The naked gun

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Television series
German title The naked gun
Original title Police Squad!
Country of production United States
original language English
year 1982
Production
company		 Paramount Television
length 25 minutes
Episodes 6 in 1 season
genre Detective comedy
idea ZAZ
music Ira Newborn
First broadcast March 4, 1982 (USA) on ABC
German-language
first broadcast		 November 11, 1994 on ProSieben
occupation

Police Squad (original title: Police Squad! ), Later renamed The Naked Gun , is an American comedy series based on a concept by Jim Abrahams , David and Jerry Zucker . The six-part series appeared in 1982 and formed the basis for the film The Naked Cannon , which was made six years later and had two sequels. Although the same characters appear in the series as in the films, only Leslie Nielsen and Ed Williams star in both.

Both the series and the films contain elements of both slapstick and absurd comedy. This style is common to almost all ZAZ (Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker) films. In particular, the American crime series of the 1970s are parodied here. The series Dezernat M with Lee Marvin serves as a model for the opening credits and the Drebin character .

characters

  • Frank Drebin is the main character in the series. His rank is designated differently in each scene and alternates between sergeant and captain. In contrast to the other figures in the series, he rarely goes through doors in the office, but mostly around the outside of the set.
  • Captain Ed Hocken is Drebin's boss. He is always at the crime scene in front of Drebin and informs him about the crime. Then he meets with Drebin in the middle of the episode in the office and in the elevator and plans the next steps with him. Finally he appears in the closing sequence and summarizes the previous events together with Drebin.
  • Ted Olson heads the scientific department. Every time Drebin visits him, he is in the process of preparing an experiment with a child and usually hastily breaks it off when his colleague shows up. From the little that the viewer hears, it emerges that the experiment was either sexually motivated, resulted in the death of the child or a test animal or the injury of a test person participating in the experiment. In the fourth episode, for example, he demonstrates to a girl by drowning a cat (which cannot be seen in the following) why animals with gills can breathe underwater, but cats cannot. When Frank and Ed enter the room, the experiment has already ended and he gives the girl the cat. In another experiment, a metal ball and a test person can be seen, both of which can be seen hanging from the ceiling and, according to a timer, are supposed to fall from the ceiling after one minute. When Frank enters the room , the child to whom Ted explained the experiment leaves the scene, while the ball and the person are still hanging from the ceiling. When Frank and Ted go into another room, the sound of the falling ball and person can be heard. Olson's methods of evaluating traces are accordingly unconventional.
  • Johnny is a shoe shine who is well informed about all happenings in the city and is apparently very well informed about numerous other things. Therefore, not only Drebin, but also a surgeon (before an operation), a baseball coach (regarding a new player and team composition), a pastor (to define God), a columnist (on letters to the editor on a topic), a firefighter ( right before discussing an operation, while you can already see smoke rising) and a businessman (on a new musical genre called Ska ) give his advice.

Running gags

  • At the beginning of each episode a guest star is announced (including Lorne Greene , William Shatner and Robert Goulet ), who dies a violent death during the opening credits and does not appear again afterwards.
  • Also only in the opening credits does Rex Hamilton appear as Abraham Lincoln , who is the target of an assassination attempt while visiting the theater, but, contrary to the story, returns fire. In some shots, Lincoln's photo can be seen on the wall in Drebin's office.
  • A policeman named Al (Ronald "Tiny Ron" Taylor) appears in several episodes . Since the camera is at eye level with the rest of the participants, his face can never be seen.
  • During almost every episode, Drebin rams one or more garbage cans while parking. The number of tons often corresponds to the number of the episode. Usually this happens in the first half of the episode. In episodes two and three, however, this deviates from this, as Drebin instead drives a car from behind when parking in the first half or knocks over a row of parked wheels when parking (with domino effect) and only in the second half of the episodes ramming the garbage cans.
  • Drebin often holds out a pack of cigarettes / coffee to suspects or witnesses before the interrogation and says “Cigarette? / Coffee?” The persons concerned respond with “Yes, I know” or “Yes, that's one”.
  • After entering the test room of Ted by Frank this change in an adjacent room. While Ted is using the door, Frank walks around the open wall in front of which the door is located.
  • In addition, Frank and Ed enter an elevator in several episodes, whereupon they can be seen in the direction of the elevator door. Usually another person can already be seen in the elevator or gets on afterwards. When driving over several floors, different scenes can be seen when getting on or off the other people, which do not fit a high-rise. For example, a large swimming pool or a concert hall can be seen. It happens several times that objects from outside land in the elevator, for example when a singer enters the stage of the concert hall and numerous roses are thrown at her.
  • Each episode ends with an epilogue in which Drebin and Hocken talk briefly about the case. After Drebin's closing punchline, the image freezes - a typical stylistic device in the crime series of the 1970s. However, in this series only the police officers remain motionless in their posture, while other characters do not always adhere to this requirement. A convicted perpetrator manages to free himself from his handcuffs, first to fail at the door, which is blocked by a frozen policeman, and finally to be prevented from escaping by the " fourth wall ". The same applies to the credits, for example when a monkey in the room distributes papers around the room and jumps from desk to desk or when Norberg tries to hang up a picture, but then just as he freezes, so that the post on which the picture is hung falls over first should, this leads to a chain reaction and further walls fall over or parts of the ceiling fall on the frozen people.
  • If the title of the episode appears in the opening credits on the screen, it is also mentioned in the original by a voiceover from the off. The written and spoken title never match. This gag was not adopted in the German dubbing, but alternative German titles were also mentioned in the German DVD edition.

Trivia

  • In the third episode, actor Robert Goulet can be seen in the running gag opening credits . In 1991 he also starred in the film Die nackte Kanone 2½ .
  • In the original opening credits, in addition to the background noises, the name of the respective actor and the original title Police Squad (with the English addition in color ) are read out by an English-speaking speaker. In the German TV synchronization, the speaker is instead omitted, only the background noises can be heard and the title Die nackte Pistole appears .
  • In addition, there is another synchronization for the German DVD release, in which a speaker takes over the announcement of the actors in German. Here you can see the English word Police Squad (with the English addition in color ), which is spoken by the speaker with Police Squad in color .
  • When the series 2016/2017 was broadcast on Tele 5 , the original opening credits were used, while the German dubbing was used for the opening credits by Das Vierte in 2010 .
  • In addition, only five of the six episodes were broadcast on Tele 5, so the second episode, Fight of the Fists, could not be seen.
  • In the German synchronization, the name of Frank Drebin was incorrectly synchronized, so that this Frank Braban was translated.
  • With the German synchronization, the epilogue scenes of episodes two and three were not synchronized, so that they can be heard in the English original when the DVD is released.
  • During the broadcast of the third episode on Tele 5, the epilogue scene was not included, so that after the actual plot only the credits can be seen, during which the actors freeze.
  • In addition, the episodes of the series contain various elements that were later used again in the films. For example, Al can be seen (without a face), who is asked that he has something in the corner of his mouth. Then a piece of banana several centimeters in size falls on the desk. In another episode, Frank says that it is also dangerous to get up in the morning and stick your face in a fan.

Episodes

No. Original title Original title (spoken) German title German title (DVD)
1 A substantial poison The Broken Promise A case for all cases The broken promise
2 Ring of Fear A Dangerous Assignment Clash of fists A dangerous job
3 The Butler Did It A bird in the hand It was the butler The sparrow in hand
4th Revenge and Remorse The Guilty Alibi Unscrupulous vengeance The guilty alibi
5 Rendezvous at Big Gulch Terror in the Neighborhood Break a leg Terror in the neighborhood
6th Testimony of Evil Dead Men Don't Laugh Under the sign of evil Dead men don't laugh

Awards

In 1982 there were Emmy nominations for Leslie Nielsen (leading actor in a comedy series) and David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker (each screenplay for a comedy series ).

Web links