If you were to ask me to state what my all time favorite comedy movie is, I’d probably say Airplane!
Don’t get me wrong, there are many, many, great comedy movies out there, but this film, IMHO, is the heights of absurdist, hundreds (seemingly) jokes a second, Mad-Magazine style parody/comedy which, thanks to the use of then very “serious” actors in absolutely absurd roles (believe it or not, when Airplane! came out, Leslie Nielsen -among other well known actors within the film- was known for his dramatic, serious roles!).
Now, if you were to ask me my all time favorite TV comedy, that one would be the very short lived (six episodes!) run of Police Squad!
After Airplane!’s its makers, Jim Abrahams and Jim and David Zucker recruited Leslie Nielsen to star in their very similarly themed absurdist comedy series. Here is an example of one of the show’s intros…
I still chuckle at that opening bit, from the “In Color” announcement (TV shows of the 1960’s, when they went from Black and White to Color, would announce the fact that they were “In Color” to promote themselves to people with B & W TV sets and, hopefully, convince them to buy them), to the sequence with the shootout in the station (the guy on fire, the lady with the baby who flings it, etc.), to the wonderful special guest star (whose sole scene in the show was his/her death), to the “Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln” absurdity.
Then there were the show’s endings, which made fun of the popular “freeze frame” endings found on many TV shows back then…
Anyway, the show would be revived with the Naked Gun films, but I found this fascinating article concerning the script to an un-filmed episode of Police Squad!, which is now available online. The article is by Matthew Dessem and is found on Slate.com…
All Units, There’s an Unproduced Police Squad! Script on the Internet, Please Respond
Read the article and find out that its about David Misch’s unproduced seventh episode of Police Squad!, the script of which can be found in full here:
To all those fans of the absurdist Abrahams and Zucker Brothers comedy, its a neat bit of (unproduced) humor.
You’re quite welcome!