MovieChat Forums > The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) Discussion > The ZAZ Secret Formula

The ZAZ Secret Formula

posted 9 years ago by poetcomic1
4 replies | jump to latest

Back in an era when the studios were making bomb after bomb with Saturday Night Live comedians and trying to remake Animal House etc. Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker hit on the delicious idea of using NON-comedians as the stars of Airplane and then this. Instead they hired B-Grade 'second-string' serious stars and put them in joke after joke, and situation after situation without ever cracking a smile themselves. It is this bone-headed and relentless seriousness that makes the jokes so damn FUNNY. Funny how Leslie Nielsen turned out to be the best 'straight comic' in film history.

[–] tb-sch 9 years ago

Yep, not to forget Lloyd Bridges, who was a totally serious actor at that point who already left a trail of classics.
In Top Secret there is Omar Sharif in a supporting role. That just added to the WTF?! feeling when something entirely nonsensical happened. Val Kilmers success with The Doors even improved that.

At the same time the movie comitted to its plot. Where Scary Movie is all over the place and everything stops mattering at some point, the ZAZ movies were always motivated to go somewhere, allowing the characters to still make painful mistakes beyond the usual tropes.

[–] poetcomic1 9 years ago

As many comedians have said, "Comedy is a serious business."

[–] jedi-jones 8 years ago

What is ironic though is how much Leslie Nielsen inparticular completely typecast himself as a comedic actor in the process of reinventing his career. There is no way he could ever be cast in a serious role again after playing in Airplane and Police Squad.

"Pretentious" is a three-syllable word for any thought too big for little minds.

[–] poetcomic1 8 years ago

That's the point - he was never more than 'adequate' as a serious actor, especially after his early 'hunk' phase - it is forgotten but he was seriously good looking when young.