Film
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
A straight-faced disaster: Lieutenant Frank Drebin blunders through a police procedural where every character delivers absurd dialogue with total sincerity and every prop is a joke waiting to go off. Leslie Nielsen's genius is playing it dead serious. There's a gag every few seconds, verbal and visual, and almost none of them miss. It's for anyone who wants to laugh continuously for ninety minutes and doesn't need a plot to hold together.
If you liked this
Airplane!1980
The same creative team, the same deadpan formula, and arguably the funnier film. If you liked Naked Gun's rhythm, this is where that rhythm was invented.
But The disaster-movie target is dated, and some gags now read as more dated or tasteless than they did in 1980.
Police Squad!1982
The actual show Naked Gun is 'from the files of' — six episodes of the same Frank Drebin, same deadpan gags, same anarchic energy, just shorter and tighter.
But It was cancelled after six episodes for being 'too smart' for a laugh track audience, so it ends abruptly and you'll want more.
Blazing Saddles1974
Mel Brooks doing to the Western what ZAZ did to the cop movie: total anarchy, fourth-wall demolition, and a joke rate that never lets up.
But Its satire of racism uses the language it's attacking, which was audacious in 1974 and lands very differently now.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Dragnet1951
Naked Gun's entire comic voice is Dragnet's deadpan cop-show delivery played completely straight until it becomes absurd. This is the target, not the joke.
The actual show being spoofed: a flatly narrated, humorless procedural where every cop speaks in clipped, self-serious just-the-facts monotone. Watch it and you'll suddenly see every Drebin line as a direct hit.
But It's genuinely a product of its era — slow, moralistic, and not remotely trying to be funny, which is the point but also the risk.
More like this (8)
Top Secret!1984
The same ZAZ team turning a Cold War spy thriller into gag delivery system, with Val Kilmer doing a perfect Elvis impression while submarines and cows get involved.
But Less consistently funny than Airplane! or Naked Gun — the hit rate on jokes dips in the middle stretch.
Hot Shots!1991
Jim Abrahams solo, spoofing Top Gun with the same commitment to stupid, and Charlie Sheen is a surprisingly game straight man for the chaos around him.
But It's one joke — earnest action movie, dumb gags — stretched a little thin by the second half.
The Kentucky Fried Movie1977no page yet
ZAZ's scrappy sketch-comedy warm-up before Airplane!, a grab bag of movie-genre parodies that shows the machine being built.
But Uneven by design — some sketches are classic, others are filler, and the seams show.
National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 11993no page yet
A ZAZ-adjacent buddy-cop spoof with Emilio Estevez and Samuel L. Jackson, cheerfully torching every Lethal Weapon cliché.
But It's a step down in craft and wit — more scattershot, fewer jokes actually land.
Spy Hard1996no page yet
Leslie Nielsen again, this time spoofing Bond films with the same unblinking sincerity, for fans who specifically want more Nielsen.
But It's visibly working from a diminished budget and a thinner script than his classics.
Dracula: Dead and Loving It1995no page yet
Mel Brooks directs Nielsen as a deadpan Dracula, proving the actor's straight-faced idiot routine works in any genre you throw at him.
But Widely considered minor Brooks — the jokes are broader and the film is less beloved than his classics.
Duck Soup1933
Same engine — anarchic verbal nonsense colliding with straight-faced institutional authority — just in a tuxedo instead of a trench coat, decades before Nielsen was born to it.
The Marx Brothers dismantling a fictional government with puns, mirrors, and total disregard for narrative logic — the great-grandfather of the ZAZ style, made half a century earlier.
But Black-and-white, stagey, and reliant on verbal wordplay some viewers find slower than modern rapid-fire gags.
The Day of the Jackal1973
Same skeleton — a plot to kill a head of state, foiled by dogged investigation — but treated with total gravity, showing exactly what genre Naked Gun is gleefully deflating.
A meticulous, ice-cold thriller about a professional assassin stalking a world leader, played with total seriousness and precision — everything Naked Gun's assassination plot is quietly mocking.
But There's no comedy at all — it's slow, procedural, and demands patience rather than laughs.
People
Cast
Leslie NielsenFrank Drebin
Priscilla PresleyJane Spencer
Ricardo MontalbanVincent Ludwig
George KennedyEd Hocken
O. J. SimpsonNordberg
Susan BeaubianMrs. Nordberg
Nancy MarchandMayor
Raye BirkPahpshmir
Jeannette CharlesQueen Elizabeth II
Ed WilliamsTed Olsen
Tiny RonAl
'Weird Al' Yankovic'Weird Al'
Directing
- David ZuckerDirector
- John T. KretchmerFirst Assistant Director
- Nancy HoptonScript Supervisor
- Geraldine F. KeenerSecond Second Assistant Director
Writing
- David ZuckerWriter
- Jerry ZuckerWriter
- Jim AbrahamsWriter
- Pat ProftWriter
Production
- John D. SchofieldAssociate Producer
- Kevin MarcyAssociate Producer
- Fern ChampionCasting
- Pamela BaskerCasting
- Lindsay ChagCasting Assistant
- Sue SwanCasting Associate
- David ZuckerExecutive Producer
- Jerry ZuckerExecutive Producer
- Jim AbrahamsExecutive Producer
- Cass MartinLocation Manager
- Robert K. WeissProducer
- Timothy R. McWilliamsProduction Assistant
- Rita Grant MillerProduction Office Coordinator
- John D. SchofieldUnit Production Manager
Recommended by
Blazing Saddles, Spies Like Us, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Get Smart, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Airplane!, Team America: World Police, Hot Shots!, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, Reno 911!, Spaceballs, History of the World: Part I, Duck Soup, Casino Royale, A Shot in the Dark, Police Squad!, Get Smart, Hellzapoppin', Top Secret!, Caddyshack, OSS 117: Lost in Rio