Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Police Squad: Leslie Nielsen as Lt. Frank Drebin

Police Squad aired from March until September 1982 on ABC.

The creators of the hit movie Airplane brought their bent humor to television in this short-lived series, which, like the movie starred Leslie Nielsen.The setting this time, was a "large American city," where straight-faced Detective Frank Dreben ( Nielsen) and his loyal captain Hocken ( Alan North) investigated puzzling cases filled with sight-gags and non sequiturs. In the opening episode they arrived at the scene of a murder to find a chalk outline of the body with Egyptian hieroglyphics alongside, the police photographer taking a picture of a grinning policeman posing with the corpse, and a witness who had a hard time talking through her braces. Parked nearby was a police car, with big letters on the hood reading-of course-POLICE CAR.

Sometimes police scientist Ted Olson ( Ed Williams) might offer dubious help, as when he identified the sounds in the background of a ransome tape as "a foghorn and a bell buoy"-they must be at the harbor! But en route to storm the waterfront with a small army of cops , Dreben stopped for gas and noticed an uncanny similarity between the " bell buoy" and the bell on the gas pump. And that foghorn , was it rally a tuba? So they went off to find a tuba next to a gas station, to storm that instead.

Then their was the clue found in a note tied to a window, thrown into a pile of rocks. And so on. Johnny ( William Duell) was the shoeshine boy and street snitch, who could give them incredible inside information -for a price.

Where did the creators of this odd program-two brothers named Zucker-get their offbeat approach to comedy? " A lot of our humor was developed as a self-defense for not being good in school," said one of them. " The only difference between then and now is that now we are getting paid for what used to get us kicked out of class."

Although Police Squad was not a success on television-there were those that claimed that there were so many sight gags you had to pay more attention to the show than people normally paid to TV-it fared much better in the movies. A feature film version titled , The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad with Leslie Nielsen reprising his role as Det. Drebin was a big hit in 1988. Also featured in the film was Priscilla Presley as Jane Spencer , George Kennedy as Capt. Ed Hockin ( replacing Alan North), and O.J. Simpson as Officer Nordberg. A sequel called Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear was released in 1991 and was even more successful than the first one. This led CBS to rerun the original TV series during the summer of 1991 but unfortunately the ratings were still low. The final movie Naked Gun: 33 1/3 was released in 1994. By this time Frank and Jane had gotten married. Although it did well at the box office it got mixed reviews overall. The film was also over shadowed by O.J. Simpson who had been accused of murdering his ex-wife and her friend while this movie was still in theaters. Although he was later aquited, this was his final acting role. Simpson won the Razzle Award for worst supporting actor for his performance.

A Review from The New York Times

TV: 'POLICE SQUAD!' BEGINS

By JANET MASLIN
Published: March 4, 1982

WAS ''Airplane!'' a one-shot for Zucker, Zucker and Abrahams? Absolutely not. ''Police Squad!'' premieres this evening, written and directed by this threesome (Jerry and David Zucker and Jim Abrahams), and it is every bit as wickedly funny as their movie.

The brand of humor is very much the same. There are sight gags, terrible puns, sneaky errors, jokes around every corner. These are writer-directors who can get away with an exchange like ''Cigarette?'' ''Yes, I know.''

They are also visual pranksters who will slip a shot of the Coliseum behind their patrol car when the detectives are supposed to be cruising through Little Italy. Some of the show's comic bits have been vaguely recycled from ''Airplane!'' but they have not lost their humor. And their creators certainly have not run out of steam. ''Police Squad!'' is scheduled as a limited-run series in the ''Mork and Mindy'' time slot, from 8 to 8:30 tonight on ABC-TV.

''Police Squad!'' is a spoof of television cop shows, full of jokes at the expense of the genre. After a credit sequence loaded with fiery shootout scenes, an announcer says that tonight's episode will be entitled ''The Broken Promise,'' while a title reading ''A Substantial Gift'' appears on the screen. At the end of the story, instead of the obligatory freeze-frame, the two stars (Leslie Nielsen and Alan North) simply hold their expressions fixed for an awkward 30 seconds.

The show's witticisms are about anything and everything, with Mr. Nielsen as delightful a straight man here as he was in ''Airplane!'' He brings a particularly deadpan delivery to the script's ''Who's on First'' routines, which are repeated often -every character in the detective plot seems to have a pun for a name.

Mr. Nielsen is also capable of calmly telling a murder victim's widow: ''Sorry to bother you at such a time. We would have come earlier, but your husband wasn't dead then.''

A lot of the freshness of ''Police Squad!'' is attributable to the utter unpredictability of its writer-directors' comic sensibility. Broad, dopey gags are side by side with inordinately clever ones, and the pacing is so swift that if you watch less than carefully you will probably miss something worthwhile.

The Zuckers and Mr. Abraham have not sacrificed anything to adapt their brand of humor for television, either. That may be their mightiest accomplishment of all.

Here is Alan North's Obituary from The New York Times

Alan North, 79, Character Actor On Stage, Screen and Television

Published: February 6, 2000

Alan North, a character actor whose career spanned more than 50 years, died on Jan. 19 at a hospital near his home in Port Jefferson, N.Y. He was 79 and also had a home in Manhattan.

The cause was kidney and lung cancer, his wife, June, said.

Across five decades, Mr. North portrayed a wealth of characters on the stage and screen, appearing in some 30 films, including ''Plaza Suite,'' ''Serpico,'' ''. . . And Justice for All,'' ''Thief of Hearts,'' ''Billy Galvin,'' ''Lean on Me'' and ''I'm Not Rappaport.'' A frequent player on such early television series as ''The Jackie Gleason Show,'' ''Studio One'' and the Ellery Queen mystery series, he landed one of his most prominent and popular roles in 1982 as the co-star, with Leslie Nielsen, of the short-lived ABC spoof ''Police Squad!''

On the stage, Mr. North shuttled between musical comedies and straight plays, making his Broadway debut in the 1955 musical ''Plain and Fancy.'' He went on to perform in ''Conversations With My Father,'' ''Dylan,'' the City Center revival of ''South Pacific,'' ''Plaza Suite'' and ''Marilyn'' before his final stage performance last spring in the Signature Theater production of John Guare's ''Lake Hollywood.''

Mr. North, who was born in the Bronx, served in the United States Navy during World War II before venturing into the theater, initially as a stage manager. Early on he was the host of a pre- and post-game television show for the Baltimore Orioles and broadcast his own sports program on WRC-TV in Washington.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two daughters, Alexandra Jackson of Rocky Point, N.Y., and Victoria North of Port Jefferson, and three grandchildren.

For a Website dedicated to The Naked Gun go to http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Trailer/3980/index.html