Liam Neeson’s Naked Gun reboot will be in theaters soon, following on from the classic original trilogy, but this franchise actually started on the small screen with a TV show called Neeson is playing the son of Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin character in the new movie, alongside Pamela Anderson as his love interest and Paul Walter Hauser as his captain, Ed Hocken’s son. Naturally, when a reboot of the beloved Naked Gun franchise was announced, a lot of fans were skeptical, because the original is a timeless gem and reboots rarely recapture the magic.

But when The Naked Gun trailer dropped, it was a pleasant surprise, because it’s actually funny. The reboot has got David Zucker’s unique brand of absurdist humor down pat; it’s just as zany, twisted, and shamelessly ludicrous as the original films. The new movie seems to be in safe hands with The Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. Before the reboot hits theaters on August 1, it’s the perfect time to go back and rewatch the original trilogy — and go back even further to revisit the short-lived cult TV classic that started it all.

The full title of the original Naked Gun movie is The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, and that’s because it’s technically a spinoff from a short-lived TV show called Police Squad! The series was David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker’s follow-up to their smash-hit breakthrough movie Airplane! It has all the sight gags, clever wordplay, and absurdist non-sequiturs that defined their work on Airplane!, but .

It was named after the ‘60s crime drama Felony Squad and the Lee Marvin series M Squad, but Police Squad! is a parody of all kinds of crime procedurals and detective shows. Police Squad! introduced the world to Frank Drebin. ZAZ had wanted to make Police Squad! as a movie from the beginning, but since they didn’t have a single overarching plot and were taking cues from television shows, Paramount talked them into reworking the idea as a six-episode TV series (via The Hollywood Reporter). The episodic nature of a procedural suited this idea well, resulting in a cult classic.

Just as Airplane! is a spot-on spoof of star-studded disaster movies from the 1970s, Police Squad! is a spot-on spoof of old-school cop shows. It flew in the face of contemporary TV trends and was instead designed to look like a rerun of a series from the ‘50s or ‘60s. Police Squad! lampoons and subverts all the well-known tropes of the police procedural genre in hilarious fashion. There’s a running gag that, aside from being a brilliant detective, Drebin just happens to be a natural at whatever new skill an undercover investigation requires, be it basketball, locksmithing, or standup comedy.

At the beginning of every episode, the title is announced in a voiceover, but the title uttered by the announcer never matches the title that appears on-screen. The opening credits follow the old-hat TV formula of showing a clip next to each actor’s name, but every episode lists Rex Hamilton as “Abraham Lincoln” and features the same clip that never appears in the show itself. At the end of every episode, ; everyone in the background keeps moving.

Police Squad! subverts the trope of a cop vomiting at a gruesome crime scene when a cop vomits at the sight of a photo of Alexander Haig. It subverts the trope of generic police badges and unmarked police cars by having every police cruiser simply labeled, “POLICE CAR.” , who will give up any information if you slip him a few bucks. The opening titles brag about the show being “in color,” but color television had been commonplace for decades at that point.

Police Squad! only ran for one season, consisting of just six episodes. But that means that every episode is an absolute banger. It didn’t have time to become stale or hit-and-miss. It didn’t have time to exhaust all the good story ideas, forcing the writers to scrape the bottom of the barrel. It didn’t even have time to fully explore its lucrative satirical premise. All six of its episodes are brilliantly written, brilliantly acted, and jam-packed with jokes. , and there isn’t a single weak installment.

When it aired in 1982, Police Squad! was way ahead of its time. After being widely praised by critics, to their screens to catch all the jokes. This approach would go on to influence the next generation of TV comedy. The Simpsons’ penchant for signposting jokes in establishing shots and throwing in subtle background gags like a second Homer walking past the window during a discussion of cartoon surrealism can be traced back to Police Squad!

The makers of Police Squad! would . Audiences would have to watch each episode a few times to catch all the jokes and appreciate the nuances of the humor. But back in the ‘80s, in the heyday of scheduled broadcast television, it was rare that viewers would be able to watch an episode of a show more than once. They usually couldn’t even catch every episode of a show they liked, or watch the whole episode, since they couldn’t pause it if they needed to go to the bathroom or tend to an unruly child.

If Police Squad! was made today, it would undoubtedly be more successful. That kind of endlessly rewatchable show, densely packed with jokes, does extremely well in the streaming era. Audiences will watch Community, Arrested Development, and the golden-age seasons of The Simpsons over and over again. was just too good for 1982.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter