Posted on 03/30/2019 4:13:44 PM PDT by Twotone
Asked about the difference between American and British comedy, Eric Morecambe replied that in America they had funny lines but no funny men. I sort of know what he means: A funny man is someone an audience is happy to hang out with even when the funny lines are thin on the ground. Likeability comes into it, but also the ability to disguise the comedian's desperate desire to be liked - which I recall talking about in one of the many pre-interviews I did for the tour dates with Dennis Miller. But, for a while, my favorite Hollywood funny man was, in fact, a Canadian - Leslie Nielsen, the silver fox of the LAPD in the Naked Gun movies. I was happy to watch him in almost anything, just because I enjoyed the pleasure of the company of his comedic persona. Which is odd because his funny-man persona was no more than a smidgeonette of variation on his previous straightest-of-straight-men persona.
His most successful movie franchise came to an end a quarter-century ago, with the release of Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult. I don't think I took that sub-title terribly seriously, but a couple of months later Leslie Nielsen's co-star OJ Simpson was arrested for the murder of his wife and that was that. "There'll never be a Naked Gun 4," Mr Nielsen told me sometime that summer. "What about if he's acquitted?" I asked. "It still wouldn't be funny," he said sadly.
And so Naked Gun 33⅓ was the last hurrah. In those days, just about every movie came shadowed by a parody: Top Gun had Hot Shots; Lethal Weapon, which was tongue-in-cheek to begin with, spawned Loaded Weapon. But Hot Shots' Charlie Sheen and whoever the guy in the execrable Loaded Weapon was can't compete with Nielsen.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Have we not met before, M’sieur?
The trajectory launch came well before the Airplane movies in the TV series Police Squad. It’s hilarious. Stream it if you can.
The ‘funny men’ came mostly out of vaudeville.
Red Skelton, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle.
Anybody here ever hear of BOB HOPE?????????????????????????
Police not only spawned Naked Gun, but Naked Gun could be fairly called an extension of the TV series. Many memes in NG are present in PS.
He does amuse me.
Art Carney: Hey Ralph, you get any Chou Chou or Picalililly?
Gleason explodes!
Art Carney was sensational, every time.
Remember palopanies?
:)
Leno is a regular on “Last Man Standing.”
Muriel: They're always upset. They're Arab terrorists.
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