Slapstick, Satire, and Spoofs: The Cinematic DNA of 'The Naked Gun'
When I was ten years old, I thought the greatest actor in the world was Leslie Nielsen. He was the star of every movie I loved, and I was always thrilled to see a trailer or find a VHS of a movie that had him in it. My favorite of his performances came in the Naked Gun movies, where I felt like his humor and timing were unmatched. Truly, when Nielsen passed over a decade ago, it felt like the comedy world shifted. We stopped having those big-budget, wide-release, slapstick, satire, and spoof movies. Today, I want to look into the pedigree of Naked Gun and talk about how the reboot, whose trailer just dropped, looks to revive it. Let's dive in. Slapstick, Satire, and SpoofsThe original Leslie Nielsen movies took slapstick comedy to another level. It mixed them with the spoof and satire genre to create gold. The way these movies worked was that they took a popular genre full of tropes, like the rogue police detective movie, and then flipped all the tropes on their heads, acknowledging them and making fun of them at the same time. You have to be smart to make a good one of these movies. You also have to be a fan of the kinds of movies you're making fun of, because you need to watch a ton of them in order to get all the beats. Once you have all of that, you basically write a straightforward version of the movie. You'd do an outline and craft something that could be pitched like a real version of one of those movies. The narrative twist is that you're going to make all the beats usually used for drama into comedy. The Naked Gun's DNA is a potent mix where slapstick provides the physical comedy, satire mocks the conventions of the police genre, and spoof/parody uses imitation, exaggeration, and relentless gags to deconstruct and ridicule those conventions. The deadpan delivery, particularly from Leslie Nielsen, and from Liam Neeson in the new trailer, acts as the crucial catalyst that makes this blend work so effectively, creating an enduringly hilarious and influential style of comedy.I wish we had more of these movies. It felt like the legacy of them became these straight-to-DVD movies that never really caught on streaming. But the new trailer for the reboot gives me hope these stories are coming back in a big way. Let me know what you think in the comments.
When I was ten years old, I thought the greatest actor in the world was Leslie Nielsen. He was the star of every movie I loved, and I was always thrilled to see a trailer or find a VHS of a movie that had him in it.
My favorite of his performances came in the Naked Gun movies, where I felt like his humor and timing were unmatched.
Truly, when Nielsen passed over a decade ago, it felt like the comedy world shifted. We stopped having those big-budget, wide-release, slapstick, satire, and spoof movies.
Today, I want to look into the pedigree of Naked Gun and talk about how the reboot, whose trailer just dropped, looks to revive it.
Let's dive in.
Slapstick, Satire, and Spoofs
The original Leslie Nielsen movies took slapstick comedy to another level. It mixed them with the spoof and satire genre to create gold.
The way these movies worked was that they took a popular genre full of tropes, like the rogue police detective movie, and then flipped all the tropes on their heads, acknowledging them and making fun of them at the same time.
You have to be smart to make a good one of these movies. You also have to be a fan of the kinds of movies you're making fun of, because you need to watch a ton of them in order to get all the beats.
Once you have all of that, you basically write a straightforward version of the movie. You'd do an outline and craft something that could be pitched like a real version of one of those movies.
The narrative twist is that you're going to make all the beats usually used for drama into comedy.
The Naked Gun's DNA is a potent mix where slapstick provides the physical comedy, satire mocks the conventions of the police genre, and spoof/parody uses imitation, exaggeration, and relentless gags to deconstruct and ridicule those conventions.
The deadpan delivery, particularly from Leslie Nielsen, and from Liam Neeson in the new trailer, acts as the crucial catalyst that makes this blend work so effectively, creating an enduringly hilarious and influential style of comedy.
I wish we had more of these movies. It felt like the legacy of them became these straight-to-DVD movies that never really caught on streaming. But the new trailer for the reboot gives me hope these stories are coming back in a big way.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
