hear. The new generation is afraid of sex, so I guess no, no bear boobs for them. Then Bam Anderson. Is really good in this movie.

She is amazing. Her scat scene is speak of rated R, but that is fucking amazing. I saw a clip on Instagram the other day where they weren't cutting between her and what Liam Neeson was up to and it was just her doing the scatting. It was fucking amazing. I couldn't It was before I saw the movie, and I'm just like, what the hell is this?

This is great. That was a perfect little naked gun police squad ask interlude there that ridiculousness and actually made me think of that was it the last episode or one of the last episodes of the show when he's up performing that is not nearly as funny as this scene in that film, but I was looking for anything to call back to the show or to the movies. They don't do a ton of it. The self driving car worked because of the way they would always shoot the driving scenes in Police Squad and Naked Gun. So I thought that was nice.

That was a nice touch, and since it's topical and now it seemed to work. Okay, he hits a biker. I'm sure that was done in one of the movies or the show. He hits a person multiple time. No parking though, no trouble perking.

I don't recall. No hitting of garbage cans. Yeah, he does go through that police line, but that was one of the things where one of the policemen actually reacts, and it was like, should he have reacted or should he have just taken that as a normal thing. I don't like. And I know I talked about this on those podcasts about the movies and stuff when people would make the face you just got to let it go.

And you mentioned it earlier in regard to a scene in this film, just like, just let it slide. Don't acknowledge it. The joke is for us. It should be. And I think of airplane when I think of that where the joke is for us and we don't get all those glances.

I'll be get a few. I shouldn't say that, but just let the joke go. The character doesn't need to respond to the stupid comment. Yeah, you get a few of those fourth wall breaks too, which I always appreciated, like when Ted Striker would look at the camera and be like, what do would you do? Kind of thing, And we get a few of those where Dremen will break that fourth wall and look straight at us and talk to us as the audience, And even especially at the end when the whole we do the freeze frame gag a little bit differently than we've seen it done before, but him actually seeing the camera and coming and approaching us, I thought was a good gag, and I was glad that they carried through on the freeze frame thing.

Well, they did a little bit of a vacation gag the film. One of the films that we talked about recently were you know. In that film they put a pin on that this is a sequel to a beloved franchise and that this one's going to be very different. And I want to be the same as you, Taddy. But the new one, the naked gun, the new one.

They do the same thing here. I like the fight that he has in Club Bengal with all the computer guys behind the scenes, and especially when he's taking numbers. They've got the little ticker tape thing and he just keeps punching people out, or when he rips the guy's hands or arms off of him and starts smacking him with Those were pretty good, and I like just seeing you know what a bad hass you hired Liam Neeson. Let's use him for this way. I think one of my favorite jokes in the movie is almost it's a callback to another joke from National Lampoon's Loaded Weapons.

So in that movie, there's a scene where they go looking for the Emilio Estevez character and they think they find his trailer on the beach, and so the bad guys light it up and then it turns it's just I believe it's supposed to be John McClain, but it is Bruce Willis, and he's just like, oh wrong, yeah, wrong, trailer. Sorry, it's great, and like you have Bruce Willis in the movie for all of like thirty seconds. You make the most of it, and it really works. I think for me, one of my favorite gags in this entire movie is at the end when all of a sudden you just stop hearing Liam Neeson's voice and it's just Dave Batista. I saw him in the credits, and I'm like, when it is Dave Bautista going to show up?

Is he one of the Hinchmen? What's going on here? And then oh, okay, having him show up as just Frank Dreban because Liam Neeson is apparently in the bathroom. Liam Neeson the actor is in the bathroom, is I think for me one of the funniest gags in the entire movie. I like that a lot.

I also like c. H. Pounder Worth HER's sleeping husband, yes, like where she's like, get me Dremen, and then like he's in the bedroom and just like it's very importants tomorrow and he's going to get passed over by this person again even though he trained him. And I'm like, that's really good. I like this whole thing.

And then that they show up with the sleep mask on still, and then the great news at the very end, like it's one of those oh we found gold and oil and your stocks went up kind of thing. It's oh and you got the promotion. Yeah. Those are the things I like the most, are like the continuous jokes where we just go back to that well time and again. It's just like, give us a whole bunch of those types of things, like the whole thing with the coffee.

I love the coffee bit. Though with that, I kept thinking of fucking Beetlejuice and the Willem Dafoe character, that whole thing of that weird subplot in Beetlejuice, Beetle Juice of like the cop movie inside of there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, oh yeah, I just saw that recently, Wolf Jackson after Life Crime Units. Let me take a world step actor, not just any actor.

I've done it all for six movies and a reboot. I'm became Frank Hardballer during my own stunts was non negotiable. You know why authenticity correct? A vice cop doesn't get to a purp store and then call for some hambone stuntman to break it down. Neither did I You gotta keep it Meal.

I completely forgot about that movie. Speaking of legacy sequels, I think this was much more successful than Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice and this is probably up there with like an axule F for me, I would agree, Yeah. It didn't have twenty lot threads to get to weave through. Yeah.

If anything, they kept it pretty straightforward with this whole mystery of the dead brother and the sister trying to help, and even throwing the things like her true crime novels based on stories that she makes up. Yeah, that was a good just fiction. What about Liam Neeson and his tvo? That's my TiVo that I liked you yesterday so that you could watch season one A Buffy so that you could start getting my references. I know that, Frank and I specifically told you not to plug it into the internet.

Oh oh, that's an Ethernet chord going for my tvo directly into your router where the internet comes from. I was just trying to plug it into the electricity. Now they might be expired. That means gone, no musical special, no Xander, no Spike, no Cordelia Tays, no Daniel Osborne, no Willow meets her Double Ganger episode nothing. Sorry, I didn't know they were.

So what was the other thing that he Yeah? Yeah, the Miranda right, Oh yeah, yeah, I love that. No, Carrie, it took me a second for me to get what he was doing. Yeah, I'm like, what is he talking about? My wife and daughter have been going through that series, and that is probably the only reason I recognize the names.

Finally at the end and Samantha's orr. Yeah, because as soon as he said Carrie writes and like what and then he had to get to like the Cynthia Nixon character before I was like, oh, now I got it. I really. I also really like Kevin Durand in This Isn't my normal car, This isn't the way I normally fall asleep. There are some really funny moments in this movie, like I would put this movie above I honestly, I think I might put this movie above the Third Naked Gun, and I think it's as good as the Second Naked Gun, even though I do think the Second Naked Gun in a lot of ways is almost as good as the first one, because the second one has some of my favorite gags, like I've been swimming in raw sewage all day.

I love it. I love it that except like that's for me, Like the second movie has a lot of like follow through gags that the first movie doesn't happen. The second movie has those like the gag with the zoo and the animals and the lion getting Robert Goulay at the end of the movie, and that's like halfway through the movie they introduced that like reoccurring bit Like I think this movie is as good as the Second Naked Gun. I think this movie. I think it's a good starting place too, for the future of a franchise, which is weird to say, because I can't imagine they're gonna just do one of these movies at this point.

I hope that they do more. And yeah, I hope, if anything, they do try to pick up on that let's do multiple layers of comedy thing. We saw. It wasn't just Ken Finkleman. It was some of the writers from The Simpsons as well.

We've seen that you can do it. It doesn't have to be just as the A Z thing. If you do it wrong, it looks horrible and it's just a miserable experience. But at least I will say they did do it wrong. They did not do comedy wrong by this, like things like epic movie, I was thinking of gags like him coming in and stepping in the blood and seeing the knife that says pick me up and.

Sad is one of my favorite. Also gags in the whole I did it right. And then when he picks up the corpse and it hits the ceiling fan, it's just there with the headless corpse. When the cops come in and does flips out the window. I thought that was great.

I was like, yeah, this is the naked gun that I know. There's a little textas switch in this movie, which I appreciate. I honestly think that this movie really shines when they just let Liam Neeson talk and be fucking weird, like when he's talking to Kevin Durand in that scene where they're trying to get the confession out of me, he's like, you're gonna be a pretty boy in prison, Like what the fuck are you talking about? Like, and it just keeps going, and it just keeps going, and I don't think there's not enough of that in the movie. Like I think in a lot of ways, the movie also plays it safe in a way that I don't think if there's a second one, I don't think the second one will play it as safe as his first one.

But I think this first one had to play it safe because again, like they're I think we already alluded to it, they are trying to get as many people in the door as possible, like normal people, people that wouldn't be going out of their way to watch movies or going to see this kind of movie in theaters. I'm like, I do miss going to see this kind of movie in theaters because there's something that you said for like this movie in a theater, shared experience, everybody laughing and having a good time, Like this is the lost experience in this day and age. I'm trying to think the last comedy I saw in the theater, and it takes a lot. They definitely do a very solid job with this. There are moments to me of absolute brilliance, like when he's trapped in the electric car and he busts out the windshield and he runs into the clown with the balloons, and then the guys carrying the bees, and then the guy's carrying a windshield that just pops right back into place.

I love it. I think I agree with you Mark that the villain should have been a little bit more, that it should have been a little bit crazier when it comes to that more eccentric, like you know, yes, eccentric definitely. I saw his face. I don't know that I knew any Houston was in this before I watched it, And when I saw him, I thought, oh, he's going to be that guy. He's been playing this guy for a while.

I mean, he basically plays this in a much smaller role in Game Night and Big Wealthy, and he's probably weirder in that actually having fight club in his mansion, but it's almost typecasting. And then the reference to Musk, I thought, oh, he's going to be weird, and they never got super weird with him, and for me personally would have appreciated him. His idea is just being absolutely wacko, or show him stealing everybody's ideas. There you go, yeah, yeah, here's a brand new thing that I came up with, and just have it be something that everyone already has. Here's a pet rock, or here's a Rubik's cube or something like that.

Maybe just an inventor of really stupid gadget type of things. Yeah, or all the board people going that was Bob's idea. The plot device was Billy's idea you're talking about. I love some of those stupid things too, like when he's got the injury, which I don't really recall him getting an injury, but when he gets an injury and goes over to Pam Anderson's house and she pours the vodka on it and then she proceeds to make an entire bloody mary on his arm. Yeah, and then like has the piece of celery and I'm just like, I want to see her wrap the celery in the ace bandage kind of thing and have him hearing that for the rest of the movie.

Yeah, there are some very funny bets in here, and yeah, I feel that it is good first entry and hopefully a new franchise. Though Liam Neesen is ten years older than he ain't getting any younger. Leslie Nielsen was, Yeah. He doesn't look it. Though he doesn't look it.

No, he looks great. Yeah. I said, don't pull cinema sins out earlier, but I am going to do one because wouldn't Frank Dreben Junior be like in his thirties if we're going canonically with the last film when they have him years old in that movie. Mark if you looked at the IMDb trivia, the source of all knowledge, It says that it must have been another Yes, another Frank Dreben junior, of. Course, yes, from a previous fleeing.

Did he have to be Frank Dreben junior, that's a question. I'm curious. I'm asking y'all because I think he had to be Frank Dreben in some capacity, either rebooted or his son. But do you guys agree, like, did he have to be for this to work? Or could he?

Could this have been a reboot? I think it could have been a reboot just as easily. I think the whole thing of him being Frank Drebin's son and Paul Walter Hauser being Ed's son, I think that makes sense. Yeah, it doesn't come into play though, except for a couple of jokes for the obvious one of them all kneeling in front of their dad's or mother's pictures in that one scene where the only one O. J.

Simpson gag is But I was thinking the same thing when I was watching it, because I had that stuck in my head that the kid would actually only be thirty or forty years old, that he could be a relative, different kind of relative, a nephew or a long lost son or something, but they don't put a too big a point on him being they don't get to the exploits of Frank Dreben in the movie. You're doing what your dad did and blah blah, your dad was a fucking idiot. I think there. Might be too much outrage if he wasn't Frank Drebon Junior. I don't know.

I don't know, Chris, that's a good question. I'm glad he didn't die is here. I'm glad he didn't have the silver thing because that would have been way too distracting and just not look good on Liam Neeson. I don't think. He's already a silver fox about it, he doesn't.

I do love that the movie traffics in a little bit of meta real world with Liam Neeson's fat wiener, which is a real thing in real life. Liam Mason is well known for being well hung, and I love that the movie traffics in that for no reason other than because there are a group of people that know that Liam Neeson has a big wiener. That's literally it. I don't know why else they'd be making that joke. For like what seems like an extended period of time.

They have that guy describing his penis as a loaf of bread with a to pey on, I think, or with an afro is what he says. With an afro wig. I'm one of the people that was not aware of this rumor, so I had no idea and a big schlong no idea. Canna say. Another one of my favorite gags in the movie is playing on It's Mission Impossible too.

I think right where they've got Dimitri or whatever his name is in the hospital bed and they're showing him like, here's what happened while you're out, And then they do the same thing with Kevin Durand where it's the we set this fake news report up and this is a few days afterwards. And then yeah, I completely agree with that whole speech that it gives about how Durand gets out and becomes this Instagram person and he's the guy who does this, but then there's another guy and he ends up being so depressed. I love that whole rant that he goes on. But then the multiple did you get that boys kind of thing over and over again with all the walls falling down. I thought that was really good.

Priscilla Presley shows up in the UFCC. Oh, she's a cutaway when they're showing Liam Neeson's blurred penis. Oh wow, she's the cut one of the She's the cutaway that they show of her watching the television and watching. Oh okay, I noticed that they did the cutaway. I didn't recognize her.

I didn't get like the whole UFC thing very well, Like if there are things in there that I'm supposed to know about these fighters or whatever. There's some UFC like personalities are in the like are on commentary, like Michael Bisping is one of the people that's doing commentary, and he's a real fighter. I'm actually, you know what, because I don't think either one of y'all have watched it, but I have so I can mention it. I'm glad that this wasn't a cameo fest, because Happy Gilmore Too was like a massive cameo fest to the point where it's like distracting. And I didn't dislike that movie.

I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to. But the thing I disliked about it was how much of it was just like cameo after cameo, to the point where it's like there's it almost feels like the movie has nothing else going for it at times other than just like, look at all these people that Adam Sandler is friends with, And I'm glad that this movie doesn't traffic in like cameo after cameo, because that's not what this franchise was about. We got the weird Al cameo in the first movie, and then in the second movie, and then in the third movie, but that was a reoccurring gag because of the first movie, they had weird Al and they had all these other people. Like the longer the Naked Gun movies went on, I think by the third one it feels that way because they're at the Oscars.

But it feels like it's a little bit of a narrative cheat because they're at the Oscars. But yeah, I was just glad that there's like only a handful of cameos in this movie, like Cody Rhodes or Priscilla Presley or Dave Batista. But it's not just like every two seconds it's someone famous that just I really love Naked Gun and I wanted to be part of it, Like nobody caresly. Oh, Cody Rhodes passed me by because I have no idea who that guy is. Which is honestly fine, like that's kind of the way a cameo should work.

Just the bartender who got his face smashed in. I thought at first he was Casper Dien, Asper Randine. I knew I was saying it wrong, and I wanted more from that commentator. Who was when we see him, He's like, my wife got all dressed up tonight. She knew I was going out.

Why was she get so dressed up? I was really helped. Okay, Now I see Priscilla Presley, all right, And what I thought that was actually Catherine O'Hara when I saw it yesterday, because it's got two seconds such she's on screen. Yeah, it's that's why I couldn't even remember. I'm like, I know she's in there for a flash, but I don't know the context.

I also do find it amusing that the movie forces Liam Nisi at one point to be non lethal, because I'm not sure he ever kills anybody in this movie. They hint at him killing people because they do that whole like they know you locked up an entire McDonald's because they wouldn't serve you freedom Friest, but he didn't kill those people. In Naked Gun, Frank Dreben kills a couple people not intentionally, like the guy who falls into the hot Dog vat, like he swings at him and he misses. Cardi Moltubon kind of kills himself. But there is that scene in Naked Gun where they're like, when I see five weirdos dressed in togas in a park stabbing a guy, I shoot the past.

That was Shakespeare in the park. They were great actors. Like when they have a scene like that, like it the fact that this guy is like really inept and we never get the sense in this movie. That's ever the case with Liam Neeson, which I think is a welcome change because again they have to traffic in the fact that this guy in every other movie he's in is actually an action stone and he's not just pretending to be one, which I think, again for me, is one of the smartest bits of casting in the movie is just casting a guy who does actually do this, not casting against type, because nobody would believe Leslie Nielsen could actually do action oriented scenes. Yeah, I love the whole bit at the end with all of the clips that are coming everywhere.

And the one kid who loses his tooth and the tooth goes into Frank's gun and then he shoots the tooth back into his mouth. That's where I'm like, this is really fucking clever, and there are some really good bits to this, even though I felt like the ending went on for a little too long, but it's just filled with a whole bunch of great bits. Fucking owl coming back, that's perfect. I love it. And to see that visual, to see the visual of him holding onto an owl being carried through the streets with the moon behind him, I was like, this reminds me of Kung Fury, which is, to me, one of the best movies ever made period.

End of sentence, And I agree, like, I think this movie really shines when it leans further into the absurd. I think it just was afraid of alienating the mainstream audience. Yeah. I feel that way too, And. I don't think the movie alienated the mainstream audience.

Like I had friends texting me asking me about this movie if, like if I was going to see it, and then once I saw it, what I thought of it? And I was like, this is fucking weird, Like I it's been a while since that happened, and normally if it does happen, it's not with something like this, which is just like again like ostensibly a comedy, but I don't know, like there's a level of polish to this movie that does make it. We've talked a lot about the comedy of the movie, but movies right O. They're well shot. There's a lot of interesting lighting, Like there's a lot of blue and red, like it looks like it could be a John Wick movie.

Yeah. I think that's what they were striving for. Yeah, and they nailed it. And I appreciate it because, like again, in a post John Wick universe, where John Wick is one of the most popular, if not the most popular action movie out there, you could make a movie that's a John Wick send up of its own right, And I Naked Gun didn't have to do it. But if Naked Gun's gonna exist in twenty twenty five, it's almost impossible to not address it.

I appreciated that it wasn't flat TV lighting. No, there's some great looking stuff in the bank robbery looks like fucking from the dark. Knight returns playing with shadows even in his office when she first shows up, it's a little nourish, and. The silhouette gag for the door or. Taking the chair at the end.

The whole fight around the fountain, when we've got Dave Bautista, that looks like a million bucks. It really did do a great job shooting this. This does look like a real movie. It doesn't look so completely flat. I just keep going back to those fucking Friedberger and Seltzer things.

You guys mentioned epic Movie and yeah, those movies looked like they were made for five dollars. Well, they were written for five dollars too. That's the thing. Those movies don't have any production value to them in any substantive way. I think about Epic Movie or Disaster Movie or the later scary movies.

I'm like, who was seeing these movies the same people that are being expected to see these movies. I was the one seeing those movies, most of those in the theater, which is I'm really a shite. I saw Smoking Aces and Epic Movie in a double feature. Wow, yeah at the theater. Yeah, bolloy, talk about a fate worse than death.

I think I saw every scary movie except for two, which I'm so glad because that was the worst one for me in the theater. Scary Movie three is a good one. And I think that this movie, this movie, like it looks more like a Scary Movie three than it does a Naked Gun three. Like this, this movie knows what came before it and chooses to embrace it but also reject it. And that's what's important when you make a movie like this is you have to be willing to do your own thing, but also people are gonna expect certain things from you if you're making a naked gun movie.

Against my better judgment, we should probably watch Spyhart sometime and talk about it, just because that's a tie to me between the zaz stuff and the Friedberg Seltzer stuff, because that's I can't remember if it's Friedberg senior or Seltzer senior. And that's also got weird l doing the title song and Scott Leslie Nielsen as your main character, and it's like, what is this saying? It feels like it was a say, passing of the torch, because basically they took the torch and just pissed on it and put the fire out. For all of those Friedberg and Seltzer movies, but it felt like, oh, yeah, here, I'll set up my sons for or my son and his asshole friend for success. One of these days, I'd love to talk with those guys and just be like, what is your fucking problem?

What is your major malfunction? What about wrongfully accused? Oh boy, I've never seen that one either. More two thousand and one A space whatever the travesty is that one? That?

Did I see that one? No? I saw the creature wasn't nice. That's I get that one. Mixed up the credits for this We already mentioned the freeze frame gag at the end, but I was paying attention to the credits.

There are gag credits in here, but it takes a lot to get to them. They are not peppered throughout as they used to be in some of these Zaz movies. I didn't notice funny jokes until they got to the set dressers and they talked about this dressing that dress, and then they said salad dressing and they had French vinigrette, thousand Island and something else, and I was like, okay, all right, there are a few things in here. They had at one point Netflix's password, and they had a password in there, but it was just very small, very subtle, and if anything, I thought they should have done it a little bit more, and especially because that's I'm expecting it, but I'm also hoping like that people get to see weird al at the end.

I had to leave suddenly, so I missed everything after the very first credit, and I was curious if there was an end credit scene. Yeah, there's just so there's the gag with the freeze frame. They do something else before the weird al other than the credits. I don't remember, do you remember, Chris? I think, okay, so it's just occasional funny credits and then we do the weird al bit at the very end.

So yeah, it was me and one other dude stuck around in the theater to see that. And you know what's really funny to speak to the Pam Anderson of it all. Pam Anderson was in Superhero which is insane because to even speak to a crazier trend here, naked gun has not been in our lives since the nineties, since the Third One. So many movies, so many comedy trends have come and gone, like like Superhero movie, which is a movie that came out in two thousand and eight. That's a parody of superhero movies in two thousand and eight, before superhero movies ostensibly even came out in a lot of ways for a lot of people, it's interesting that naked gun is still allowed to be what it is in this day and age, post all these other things.

I think it actually goes to show that naked gun I think as a formula still works rather well if you give it the respect that it deserves and not just try to force topical gags? Is the issue with those those like later Friedberg Seltzer movies' is like, Oh, here's Miles Fisher play Tom Cruise. Yeah remember Tom Yeah. Member from two weeks ago? Yeah yeah, we could Tom Cruise jumping on the couch, Like like do we need to see this in a movie?

Like I imagine somebody watching those movies today would be like, what the hell is this referring to? We might be that way if we watched them, Like if we were to sit down and watch those movies in reverse from the most recent one to the original one with something like scary movie, Like, I guarantee you there will be references to shit we're just like why. Like one of those movies, I don't remember which one. I think it's epic movie has a reference to Johnny Depp playing Willy Wonka. Yeah, oh yeah, that's Crispin Glover in that role.

Who the fuck would remember that in this day and age, like, oh, Johnny Depp played Willy Wonka, Like yeah, yeah, he did. Okay to what end well? And they refer it's a lot of commercials that were popular at the time, and think stuff that you forget after a little while. Not it doesn't even take years to forget about. The closest you get with that is like an airplane when the woman's saying, oh, he never asked for a second cup of my coffee.

But that's not bad. That's not a terrible thing that they had that. I think we had to explain that bit to Chris because he's younger and we grew up seeing those commercials like nightly they were pretty ubiquitous on TV, but yes, out totally out of date now or even five or six years later. But even when the first airplane came out, they weren't expecting repeat viewings thirty years later on a thing called VHS or laser disc or DVD or anything like that. Think you know timeliness so much?

Are people not going to get this anymore? Care? When are they going to watch this again? Well, come back to the theater. Speaking of airplane, we should take this opportunity to mention Mike you're on the airplane tool.

Yeah, very excited for that. I love that whole thing where I was so pissed off when I was talking to you guys, just like I have one of those fucking assholes on there doing that commentary, and then I've reached out to Keno and I was like, I should be on this. I've talked damn Ye exactly. Why would you get another fucking asshole if you could get this. This asshole right here baby?

Yeah. Yeah. To go back to Pam Anderson, Yeah, I think she's fantastic in this. I really like that they don't make her up and just really try to make her. She's an age appropriate love interest to me.

She might actually be too young for Liam Neeson, but I found that and found her to be hilarious. Apparently she was up for the role that d and Nicole Smith played in the last one, and now I'm like, well, yeah, show me that I would like to have seen that version. And Nicole Smith I thought was fantastic in there because she could play dumb like nobody's business. But I really think that Pam Anderson huge barbed wire fan over here. I think it says she's great and super happy to see her doing full fledged comedy.

The most surprising thing about this movie for me is how good she is, not because I didn't think she would be good, but because I haven't seen her in enough things really to have an opinion about her. But if she can do this kind of comedy and can live in this space and doesn't take herself super serious, which would seem to me she doesn't. I love how good Pam Anderson is in this movie because I wasn't concerned about how good Liam Neeson was gonna be. Priscilla Presley is as good as Liam Neeson is in those movies, like she is as funny as he is. There are a lot of moments in those movies that work because of the chemistry of the two of them, and I would say the same here, like Pam Anderson is as good as Liam Neeson is.

Now that makes me wonder how much she was in the whole borat thing, and I'm just like, she had to have been completely on board for that, I would assume, so I think so. I think yeah, because I think she's got a good sense of humor about herself too. She's been in the public sphere for so long. At this point. Oh yeah, I'm trying to think it back to when Baywatch first came on, and then she was even a tool time girl for uh he was.

On Home Improvement. Yeah, that was her original gig. And that was a long time ago, I know because I'm that old. Good on her as well for saying I'm not going to do makeup anymore. Like good on her.

That's a big deal in this industry, and like good on her, good for her, like fuck them. And there's a whole thing about the breast implants too, where she's like, yeah, I really shouldn't have gotten these. I'm like, Okay, it's your fucking body. Do what you want to do. I'm hopeful for the future of naked gun.

I actually want there to be more naked gun movies. I want to be able to buy a popcorn bucket for this movie that not eighty dollars because I wasn't able to get it in the fucking theaters because I didn't get the big Dan Beaver. I want the big brown beaver. I want wennas big brown beaver. Even that has nothing to do with sex.

That's just about a beaver. Well less claypool. Slap at the base and we're good as nothing, beautiful beaver. What can you say? Overall?

I would highly recommend this to people to check out. Don't expect exactly the same as the Naked Gun series, but expect something else that's pretty darn funny. All right, let's go ahead and wrap up, Mark Begley. Where can people find more of your fun stuff and only the fun stuff, none of the boring. Stuff, only the fun stuff.

Oh god? Now you can find my two shows wake Up Heavy and Cambridge and with Sean Ouber at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. How about you, Chris Stashu. You can find all the stuff that I work on at weirdingwaymedia dot com, which is named for dune David Lynch is doing more specifically, rest. In peace, David Lynch.

It's a weird thing that happened since the last time. We'd a lot of things that happened since the last time we recorded this show. Yeah, that's where you can find everything that I work on, including the original run of this show, which we talked about, the entire original Police Squad TV show. We talked about Airplane as well, did we not Like we did. We did a lot of stuff on films that, Yeah, that.

Prompted us to do. I always forget the title of the one with Val Kilmer top Secret, top Secret. Did that as a crossover with the projection both Yeah, and then I'd highly recommend that people check out our Airplane two episode as well, which was a lot of fun. And technically if you're looking for something that has the three of us that continues the three of us talking about comedies or quote unquote comedies, the Chase, the Chasing Chevy Chase podcast where we talk about Chevy Chase movies once a month and we're almost at the end of that show at this point now, which is crazy in and of itself. So that's where you can find me and all the things that I work on with these two.

So what about you, Mike. Yeah, same thing. Weirdowa medias dot com where you can find everything we do. The last one of these Police Squad and Color episodes came out March fifteenth, twenty twenty three. So I hate that.

I hate it. It feels like a lot longer, doesn't it. That's only yes, specifically for me, it does years though. Yeah, I was thinking, okay, man, No. I know, we didn't record anything in twenty four for this because we had talked about it, like offline, We're like, oh, we'll do something with Naked Gun finally comes out, But that was like us just kicking the can in twenty four.

But we knew back then that it was coming, and it was with Liam Neeson that was one of the main rumors. Towards the end of the show. Yeah, I listened to a couple of the episodes that we did towards the end of the show. We talked. We start talking about the fact that like it had been confirmed, they confirmed it while we were literally doing the show.

It's kind of like with what's going on with Rankin on Bond, which you can find at mine and Mike's Patreon, and they've started announcing things for the next James Bond while we're doing the show, like they were announcing Naked Gun stuff. Because we started recording that show in like twenty one, and it's been even longer since we started that show. We started that show in like twenty. One, twenty two. You're talking about rakon On Bond or Police.

Squad, Polease Squad. We got through it fast though, because we recorded weekly on that and we recorded three episodes of the show each time. But it came out it ended. Our show ended in twenty three, is what you said, Mike. Yeah, and it started December seventeen, twenty twenty two.

It was we only did nine episodes of it. It feels like we did so much for it. I think it was because we were reading the scripts, we were listening to the commentaries all that stuff, so it was trying to do a lot of research in a short amount of time. So what you're saying is the show needs a reboot. Yeah, sure, why not.

That was a lot of fun to do, and I'm glad that we're coming back and doing this. I can't say the final episode because hopefully we'll come back when the sequel comes out. There might be sequels. Yeah, hopefully Fingers Crossed all based On Money Boys, so if it does well, they'll make more