Asked about the difference between American and British comedy, Eric Morecambe replied that in America they had funny lines but no funny men. I sort of know what he means: A funny man is someone an audience is happy to hang out with even when the funny lines are thin on the ground. Likeability comes into it, but also the ability to disguise the comedian's desperate desire to be liked - which I recall talking about in one of the many pre-interviews I did for the tour dates with Dennis Miller. But, for a while, my favorite Hollywood funny man was, in fact, a Canadian - Leslie Nielsen, the silver fox of the LAPD in the Naked Gun movies. I was happy to watch him in almost anything, just because I enjoyed the pleasure of the company of his comedic persona. Which is odd because his funny-man persona was no more than a smidgeonette of variation on his previous straightest-of-straight-men persona.
His most successful movie franchise came to an end a quarter-century ago, with the release of Naked Gun 33â…“: The Final Insult. I don't think I took that sub-title terribly seriously, but a couple of months later Leslie Nielsen's co-star OJ Simpson was arrested for the murder of his wife and that was that. "There'll never be a Naked Gun 4," Mr Nielsen told me sometime that summer. "What about if he's acquitted?" I asked. "It still wouldn't be funny," he said sadly.
And so Naked Gun 33â…“ was the last hurrah. In those days, just about every movie came shadowed by a parody: Top Gun had Hot Shots; Lethal Weapon, which was tongue-in-cheek to begin with, spawned Loaded Weapon. But Hot Shots' Charlie Sheen and whoever the guy in the execrable Loaded Weapon was can't compete with Nielsen. Thirty years earlier, he was playing police roles for real, in forgettable television series like "The New Breed" and "The Bold Ones"; then, without changing his performance one iota, he started playing them for laughs. Fifty years earlier, incidentally, he was an aerial gunner in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and I'd like to think he did even that with the same deadly deadpan deadpan-ness for which he's justly celebrated. It was Airplane! in 1979 which made him a comedy star with one lethally straight-faced exchange:
Surely you can't be serious?
I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.
The first Naked Gun gave him one of the great visual jokes of latterday movie comedy: with the hi-fi high and the lights down low, Lt Frank Drebin (Nielsen) and Jane (Priscilla Presley) are on the bearskin rug as the log fire crackles; Jane stands up and, in one clean movement, her gown drops from her shoulders to reveal her lush, full body in all its beauty; Frank then stands up and, in one clean movement, his three-piece suit, shirt and necktie drops to the floor to reveal his lush full body in all its beauty...
But times change and now Frank's marriage is in trouble. To rekindle the old spark, Jane arranges a passionate evening in, selects her sexiest camisole and tunes the radio to the 24-hour Johnny Mathis station. Unfortunately, Frank has spent the day on an undercover mission at a sperm bank, where he hadn't banked on having to make quite so many deposits. Utterly drained, he heads home and inches awkwardly through the front door, and sees the champagne Jane already has on ice. He tips the bucket onto the sofa, sits on the mound of ice cubes, shoves the champagne bottle down his trousers and waits for his pants to stop smouldering:
It's a wonderfully detailed scene: notice the bandages on thumb and forefinger. Very considerate of the sperm bank.
Nielsen imbues Frank, under the bluff cop exterior, with a child-like innocence, all the more remarkable when you consider that in a zillion terrible television movies — one thinks of Shadow Over Elveron (1968) — Nielsen, under the same bluff cop exterior, invariably turned out to be a weakling on the take or a ruthless killer who'd stop at nothing. It's the same with Priscilla Presley: her trembling wide-eyed sappy love lines are identical to those she used in "Dallas" as she ricocheted week by week from Bobby Ewing to Ray Krebs and back. The only difference is that this relationship is oddly touching: when the marriage counselor asks the couple if they've tried alleviating their bedroom difficulties with "sexy lingerie, some lacy underwear, a black teddy", Frank replies, "I've tried wearing them all. They don't work."
The plot is complex, as Frank's narration periodically concedes: "Like a midget in a urinal, I was going to have to stay on my toes." And: "Like a blind man at an orgy, I was going to have to feel things out." David Zucker, director/producer/co-writer of the earlier movies, ceded the director's chair to Peter Segal for this one, but, if anything, the pace is even more assured. I especially liked the aerial shot of the stars arriving for the Oscar telecast — Los Angeles at night, with various city neighborhoods consumed by flames. Don't find it funny? Heigh-ho, there'll be another gag in a few nanoseconds.
The mistake most movies make with comedy is in assuming that, if you have lots of jokes, everyone has to be incredibly frantic. In Naked Gun, the jokes tumble fast and furious, but the cast is relaxed, almost oblivious of them. From the rolling brass of Ira Newborn's magnificent opening theme music, everything is done for real. And as Jim Abrahams, the series producer, once told me, "Our one inviolable rule is that in this kind of comedy after eighty-nine minutes every minute counts double." So in this film they stop after eighty-three. But not before giving us a joke that wouldn't make it into the script today:
Papshmir: My people are very upset.
Muriel: They're always upset. They're Arab terrorists.
~There'll be plenty of movie talk on the Second Annual Mark Steyn Club Cruise, sailing up the Alaska coast in early September. Among Mark's guests will be Dennis Miller, star of Disclosure, The Net, What Happens in Vegas and, of course, Bordello of Blood, as well as Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, producers of last year's Gosnell. And Kathy Shaidle, who covered for Steyn in Mark at the Movies last summer, will also be aboard. More details here.
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The original Airplane! comedy movie was actually a remake of a serious movie called "Zero Hour" starring Dana Andrews. 90% of the dialogue in Airplane! was lifted straight out of Zero Hour, but done with an absurd twist, which really showed how ridiculous the original script was. When Lloyd Bridges says "I picked a lousy time to stop smoking", that was lifted right out of the earlier film. The propeller engine noise that accompanied the external plane shots was taken straight from the Zero Hour soundtrack, where it was a Constellation propeller plane rather than a 707 jet. In both films, the pilots were sick, and the only hope of landing safely was for a veteran pilot traumatized in war to take the controls. The best scene is when Barbara Billingsley, Beaver's Mom, jive talks to a couple of black guys.
I think it was a tribute to Dana Andrews' role in Zero Hour when he was cast as the pilot of a private plane that collides with the cockpit of a 747 in Airport '75. MAD Magazine did a parody of Airport '75, but all the stuff they were ridiculing was in the original movie! It was shot in Utah, so they could have the Air Force helicopter school at Hill Air Force Base provide a CH-53 chopper to drop a stunt man onto the nose of a real 747, to make it look like they were dropping Charlton Heston into the open cockpit. George Kennedy is an airline exec on the ground who wonderfully muddles his lines, like saying that the plane is being searched for by the "Highway Patrol" instead of the "Civil Air Patrol". The best cinematography was the 747 being flown, supposedly by crosseyed flight attendant Susan Black, right down inside Little Cottonwood Canyon over Snowbird ski resort, to kill time while Heston is suiting up to be dropped by crane from the chopper. These days, it would be a simple green screen special effects shot, but in 1975 they felt like they had to actually have a real military helicopter drop a real guy onto the nose of a real 747, the chopper flying at max speed while the 747 was just above stall speed to match. If they had had one of the newer Osprey VTOL planes, it would have been easy, but those didn't exist in 1975.
Thanks Mark!
I've a soft spot for the Naked Gun movies. Seeing the Naked Gun was my first date with my wife. I had just broken up with a pretty but humorless girl, so when I met another pretty little thing, I was keen to see if she had a sense of humor. My wife laughed throughout the movie, so I decided she was a keeper. I must have done alright on the date because we've been married for 29 years.
The world seemed more wholesome back then. What happened?
Mark replies:
That's a great date movie. I hope the following day you recreated Frank and Jane's "I'm into Something Good" sequence.
Over the next couple of weeks, we did our best to recreate the scene. In no time, we were so smitten with each other that we were making our friends gag.
Yep. Jokes are funny when they have some truth in them. Which is why nothing is funny anymore. You can't write about anything lest you offend someone, so nowadays "comedies" are all R rated and filled with unfunny gross-out scenes. There aren't any actual jokes.
Arab terrorist lol lol pol lol lol lol..I'll get my coat.
The Naked Gun movies were based on the TV series Police Squad! - well worth watching if you love the movies. The TV series lasted only six episodes; it was a parody of Quinn Martin style detective shows.
Airplane II, the sequel, has two gags that were funny then, but have sadly become true, both of which dealt with airport security. The first is where the terrorists march through security with grenade launchers while the obviously non-threat American little old lady is strip searched. We saw that immediately post 9-11. The second is where the TSA-esque agent is sitting there watching the monitor as people pass through and sees them naked. That came true with the full-body scans around 2009. What were such absurd affronts to our privacy and common sense that they were in "Airplane II" as jokes are now accepted as facts of life.
Ah, the type of high-brow humor that appeals to a sophisticate such as myself! Now I wonder if we'll ever see a review of that great biopic of a musical legend -- "Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox Story"?
"Ain't no musician ever made no money, Dewey."
So many great lines. "And don't call me Shirley" is a classic that we use regularly in our house.
Same here. We say 'STOP calling me Shirley!' Classic!! :-D
Nielson also appears in a couple of episodes of Due South a Canadian comedy/drama series about a Canadian Mountie, Fraser, who heads down to Chicago from the frozen north in pursuit of the killers of his father (a Mountie). It's a funny series and Nielson (a Mountie also) appears as an old friend of the main character's father. Fraser has a half wolf, half dog as his constant companion and regularly encounters his dead father in a closet off his room that leads to 'the other side'. He's teamed up with a wise cracking plain clothes Chicago cop and get into all kinds of strange adventures.
It's a quirky comedy and a great way to pass the time when it's snowing outside and your stuck in the house.
The dog was named Diefenbaker. That ,chuckle, got my attention.
Richard, you beat me to the punch. Due South is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. Paul Gross, another great Canadian actor, played the Mountie. I remember after the 2d year, I think, it was cancelled. By the time it was picked up by somebody else the sets were destroyed & most of the actors had new commitments. They solved it by re-casting Ray, the Chicago partner, with another actor as though nothing was different (except for it being a running joke) and explained that the Mountie's apartment fell victim to a "performance arsonist."
Susan, I'd missed the bit about the house being burned down by a "performance arsonist". That's a pretty good encapsulation of the off beat, and funny, humor of the show.
As best I can remember, Leslie Nielson's first comedic role was the movie Airplane and after that I don't recall him in any dramatic roles. Kind of a shame because he could do a rather chilling job of playing the villain.
Saw Nielsen at the Royal Alex in Toronto some years back doing a one man Clarence Darrow/Scopes trial stage production. Excellent show. Pretty sure it was post Airplane.
Mark replies:
Indeed, Craig. He and I had a long conversation re Clarence Darrow back in the Nineties.
That's not the umpire, it's Enrico Pallazzo!
The final paragraph makes an astute point about most comedy films. Seth Rogen, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, John C. Reilly, Jim Carrey: the big stars of mainstream comedies are more physical comedians who rely on frenzied, surreal humor. On the small screen, I would offer Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David as similar examples; certainly less physical humor, but comedy that relies upon hasty interactions and absurd situations. Truth be told, while most of my friends love Curb Your Enthusiasm, I have a tough time watching it because, (I think), it often devolves into Larry and someone else yelling at one another. It always feels a bit forced.
It seems to me that modern writers start with a plot, divvy up a storyboard into 10-12 frames, then attempt to come up with one big laugh per scene. What set apart the Naked Gun films were the quantity of jokes, the balance between visual gags and wordplay, and Mark's observation that every delivery felt natural.
I didn't realize I had such lengthy opinions on this topic! I'll leave everyone with my favorite Naked Gun bit:
The Mayor: Drebin, I don't want any more trouble like you had last year on the south side, understand? That's my policy.
Det. Frank Drebin: Yes, well, when I see five weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of the park in full view of 100 people, I shoot the bastards. That's my policy.
The Mayor: That was a Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar, you moron! You killed five actors! Good ones!
I'm with you on CYE. Some decent joke writers, if you read the lines, but I never laughed watching the show.
Hilarious! And don't forget the part of the donor subplot previously referenced at SteynOnline (in a piece about Kevin Costner movies):
Nurse: "Would you like a videotape to assist you?"
Frank: "Oh, do you have Dances with Wolves?"
So many Angry Arab type lines wouldn't make it into the script now. A few of the tamer NG series classics:
Ed: "A Panamanian ship. When Nordberg said 'I love you', he was telling you the name of the ship."
Frank: "I realise that. Now."
Ludwig: "Nice to meet you too. Cuban?"
Frank: "No. Dutch-Irish, my father was from Wales."
Woman: "Is this some kinda bust?"
Frank: "Well it's very impressive, yes, but we need to ask you a few questions."
Hapsburg: "I don't recall seeing your name on the guest list."
Frank: "Nothing to be embarassed about. I sometimes go by my maiden name."
Jane: "Why don't you want to have a child?"
Frank: "Didn't I try to adopt that 18 year old Korean girl?"
One must forget the stalwart straight man support the great George Kennedy supported in the "Naked Gun" series. His set-ups and reaction are just priceless.
Since the subject here is Comic Canucks I would like to tip my hat to one of the finest comedy duos ever-Johnny Wayne and Frank Schuster. I was no big fan of Ed Sullivan when I was a kid but if Wayne and Schuster were on I was glued to the tube. My folks loved them too and I remember those evenings with great affection. Johnny and Frank were two of the most creative comics I have ever seen and they seemed like nice guys too.
Wayne and Schuster were great! I've read books about other comedians, and it was surprising how many of them cited W&S as an influence, because their comic timing was legendary.
My husband (now retired) was a Canadian Foreign Service Officer. Now, the Foreign Service is devilishly hard to get into; in a typical year, there could be 3,000 applications for 25 positions. The applicants go through a winnowing process, with the group of candidates getting smaller through levels of interviews. My husband got to the last level, and this interview was in front of a panel, and part of it involved a hypothetical role-playing scene.
He was told that he was to imagine himself the cultural attaché at the Canadian embassy in Bonn, and as part of a festival to represent Canada to a German audience, he was permitted to invite 10 famous Canadians to take part. Whom would he invite?
So on the spot, he began compiling a representative list: Wayne Gretzky. Gordon Lightfoot. You need a woman... Margaret Atwood. And a Quebecer... René Levesque. And so it went, until he got to 8, when his mind went blank, and he couldn't think of 2 more famous Canadians to add to the list. So in desperation, he blurted out, "Wayne and Schuster."
Well, the panel members were VERY amused at that! The leader said to him, "We've been doing these panels for years, and you're the first person EVER to mention Wayne and Shuster!" When he got the job, a friend told him that that moment before the panel clinched it for him, because he stood out from the crowd. So ever since then, we've said that Wayne and Schuster got my husband his job in the Foreign Service.
That's a great story and speaks well of the vetting process for Canadian Foreign Services candidates. I lived in Northwest Ohio as a kid and we could get Canadian television via our tower antennae even in the pre-cable era. It was always a treat to see Wayne and Schuster on CBC programs as well as the Ed Sullivan Show. My mother was English and grew up with great comic duos like Morecambe and Wise and W&S were a lot like Eric and Ernie except with a goofy take on things that was uniquely their own. It seems that both Johnny and Frank, although fast friends did not socialize outside of work hours. The both believed that if they saw too much of each other then they would get stale and their work would suffer. Seems like that was good advice because their humor remained fresh and original right to the end. .
I once saw an interview with the Zucker brothers that dealt with the casting for Airplane! They described a lunch meeting that they had with Leslie Nielsen and once Nielsen started telling lots of fart jokes, they knew they had their Dr Rumack. I loved Yukon Eric's brother in the short-lived Police Squad and the Naked Gun movies. But as a real sci-fi fan, I also loved him in Forbidden Planet, along with his fellow Canuck, Walter Pidgeon. Although Gene Roddenberry claims that Captain Kirk (yet another Canadian!) was modeled after Horatio Hornblower, I believe a little bit of Commander Adams crept onto the bridge of the USS Enterprise. After all, He did have a lovely babe in every spaceport!
Britain had many brilliant comedians. The Two Ronnies being a classic example - Crossword - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVWdbO6FFfw , Four Candles - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi_6SaqVQSw .
When my partner and I are apart, which is fairly often, we have a daily phone call. At the end one will say, "Well, it's good night from me." and the response is of course, "And it's good night from him." The Two Ronnies are brilliant indeed.
The CBC used to show a lot of that British comedy, both on TV and radio. I used to listen to the Goon Show and Hancock's Half Hour every week back in the 70s. And on TV, we saw the Two Ronnies, Benny Hill (which I didn't like - too manic for me) and my favorite, Dave Allen.
Listened to the Goon Show as a teenager. I enjoyed Dave Allen. He had a brilliant sketch on a talking car. Shades of modern technology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PinfbvkbwZk , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49xiMfzjpSs .