While a person is predisposed to certain comic rhythms--whether physical, verbal (its jokes aside, I've always found that Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First?" routine has an appealing sound), or, as is standard issue, a combination of the two--he or she can only play smarty-pants for so long before pop-cultural references turn a purportedly witty film (or book, or play, etc.) into a laughless, if eye-opening, anthropological study. (It's the same reason slapstick, an offshoot of mime, travels best abroad.) Granted, this fairly simplistic argument conspicuously sweeps Monty Python and every brilliant year of "The Simpsons" under the carpet. Unfortunately, I can't think of a more all-encompassing way to preface this discussion of the Naked Gun movies; I'm glad I can laugh along with them today, yet I wonder if that's because I recall the context in which I initially laughed along with them.

Despite a prologue that tweaks Cold War figureheads (Gorbachev, the Ayatollah), The Naked Gun is the least topical entry in the franchise and consequently still the most enjoyable. Leslie Nielsen reprises his role on "Police Squad!" (a short-lived ABC sitcom that sent up crime shows of the seventies, like "Columbo" and "Mannix") as Lt. Frank Drebin, a brick-jawed, gun-totin' (to a gleefully incorrect degree, à la spiritual cousin Sledge Hammer), old-school cop with a nose--and knack--for danger. Since The Naked Gun is from the authors of Airplane! and Top Secret!, Frank exists in a universe where abstract silliness is constant and accepted at face value by its inhabitants.

It's a mutual, ironic, corroborative relationship between them, actually--circumstance pays close attention to Frank, et al. After Drebin tells a colleague he's reminded of his ex everywhere he goes, he drives past breast-shaped water silos. He looks up a woman's skirt and exclaims "Nice beaver!", at which point she passes down a taxidermic beaver for him to shelve. No one is better at this stuff (nor potty humour) than the team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker (collectively, ZAZ), who collaborated on The Naked Gun's screenplay (with Pat Proft); as a general rule, when you see only one of their names on a project, it will be a third as funny as it could have been with the other members attached. (See below.)

In The Naked Gun, deadpan Drebin investigates the men responsible for putting partner Nordberg (O.J. Simpson, in a role that's now got schadenfreude going for it in light of his murder trial) out of commission, uncovering a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth on her tour of L.A. in the process. That's about all you need to know--for eighty-four galvanizing minutes, royal decorum and other sacred cattle are laid to waste. Ricardo Montalban and Priscilla Presley are game as the villain and femme fatale, respectively; George Kennedy projects characteristic warmth as Capt. Ed Hocken.

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Nielsen, Presley, and Kennedy return in The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear, though sadly, neither Jerry Zucker (busy celebrating the success of Ghost) nor Jim Abrahams (busy preparing his solo spoof effort, Hot Shots!) reunited for its script, leaving David Zucker to go it alone in both the writing (well, with Pat Proft) and directing chores. Worse, David brings a sanctimonious environmental agenda (Frank's latest assignment sees him preventing the spread of nuclear power plants) to the film that felt out of place even then, and his Republican-bashing (figuratively and literally: Barbara Bush takes many a pratfall) is edgeless.

The gags that do work were lifted directly from "Police Squad!" ("I decided to drive back to police headquarters," Drebin says in voice over as he steers through traffic in reverse) or recycled from The Naked Gun. (If you don't break into hysterics whenever Frank almost smothers himself with a pillow, check your pulse for signs of life.) The ones that fail authenticate The Smell of Fear as a 1991 annual, a feature-length 'hot-button' episode of hot-button "Saturday Night Live". George Bush impersonator? Check. Another Zsa Zsa Gabor run-in with the law? Check. A picture of Michael Dukakis in a collection of famous disaster photographs? Check. I'm old enough to remember why or how these references are meant to tickle us, so I smiled at them in recognition--but barely, at that. If The Naked Gun takes me back to my innocent-pervert youth, The Smell of Fear takes me back to when I started watching CNN.

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Even David Zucker bowed out of directing Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (note the missing "The"), and the result is a film that's visually out of synch with its prequels, but thankfully not by much. To the chagrin of his wife, retired Frank returns to the force as an undercover cop, going "inside" to spy on a terrorist prisoner (Fred Ward). Oddly enough, The Final Insult predated The Shawshank Redemption by six months but could pass for its MAD MAGAZINE spoof as Drebin and the convict hatch an escape plan together.

Nielsen's performance recovers in The Final Insult from what Owen Gleiberman acutely observed as an urge to "wink" at us, to cue our guffaws, in The Smell of Fear (an example of this would be when Presley slaps him with a third hand--he looks perplexed for the rest of the scene); the part calls for a blissfully-ignorant straight man, not a nudge-nudge straight man. Which is why I ultimately prefer this brisk third instalment to number two, uninspired nods to Thelma & Louise and The Crying Game be damned.

The three entries have been released to DVDs of consistently good quality. Letterboxed at 1.85:1 and 16x9-enhanced, all, they boast bright, colourful transfers with terrific contrast and good clarity. (The Final Insult looks a notch darker and softer than the other two.) The across-the-board 5.1 Dolby Digital remixes are also comparable, with The Naked Gun sounding the punchiest: music and effects frequently drift into the rears--unexpectedly, considering it's the only one that was originally in mono. Curiously, Ira Newborn's main title music is dampened in The Smell of Fear.

Aside from a shake 'n' bake offering of teasers and trailers on each disc, The Naked Gun and The Smell of Fear contain separate group commentaries from David Zucker, producer Robert K. Weiss, and "host" Peter Tilden. The Final Insult loses Tilden and gains producer Michael Weiss and helmer Peter Segal. I enjoyed The Naked Gun's rap session the best--everybody's tired by round three--and, once I could discern who's who (nobody introduces himself), really got into the groove of their conversation, a mixture of sarcasm and reverie. But where's Nielsen, ZAZ's snow-capped Mickey Mouse?

By the way, try to tough out the ending credits for all three films. Read carefully, they're a hoot!-Bill Chambers

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