Salmon, Snowmen, and Sight Gags: ‘The Naked Gun’ Slays

In Hollywood lingo, there are “sight gags” and “easter eggs,” the latter referring to obscure images in film scenes seemingly hidden to honor the movie’s filmmaker or, in the case of sequels or remakes, the film’s historic roots. Disney is said to load its animated masterworks with hidden gems, like a Mickey Mouse head outline displayed with casks in Rapunzel’s castle or Flounder (from Finding Nemo) appearing in Moana. Easter eggs are sometimes used to promote a studio’s future work when, for example, Sully at the end of Monsters, Inc. Is given a toy Nemo, the little fish who wouldn’t appear on screens for several years. And, famously, Alfred Hitchcock appears as an extra in dozens of his directed films. Are these meant to be easter eggs or something like incognito cameos?

On the other hand, sight gags in film history were the staple of early comedies. Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp often tripped and fell (betraying his self-assumed dignity). W. C. Fields would kick little kids and feign innocence. And the Three Stooges employed slapstick all the time, none of which propelled the story’s plot, but lent welcome comic relief until the fools could decide what to do next. These are all examples of sight gags which require no words and no dialogue to express their humor. Early film audiences loved them. And, it’s no wonder. In the era of silent film, a time when theatergoers didn’t have to speak or understand English, wordless sight gags made people laugh. And they would laugh out loud. 

Well, wind forward seventy years or more, and sight gags and easter eggs have come around to sustain yet another reborn movie franchise, The Naked Gun, now starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. The comedy pays full tribute to its early franchise starring Leslie Nielson, who also appeared in Naked Gun’s progenitor blockbuster, Airplane!  “Surely you can’t be serious,” says one character to which the immortal comeback line is “I am. And stop calling me Shirley.”

Neeson plays the role of Lt. Frank Drebin, Jr., the son of the late Lt. Frank Drebin (Nielsen) who successfully bumbled his way through The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad! (1988), The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991), and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). Leslie Nielsen, at the age of 84, died in 2010. But Hollywood’s infatuation with the Naked Gun franchise has not. At one time, Ed Helms was to take over the lead character, then Seth MacFarlane was invited to write a script, and, while Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, and Akiva Schaffer are credited with this story, it was MacFarlane who brought in Liam Neeson to star. MacFarlane also is credited as a producer. Akiva Schaffer directed.

The Naked Gun (2025) starts off with a bang. Yes, there’s gunfire in a bank stormed by masked agents, but the bang here is a stunt seen on the film’s trailer. A little girl in pigtails, licking her lollipop, innocently skips into the bank, rips off her “Mission Impossible style” mask, and appears as the new Lt. Frank Drebin, lethal lollipop in hand, and yet replete in little girl’s blouse and very short skirt. This first scene, with incredible acrobatics and uncanny ballistics, gives way to a scene in which an electronic device, just removed from a safety deposit box inside, is handed off to a rich evil villain (Danny Huston).  And from this point on, the sight gags do not stop. Audiences are challenged to study every exterior street scene, every police bureau wall, every VIP lounge, every hotel room, and crime scene. Further, upon spotting something odd, they are challenged not to laugh. Sometimes, the sight gags are overwhelming; at other times, sophomoric. Sex with a snowman? Too many chili dogs? Fortunately, the diarrhea and flatulence humor is kept to a minimum, but so, too, at the film’s peril, are too few verbal jokes and one-liners. You know, the kind from Naked Gun 2 1/2 when Lt. Frank Drebin arrives at a fancy ball, whereupon the doorman gestures, “Your coat, sir?” And Drebin replies, “Yes, it’s mine. And I have the receipt!” 

And then, there are the easter eggs. Scores of them throughout this comedy, and, Shirley, there are more than I could spot. So as not to spoil the attention of anyone more alert than I, just take note of the closing credits. Inexplicably, it includes an eye chart and then a warning. There are also such credits as for “On Set Dresser.…IKEA” or for “Set Dressing….Ranch.”

If these make you groan, then you aren’t totally indifferent to this kind of timeless humor. But, let’s be grateful that film comedies like Airplane! and sequels to the Naked Gun franchise only play for so long. Of course, welcoming to other fans of this genre are the plot staples, too. The story, like its prequels, follows a very trite film noir detective plot. Lt. Frank Drebin has a love interest––in this case Pamela Anderson plays it expertly straight––whose reciprocal interest isn’t so much love, as it is steamy sex. Neeson and Anderson deliver a classic repartee of innuendo about how best to serve salmon. Another staple, too, is Lt. Frank Drebin’s police squad sidekick, here played by Paul Walter Hauser as Capt. Ed Hocken, Jr. George Kennedy played the role in the first three Naked Guns. Kennedy was memorable; will audiences remember Hauser? Further, there’s always a mastermind criminal (here played by Danny Huston) and a full complement of henchmen. For reasons not to be divulged, the cast of criminals includes many WWE favorites.  

The Naked Gun is silly, laugh-out-loud funny, stupid, sophomoric, clever, and refreshing. As Lt. Drebin commands when walking a perp into his investigation room, “Take a chair!” Only fans of this re-franchise can imagine the comeback line.

C. Prentiss Orr is a Pittsburgh-based writer who covers film, live theater, and other topics for Entertainment Central. He is the author of the books The Surveyor and the Silversmith and Pittsburgh Born, Pittsburgh Bred.

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