Police Squad!
Title card
Genre	Crime comedy
Created by	Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker
Written by	David Zucker Jim Abrahams Jerry Zucker Tino Insana Nancy Steen Neil Thompson Robert Wuhl
Starring	Leslie Nielsen Alan North Peter Lupus Ed Williams William Duell
Narrated by	Leslie Nielsen
Theme music composer	Ira Newborn
Opening theme	"Theme fromPolice Squad!"
Composer	Ira Newborn
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producers	David Zucker Jim Abrahams Jerry Zucker
Cinematography	Sherman Kunkel
Editors	Tom Benko Malcolm Campbell
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	24–25 minutes
Production company	Paramount Television
Original release
Network	ABC[1]
Release	March 4 (1982-3-4) – July 8, 1982 (1982-7-8)[1]
Related
The Naked Gun film series

Police Squad! is an Americancrime comedy television series that was broadcast on theABC network in 1982. It was created byDavid Zucker,Jim Abrahams, andJerry Zucker, starringLeslie Nielsen asFrank Drebin. Aspoof ofpolice procedurals and many other television shows and movies, the series featuresZucker, Abrahams, and Zucker's usualsight gags,wordplay, andnon sequiturs. It resembles theLee Marvin police showM Squad (in particular the opening credits) and the late 1960s seriesFelony Squad.^[2] It was canceled after six episodes, and yieldedThe Naked Gun film series from 1988 to 1994.

Police Squad! was created byDavid Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (ZAZ), who had previously worked on the filmsThe Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) andAirplane! (1980). ZAZ wanted to make another spoof film similar toAirplane!, using the television seriesM Squad as a basis for the spoof. Lacking an overarching plot to the concept,Paramount Pictures presidentMichael Eisner instead secured them a six-episode television series, despite ZAZ wanting to make it into a film.^[3]

The show aired as a mid-season replacement in March 1982, but was taken off the schedule after four episodes.^[3] The remaining two episodes were dumped onto the summer schedule in place of the usual summer reruns. Against critical acclaim, the show was canceled byABC after just six episodes.^[4] The show gained a strongcult following through repeat broadcasts on cable channels.^[5]

Alan North played Captain Ed Hocken, andPeter Lupus co-starred as Officer Norberg. In the films, those roles were played byGeorge Kennedy andO. J. Simpson respectively, with Norberg renamed Nordberg. The only actors who reprised their roles in the films are Leslie Nielsen,Ed Williams as scientist Ted Olson, andRonald "Tiny Ron" Taylor as the very tall Al.Joyce Brothers played herself in the fourth episode and inThe Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!.Robert Goulet, one of the "special guest stars" killed during the title sequence, plays the villain Quentin Hapsburg inThe Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear.^[6]

Each episode's voiced title differs from that displayed on screen. In the following list, the voiced title is in parentheses.

• Leslie Nielsen asFrank Drebin, detective lieutenant of Police Squad. Jerry Zucker explained that the name Drebin was picked blindly from the phone book. Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker had met Nielsen when working onAirplane! (1980) and decided that their kind of humor matched.^[7] The team said that Nielsen would be perfect as Drebin, as the character lampooned the roles that Nielsen had played in television dramas such asThe Bold Ones: The Protectors andS.W.A.T..^[8]
• Alan North as Ed Hocken, captain of Police Squad and Drebin's superior officer. inThe Naked Gun film series, the role was recast toGeorge Kennedy.
• Peter Lupus as Norberg, a dimwitted officer who serves under Drebin. InThe Naked Gun films, the character was slightly renamed to "Nordberg" and recast toO.J. Simpson.
• Ed Williams as Ted Olson, a lab technician at Police Squad. Prior to being cast, Williams had been a science teacher for many years and had some previous acting experience. Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker were amazed by his performance.^[7]
• William Duell as Johnny the Snitch, ashoeshiner who acts as an informant for Drebin on multiple cases. Johnny is the only recurring character fromPolice Squad! to not appear in any ofThe Naked Gun films.
• Ronald "Tiny Ron" Taylor as Al, an abnormally tall officer whose head is always placed out of frame.

Rex Hamilton is also credited in every episode as "Abraham Lincoln", with the same clip in all opening credits as his only appearance.

The show's opening sequence is a satire on traditional crime-drama opening sequences, particularly those ofM Squad and variousQuinn Martin shows such asThe Fugitive and particularlyThe New Breed (which also stars Nielsen).^[9]Hank Simms, who had worked as an announcer for some of Martin's programs, announced the title of each episode,^[9] though the spoken title never matches the title caption.^[10][11] The sequence introduces Nielsen and North during a shootout,^[12] andAbraham Lincoln impersonator Rex Hamilton, who dramatically returns gunfire toJohn Wilkes Booth, as his only appearance.^[13]

Another recurring gag in the opening credits sequence is the "special guest star", a celebrity who is introduced but immediately murdered.^[14] These special guest stars areLorne Greene,Georg Stanford Brown,Florence Henderson,William Shatner,Robert Goulet, andWilliam Conrad.^{[14][15][16][17]}John Belushi was slated as "special guest star" for the fifth episode and a scene with Belushi tied to blocks of concrete under water was filmed.^[18] Following Belushi's unexpected death in March 1982, the scene was replaced with footage of Florence Henderson before the episode was broadcast the following July.^[9] Belushi's accidental death shocked Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker, as they had joked about it after he had nearly choked during the filming of the scene.^[9] A list of possible celebrity death shots was included in the DVD release.^[19]

The show was intended to mock police dramas in the same way in whichAirplane! mocks disaster movies.^[17] Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker wrote the pilot episode,^[7] in which most straight lines were directly copied from anM Squad episode.^[20] The pilot episode is a near scene-for-scene remake of "More Deadly", the opening episode of the second season ofM Squad. Pat Proft, who had worked with Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker onThe Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) andAirplane! (1980),^[21] wrote the third episode.^[22]Robert Wuhl was invited to join the writing staff after he had auditioned for the lead role inAirplane!. He co-wrote the show's second and sixth episodes withTino Insana.^[10][22][23] Both episodes contain cultural references to old movies such asOn the Waterfront andThe French Connection. In Wuhl's audio commentary for the DVD, he mentioned that it was a nice opportunity, but that he did not really feel a connection with the show, especially because of its short run.^[10]

The first episode ofPolice Squad! was directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker. Two of the show's six episodes were directed by filmmakerJoe Dante, who recalled in 2008,

I knew the Zuckers from second unit onRock 'n' Roll High School andKentucky Fried Movie and had turned downAirplane! – don’t ask! When they gotPolice Squad! going, they asked me to do the second one. It only lasted six episodes, two of which I directed.ABC had no idea what to do with the show, which had no laugh track and resembled a rerun of a ’60s program. The network kept changing the time slot so no one could find it, and people casually switching it on thought it really was an old TV show! Like they did in their features, the boys used real TV episodes as their template, mostly a ’50s Lee Marvin series calledM Squad. It was lots of fun to do and was the first thing I ever directed on a studio lot. I prefer the TV show to the laterNaked Gun movies.^[24]

ABC announced the cancellation ofPolice Squad! after four of its six episodes had aired in March 1982. The final two episodes were aired that summer. In an interview for the DVD release of the series, Nielsen said ABC entertainment presidentTony Thomopoulos assertedPolice Squad! was canceled because viewers had to pay close attention to the show in order to get much of the humor: "the viewer had to watch it in order to appreciate it".^[25] Nielsen also thought the premise was more effective in the successfulNaked Gun films because the much larger screen size in a cinema increases the efficacy of the visual gags. In its annual "Cheers and Jeers" issue,TV Guide magazine called the explanation for the cancellation "the most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series".^[26]

In 1985,Paramount Home Video first released all six episodes of the show onVHS,Betamax, andLaserDisc formats as two separate volumes:Police Squad!: Help Wanted! andMore! Police Squad!, each with three episodes in their production order.^[27][28] Paramount and CBS DVD first released the series onDVD in 2006 in akeep case on one disc.^[29] The episodes are in airing order from ABC. The DVD extras include production notes from network executives, a "freeze-frame" that was filmed but never used, bloopers, casting tests, and an interview with Nielsen.^[30] Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker, producerRobert K. Weiss, and writerRobert Wuhl recorded audio commentary for the first, third, and sixth episodes.^[31] Critics universally praised how the show was still funny after more than 20 years.^[32][8][33] The series was released inBlu-ray format in the US on April 14, 2020.^[34]

After the cancellation ofPolice Squad!, ZAZ returned to films, creating the comediesTop Secret! andRuthless People. At this point, they were able to identify a narrative to apply to thePolice Squad! formula for a theatrical film by adding a romantic plotline, and the filmThe Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! was readily greenlit by Paramount.^[3] It performed well at the box office, grossing around $78,756,177.^[35] The film led to theNaked Gun trilogy with two sequels,The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) andNaked Gun33+1⁄3: The Final Insult (1994), were released.The Naked Gun2+1⁄2: The Smell of Fear was considered the most successful of the three, grossing around $86,930,411,^[36] andNaked Gun33+1⁄3: The Final Insult grossed $51,132,598.^[37]Roger Ebert rated the first movie3+1⁄2 out of four stars and gave three stars to each of the two following films.^[38]

A series of British advertisements forRed Rock Cider were made in the same style, with the opening titles changed to other names such as "Fraud Squad" or "Fried Squid", and featuring Leslie Nielsen. The advertisements were shown in British cinemas as well as on television. They were directed byJohn Lloyd, with such apparent success that Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker approached him to directNaked Gun33+1⁄3: The Final Insult, but he turned them down.^[39] During theWWE's SummerSlam 1994 pay-per-view event, thePolice Squad! characters look forThe Undertaker, who had previously vanished.^[40]

OnRotten Tomatoes,Police Squad! has an aggregate score of 90% based on 28 positive and three negative critic reviews. The website’s consensus reads: "Wacky, inventive, and endlessly quotable,Police Squad! is a hysterically funny leap forward for TV comedy that was tragically ahead of its time."^[41]

Upon the home video release in 1985,Washington Post criticTom Shales commented "People can rent them and laugh, and then cry that ABC was so cruel."^[42] In 2009, the DVD set was nominated for aSatellite Award for Best DVD Release of a TV Show, though it lost to the DVD set of theeighth season ofFox'sThe Simpsons.^[43] In 2013,TV Guide ranked it #7 on its list of 60 shows that were "Cancelled Too Soon".^[44]

Matt Groening, creator ofThe Simpsons, has said, "IfPolice 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."^[45]

• Sledge Hammer!, a sustained satire ofDirty Harry and other action heroes
• A Touch of Cloth, a 2012 UK crime spoof miniseries
• Angie Tribeca, a 2016 TV crime spoof series

Wikiquote has quotations related toPolice Squad!.

• Police Squad! atIMDb
• The TV MegaSite's Police Squad Site
• "Transcribed scripts for all 6 episodes".PoliceSquadScripts.com. Archived fromthe original on March 7, 2021. RetrievedMarch 7, 2021.
• "Script of the unproduced seventh episode "Testimony Of Terror""(PDF).davidmisch.com. RetrievedNovember 1, 2021.

• 1980s American parody television series
• 1980s American police comedy television series
• 1980s American satirical television series
• 1980s American single-camera sitcoms
• 1982 American television series debuts
• 1982 American television series endings
• American English-language television shows
• The Naked Gun
• Parodies of television shows
• Television series by CBS Studios
• Television shows adapted into films
• American Broadcasting Company sitcoms

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