Leslie Nielson was very underrated.This show was funnier than 90% of what has been on TV or in comedy films for 20 years.He always hits a trashcan with his squad car.The sightgags are great. You always find something new.The jokes are corny, but Leslie's straight-faced seriousness makes it funny.The guest stars are killed or forgotten immediately, though they were big names like William Shatner LOL.This show doesn't take anything seriously, and it is so bizarre and dark, that you have to laugh. Guys getting off an elevator and Indians are shooting arrows inside as if they are in a Western. The cops destroy an entire car before deciding to look in the glove box, where the coke was the whole time.The names are like the ones from Austin Powers or James Bond, with stupid innuendo, but it works.A mime is thrown through a window to deliver a ransom message.Peter Lupus says he is going to tap the phones, and installs a beer tap. Then describes to the grieving parents that their daughter is probably already mutilated or dead or something. LOL.This show was given only a few episodes?!?!?! I was so disappointed when my parents showed it to me years ago, and there were no more after episode 6. We got the Naked Gun movies, but the show was brilliant, and guaranteed to make you laugh.

"Police Squad" was a short-lived TV series that aired on ABC in 1982. I remember watching it with my family and we thought it was hilarious. I just watched all six episodes again – 33 years later, and I found it mildly funny in places. My DVD has a bonus interview with the series star, Leslie Nielsen, who plays Detective Sergeant Lieutenant (sic) Frank Drebin. Nielsen explains the failure of the series to catch on. He compared it to the blockbuster hit series "M.A.S.H." that was in its 11th season in 1982. Nielsen said one could get up and go to the refrigerator while "M.A.S.H." was on, and not miss the comedy. But people had to stay glued to their TV sets the whole time during "Police Squad." The reason is because they would miss much of the comedy that was in sight gags extraneous to the dialog taking place. This series indeed had tons of sight gags that added to the humor. And, if one were to leave (we didn't back then), one would miss something for sure. This time around, I still saw and enjoyed the sight gags. So, I can see Nielsen's point and think it's valid for that time. The difference this time is that I thought the dialog was goofy but not that funny. In other words, it is dated – not so much in the content as to the style and what was considered very funny by the culture of the time. Today, the script of "Police Squad" just isn't as funny to me. But it appears that many other viewers still find it very funny. Still, I just don't see that this series rates up there near "Fawlty Towers," (1975) which is one of the greatest comedy series of all time. Or, that it's funnier and better than really great comedies of the period. Yet IMDb viewers overall as of November 2015 rate this TV series better than such classic comedies as "The Jerk" 1979, "Caddyshack" (1980), "Airplane" (1980), "The Naked Gun" (1988), and "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988). To use a modern term, I'll just say, go figure!

The inspiration for the "Naked Gun" movies casts Leslie Nielsen - who had only recently started doing comedy* - as the incompetent but heroic Frank Drebin, always having to solve an absurd case. Like "Airplane!" and the movies based on the series, the humor relies on Mel Brooks-style spot gags and silly comments (namely the "yes it is" remarks), along with the fact that Nielsen remains very serious despite the nonsense around him. And of course, the final frame, in which something keeps moving.It's too bad that the show only had six episodes. At least it spawned the movies. You can't go wrong with Leslie Nielsen in these sorts of roles. I suspect that they all had fun filming it. Really funny.*Before "Airplane!", Leslie Nielsen had starred in movies like "Forbidden Planet", "Harlow" and "The Poseidon Adventure". As late as 1987 he co-starred in "Nuts" alongside Barbra Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss. But since the first "Naked Gun" movie it's been all comedy all the time.

The creative team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker had their roots in improvisational theatre in Madison, Wisconsin, I believe it was. They had a group called 'Kentucky Fried Theatre'(or something similar.) They put a bunch of their set pieces onto celluloid as'KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE'(1977), which was long, irreverent, sophomoric and really funny.They followed up with the very popular, AIRPLANE! (1980), which really put them on the map. In it, they took some rather well known veteran actors in Robert Stack and (especially) Leslie Nielsen, and putting them in prominent roles, proceeded to parody every cliché of every aviation film since the days of John Wayne's (Batjac)Production of THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954).* Pockets stuffed with cash and now having been noticed, the trio worked out a deal with Pramount Television and the American Broadcasting Company TV Network to do a half hour comedy spoof of the nearly countless Police Crime Drama show that have come and gone on our television screens over the years. Remembering the fine job that Mr. Leslie Nielsen had turned in on AIRPLANE!, he was cast in the lead.As Sgt/Lt./Captain Frank Drebbin (the rank designation switch being one of their comic bits),he presided over a great series of successive puns, sight gags, non sequitors, and overblown police/crime clichés.All of these strung together by some,seemingly standard scripts. Added to this is overly dramatic opening narration, voiced over information contradicting the visual printed info. They always used this in giving the title of the episode titles, where voice and printed titles never matched.They had a great musical score, which even though being somewhat exaggerated, would have passed as theme and incidental music in a straight drama.The musical score, the opening titles and format of having the episodes divided into Act I, Act II, Epilogue, etc., were all part of obvious, but affectionate, ribbing of Q.M. (Quinn Martin) Productions. (They even had the same announcer as did the real Q.M.'s.)One thing that this all too short of a series did not have was a technically augmented audience laughter. And, boy they sure didn't need any phony tract. The nature of the spoof was such that it demanded the viewer's close, almost undivided attention, and that proved to be the ultimate reason behind POLICE SQUAD's downfall.In regards to the series cancellation,an ABC Executive explained that the episodes "...called for too much attention on the part of the viewer." So, isn't that what one would want?So, after only 6 wonderfully wacky, hilarious episodes,off to the afterlife of series cancellation went POLICE SQUAD!, only to be reborn in THE NAKED GUN trilogy, made for the big screen in movie houses. Once again, they did quite well at the Box Office. Oh well, TV's loss is Cinema's gain, thanks to you Mr. Idiot TV Exec!* THE HIGH AND MIGHTY was produced by the Duke's own Batjac Productions and released by Warner Brothers. It was unavailable for quite a number of years and finally, Mr. Wayne's family made arrangements to release it to television and to video.