The trailer for the highly-anticipated 2025 reboot of The Naked Gun starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson just dropped, and it made me giddy. I’m a huge fan of the original Police Squad TV series and iconic movies starring the legendary Leslie Nielsen, so to tide me over until the reboot lands in theaters, it’s a great time to stream the original trilogy.
Luckily, they’re currently all available to stream, and whether you’re a Frank Drebin fan or just like ridiculously hilarious slapstick comedy, here’s a refresher of the films and where to watch them.
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The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
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Release Year |
1988 |
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Runtime |
1 hours 25 minutes |
After just six episodes,1982’s misunderstood Police Squad TV series was canceled because audiences couldn’t keep up with its deadpan one-liners, swift sight gags, and slapstick physical humor. It was one of the funniest half-hour comedies of the time, but people just didn’t get it. Luckily, theatergoing audiences disagreed, breathing new life into the franchise with The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, the first of three films that carried on Police Squad‘s tradition of making fun of stiff police shows like Dragnet.
The late great Leslie Neilsen broke the mold with his dead-serious and hilariously incompetent Police Squad Lt. Frank Drebin, “a good cop, who’s having a bad day.” Frank’s partner, Nordberg (a pre-scandal O.J. Simpson) is almost killed by suspected criminal mastermind, Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban), who Frank believes may be behind a sinister plot to kill the Queen of England. Further complicating things, Frank falls for Ludwig’s beautiful assistant, Jane (Priscilla Presley), in one of the weirdest and most pun-filled on-screen pairings in movie history.
Classic scenes such as Frank’s butchering of the “Star Spangled Banner” at a baseball game, him leaving a hot mic on while he visits the men’s room, and, of course, pretty much every time the Clouseau-esque Nordberg is almost killed (it’s a lot), all still hold up.
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The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear
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Release Year |
1991 |
|---|---|
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Runtime |
1 hours 25 minutes |
“A sequel so big, they had to add another half,” is how the trailer for this second installment tagged it. Just as relentless in its clumsy sight gags, literal plays on words, fourth-wall breaks, and so much Nordberg getting dragged underneath cars, The Naked Gun 2 ½ may not have had the critical or box office success of its predecessor, but it’s still damn funny.
As far as plot goes, 2 ½ pokes fun at itself in that the story is basically the same as the first film, but with a timely environmental angle. Frank, Captain Hocken (George Kennedy), and Nordberg investigate a plot by Big Oil to silence environmental crusader Dr. Albert Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths), a top scientist advising President George H. W. Bush on the country’s energy direction. Frank is at rock-bottom after breaking up with Jane, but finds her back in his life because, of course, she works for Meinheimer. But she’s also dating the bad guy, Hexagon Oil executive Quentin Hapsburg (played to perfection by crooner Robert Goulet), the mastermind behind a plot to kidnap the doctor and replace him with an impostor.
Adding a bit of bond-villain style this time, character actor Anthony James is perfectly sleazy and hilarious as Hapsburg’s henchman, Hector Savage (pronounced saw-vage).
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The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult
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Release Year |
1994 |
|---|---|
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Runtime |
1 hours 23 minutes |
The jokes in the Naked Gun movies are the gifts that keep on giving. Late film critic Roger Ebert put it best in his review for The Naked Gun 2 1/2: “The dialogue is dumb. Really dumb. So dumb you laugh twice, once because of how stupid it is, and the second time because you fell for it.” This is exactly why I keep coming back to these movies. I don’t take them seriously, and neither should you—they’re just stupid fun.
33 ½ rejoins Drebin, retired and married to Jane (now a high-powered lawyer), but longing to get back in the action after Jane puts pressure on him to become a dad. He gets his wish, and is dragged back to Police Squad to (you guessed it) thwart terrorist Rocco Dillon’s (Frank Ward) plot to detonate a bomb, this time among the glitz and glamor of the Academy Awards.
The stars are out in force at the ceremony, with cameos from 90s celebs like Weird Al, Vanna White, James Earl Jones, and Shannen Doherty getting caught up in the hijinks. Frank goes undercover as Phil Donahue at the Awards to bring down Rocco, but instead nearly brings down the house, literally.
The third and final installment of the Naked Gun franchise doesn’t disappoint in the dumb laughs department, and is just as chock-full of one-liners and relentless physical comedy as the others. And it’s all handled seriously and straight as a board by two of the best to do it in Nielsen and Presley, who never got the credit they deserved.
That ought to hold me over until the 2025 reboot of The Naked Gun hits theaters. It’s the first time an attempt has been made to reboot the iconic film franchise, but with a cast that includes Liam Neeson as Drebin’s darker, raspier son, Frank Jr., Pamela Anderson as the Jane-esque love interest Beth, and Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer in the director’s chair, fans might get the Naked Gun resurrection we deserve.