A Knock Out Favorite Episode

This blog is my contribution to the 10th Annual Favorite TV Show Episode Blogathon which is hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts. I have taken part in this Blogathon in the past and have missed a couple of them because of…life. I was glad to have had some time to prepare for it this year and participate.

Back in 2022, for a TV Show Draft, I posted about the entire series Police Squad. The “entire series” consists of only 6 episodes (and only 4 actually aired). If you are familiar with the Naked Gun movies, this series was the predecessor. It was the seed that grew into the movie series. The series itself spawned from a 1980’s classic comedy movie – Airplane!

In 1980, Airplane! was a major hit at the movies. One of the reasons I think it was such a hit was the fact that you had actors and actresses known for playing dramatic roles in this comedy film, playing it completely straight! Watching Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, and Peter Graves saying completely ridiculous lines as serious as possible only added to the humor of the film. How they kept a straight face with everything else that was going on in the background always amazed me.

To me, Leslie Nielsen was perfect for this movie. His role as Dr. Rumack is fantastic. His booming baritone voice saying those lines in all seriousness is just hilarious. No wonder he was the one who David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker approached him to play the lead, Detective Frank Drebin, in this TV series.

The series was basically a TV version of Airplane! There would be straight dialogue, silly jokes, word play, and all kinds of sight gags to watch for in the back ground. It was going to spoof cop shows. As a matter of fact, much like Airplane! (which was almost a line by line copy of the movie Zero Hour), Police Squad lifted a plot and even dialogue from the TV show M Squad. It also drew from the show Felony Squad. The opening credits are very similar to M Squad (which starred Lee Marvin).

The Naked Gun movies were direct spin offs of the TV show. Alan North played Ed on the show, while George Kennedy played him in the movies. Peter Lupus (who is brilliantly funny on the show) plays Norberg on the show, while OJ Simpson plays Nordberg (yes, spelled differently) in the movies. Many of the scenes from the movies were adapted from scenes from the show.

Honestly, each of the episodes of the series makes me laugh out loud no matter how many times I have seen it. To pick just one was difficult, but after thinking about the gags in each episode, I picked Season 1 Episode 2.

One of the running gags of the show was that the title of the episode would appear on screen (in this case “Ring of Fear”) and the announcer would call it something different (“A Difficult Assignment”). The title of the episode would appear after the episode’s special guest star was introduced and then dies before the episode even gets underway (another running gag).

This particular episode opens with a boxing match. The boxer is reminded that he is to “take a dive” because the fight is being fixed by a gang of criminals. Instead of taking the dive, the boxer knocks out his opponent, which is the catalyst for the remainder of the episode. When the fight is over, the manager informs the boxer that the boss isn’t happy and he’s in for it.

When the manager leaves the boxer’s locker room, a big man carrying guns, and axe, bombs, and all kinds of other weapons tries to get in to see the winner of the fight. A security guard with bad eyes tells him no one is allowed entry, to which the big guy says he is a member of the press. He goes in and there are gunshots, explosions, screaming, and such (The guard obviously is hard of hearing, too!). After all of that, the big guy exits the room (which is billowing black smoke) and whistles as he walks away.

Enter Leslie Neilsen as Frank Drebin. He arrives on the scene and is filled in by his boss as to what happened. He is told that they are currently “dusting for prints” and upon entering you see a French maid with a duster (one of many sight gags.) The police captain asks Frank to go under cover because there is talk that the fights are being fixed.

Frank arrives at a gym and finds a boxer named Buddy Briggs, who is shadow boxing. He tells him he wants to be his new manager. Buddy tells him he’ll have to talk to a guy named Cooper who holds his contract. Cooper is in the back room playing poker, so Frank goes to have a chat with him. As he walks away, Buddy knocks out the shadow on the wall he is boxing (another funny sight gag).

As Frank walks in the back room, he is asked by Cooper what he wants. The following conversation takes place:

• Frank: I’m a manager. I wanna take over Buddy Brigg’s contract.
• Cooper: What are you, some kind of a wise guy?
• Frank: Yeah, I’m a wise guy. With a lot of long green.
• Poker player: You manage Lorne Greene?
• Cooper: I’ll trade Buddy for Lorne Greene.
• Frank: No, no, I mean I got cash.
• Poker Player: You manage Johnny Cash, too?
• Cooper: Wait a minute. Who are you?
• Frank: Kelly. Bob Kelly [puts a roll of cash on the table]
• Frank: Mind if I sit in a few hands?
• Cooper: Your money’s good here.
• Poker Player: Goodyear? You got the blimp, too?
• [Playing poker, the pot has grown very large]
• Cooper: That’s a lot of dough-re-mi, Kelly. I’m outta cash. What about these?
• [Holds up fuzzy dice]
• Frank: No dice. But there is something else I’m interested in.
• Cooper: What’s that?
• Frank: Buddy Briggs’s contract!

If you look closely at the above photo, you will see an uncredited Tony Sirico (of the Sopranos) as one of the poker players.

Frank wins Buddy in the poker game and goes to see Buddy to get him a fight against the current champ. He lives is a dumpy apartment and he seems disinterested in what Frank is telling him.

During his visit, Mary, Buddy’s wife played by Tesse Richarde, stumbles in drunk and tells Buddy they are through because he will do whatever the crime gang tells him to do. She knows he’s better than that and should stop throwing fights.

She tells him they are through and stumbles out the door. After she leaves, Frank asks Buddy about the champ.

• Frank: [as manager Bob Kelly] Now do you think you can beat the champ?
• Buddy: I can take him blindfolded.
• Frank: What if he’s not blindfolded?

Frank tells him that he’ll get Buddy a fight with the champ and he’ll help him and Mary “get out of this sewer.” Which leads to Frank leaving the apartment ….

After the fight is set (with newspaper headlines that read “Chump to fight Champ”) we see Buddy in his locker room playing a saxophone. Frank pulls the sax away and reminds Buddy, “No sax before a fight!”

The crime boss, Martin, comes in and tells Buddy that he needs to take a dive and throw the fight because they have kidnapped his wife.

• Martin: We’ve got Mary.
• Buddy: What?
• Frank: [still posing as Kelly the manager] You’re bluffing.
• Martin: Oh yeah? [pulls out a scarf]
• Buddy: Mary’s scarf!
• Frank: You could have gotten that anywhere. [grabs the scarf and throws it away]
• Martin: How about this? [pulls out a knitted purse]
• Buddy: Mary’s purse!
• Frank: There are millions of purses like that. [grabs purse and throws it in a corner]
• Martin: How about this? [pulls out a toaster]
• Buddy: Mary’s toaster! [two slices of bread pop out]
• Frank: Oh my God…

Not knowing where Mary is, Frank goes to Johnny the Shoeshine guy. Johnny has all the answers to everything (heart surgery, how to put out a chemical fire, etc…). He even helps out Tommy Lasorda, Dick Clark, and Dr. Joyce Brothers!

With the help of some money, Johnny tells Frank where Mary is and he is off to rescue her. Frank finds the big guy (Luca) who killed the boxer at the beginning of the episode guarding Mary. Frank busts in and a chase through the gym ensues. The climax of the chase ends in the gym’s steam room with a shoot out (which contains some very funny dialogue).

In the meantime, Buddy is fighting and he is getting beat pretty bad. He is knocked to the ground and as the ref is counting him out, Mary and Frank enter and she screams his name. At this Buddy leaps up and knocks out the champ.

The epilogue of each episode always ends with a freeze frame as the credits roll. The joke, however, is that only the main characters “freeze.” They continue to blink and things continue happening in the background as the credits roll. In this episode, they bring in Martin. Here is the credits from this episode:

The entire series is available on DVD and remains my “go-to” when I really need to laugh. It is a shame that it only got 6 episodes. Why was it cancelled? The dialogue is so quick, and the gags were so frequent on the show it is one of the reasons people believe the show was cancelled. Nielsen once said in an interview, stated that ABC said “Police Squad! was canceled because viewers had to pay close attention to the show in order to get much of the humor.” In other words, people had to WATCH the show to get it. TV Guide stated that was “the most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series.”

It is interesting that the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening said, “If Police Squad had been made twenty years later, it would have been a smash. It was before its time. In 1982 your average viewer was unable to cope with its pace, its quick-fire jokes. But these days they’d have no problems keeping up, I think we’ve proved that.”

Thanks to Terence over at A Shroud of Thoughts (https://mercurie.blogspot.com/) for again hosting this blogathon. I’m excited to read the entries of the other participants!