Good Luck, We’re All Counting On You

A few weeks ago I stumbled into the second floor of an old bookstore in Erie.  I noticed a book on a shelf marked humor and thumbed the pages.  The title said The Naked Truth by Leslie Nielsen.  I’m a sucker for comedic brilliance shrouded in ridiculous humor, so I bought the mostly fake autobiography.

Nielsen died last week in his Florida home at the age of 84.  Hard to believe he was already in his 50s when he teamed up with the Zucker-Abraham team for some zany 80s work like Airplane.  He was over 60 when the first Naked Gun movie was made.  Lots of people hated everything he ever did.  That’s fine.  I think the works produced by that group were as close as we may ever see again to Marx Brothers type comedy.

Nielsen's one of my favorite Canadians.

I don’t think I ever laughed so hard as I did when I was 19 or so and first saw the six episodes of Police Squad from 1982, the television series that led to the Naked Gun movies a few years later.  The opening credits alone always get me with a guest star that dies before the show begins and a narrator that announces something completely different than the title on screen.

In one of my favorite moments, this simple exchange takes place as someone enters a room to find Frank Drebin (Neilsen) snooping around.

Dutch: Who are you and how did you get in here?

Drebin: I’m a locksmith.  And, I’m a locksmith.

Call me simple but that’s great.  Maybe you’re more familiar with the one-liners from Airplane like:

Ted Striker: Surely you can’t be serious!

Dr. Rumack: I am serious and don’t call me Shirley.

No one had a better deadpan delivery.  Ever.  I love how everyone was so clueless, like Julie Hagerty as Elaine Dickinson.

Dr. Rumack [Nielsen]: You’d better tell the Captain we’ve got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.

Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it?

Dr. Rumack: It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important right now.

Ah, say what you will, but that stuff keeps you young.  Also I learned jive from watching that movie so cut me some slack jack.

So this week’s Friday Flick Faceoff was easy to set up after hearing the news last week.  After 25 years of serious portrayals Nielsen switched it up for his most memorable characters.  I can’t tell how this one will go or when it will end.

Nielsen: Well, can’t you take a guess?

Me: Not for another two days.

Nielsen: You can’t take a guess for another two days?

Wonderful.

The Friday Flick Faceoff features films that somehow share a common thread.  Cast your vote anyway you like and don’t worry if you’ve seen the movies or not cause in a true democracy you only need a pulse to participate.  Love to hear why you picked what you picked though.