Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Naked Gun And What's Making Us Happy

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

The Naked Gun franchise has always been a rapid-fire delivery system for gags, delivered straight-faced by a cop who doesn't know that anything is funny. In the new Naked Gun movie, that role is handled by the very straight-faced Liam Neeson. With Pamela Anderson as his femme fatale, Neeson tries to save the world from, quite literally, a plot device. And like the original franchise, this Naked Gun is all about a joke pileup.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The Naked Gun franchise has always been a rapid-fire delivery system for gags, delivered straight-faced by a cop who doesn't know that anything is funny. In the new Naked Gun movie, that role is handled by the very straight-faced Liam Nieson. With Pamela Anderson as his femme fatale, Niesin tries to save the world from, quite literally, a plot device. I'm Stephen Thompson. And I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about the Naked Gun on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us today is Ronald Young Jr. He's the host of the film and television review podcast Leaving the Theater. Hello Ronald. Hello, Linda. And also with us is Daisy Rosario. She's the senior supervising producer of audio at Slate, where she works with shows like death, sex, and money. And I see why am I? Hello, Daisy. Hey, Linda. Happy to be here. Happy to have you. So for many years on police squad on TV and then in the naked gun movies, Leslie Nielsen played Lutely.

Frank Drebben, the deadly serious detective who was the butt, sometimes literally, of most of the jokes that surrounded him. Now, more than 30 years after the last naked gun movie, Liam Neeson takes over as Frank Drebben Jr., who obviously takes after his dad. Here, he and his partner, played by Paul Walter Houser, are up against an evil tech mogul named Kane, played by Danny Houston. Kane has developed something called the PLOT device. and it's obviously very dangerous, so Dreben has to stop him. Along the way, he meets the sultry Beth Davenport, played by Pamela Anderson, and that's just about all you need to know about the story, such as it is, because like the original franchise, this naked gun is all about a joke pile up. The naked gun is in theaters now.

Ronald, I'm going to start with you. How did you like The Naked Gun? I really liked it. I was raised on an airplane and Naked Gun, and I remember. sitting in the parking lot of a blockbuster in the back seat of the cars. My parents went in to get us movies at seeing the poster for Naked Gun 33 and a third on the window. So, like, very much Leslie Nielsen is right in the front of my mind growing up in the 90s. So I expected this movie to not live up to the expectations that I had of it.

And I recently watched Naked Gun to make sure. And I was ready to be like, this is garbage. Stop doing this. But they nailed it. If you like the originals, this is truly a. legacy sequel, they did a good job. I thought they nailed the tone and Liam Neeson understood the assignment. He knew exactly what he was doing. Like, it reminds me that Leslie Nielsen used to be a very serious actor before he got into the spoof category. And Leon Nieson was the perfect choice

to replace him in these new movies. So I really enjoyed it. Yeah, that's very good. I'm glad to hear it. Daisy, how about you? Yeah, I also really enjoyed it. I think that like spoofs are probably one of the most self-selecty subgenres, right? Because It's like to spoof, it's like you already have to like the genre itself and then they're making fun of a genre. And so going into something like this, all I'm really hoping is like I'm hoping to be surprised. I'm hoping to laugh a lot. I'm hoping that I'm not, you know, kind of bored or let down. And I was certainly not bored or let down.

Like I laughed a lot. I shook my head no a lot, which is actually the correct response for a movie like this. Like I just really appreciate what they did. There's clearly some like respect for the previous ones. and also just like respect for being silly for the sake of being silly. Yeah, I just thought it was a lot of fun. And I'm really, really glad that Akiva Schaffer, you know, lived up to it. All right.

Stephen, how about you, buddy? Well, Daisy just mentioned Akiva Schaffer. That is a huge, huge part of what makes this movie work. Akiva Schaffer directed this film. He also did Pop Star Never Stop, Never Stopping, which is one of my favorite comedies of the 21st Century. He did Chippendale Rescue Rangers, which is a delight if you haven't seen it. You know, he's from the lonely. island and he's coming in and bringing not only that sensibility, but of course the

sensibility of the original naked gun movies. And I have to tell y'all, I just spent the weekend watching Happy Gilmore and Happy Gilmore 2. And Happy Gilmore 2 is a legacy sequel that is almost nothing but echoes, just callbacks and cameos and just this constant references to itself. And I really expected that going into Naked Gun. You know, this Frank Drebben Jr., played by Liam Neeson, is the son of the Leslie Nielsen character. And so I was expecting way more kind of constant reminders of what film franchise I'm watching. And instead, really early on, you get direct references to the original characters. And then they just barrel ahead with a whole bunch of new jokes.

And I would say the hit rate on those jokes, I'm going to say 50, But it's 55% of like 10,000 jokes. This is the Zucker Abrams Zucker formula, you know, with none of those people involved. Right. Just like joke density is so key here. If something doesn't land, if a bit goes on just a little bit too long, which occasionally happens, you're just barreling into the next joke. And I'm also just so happy to see Pamela Anderson in a part like this.

Yeah. This is a perfect, perfect deployment of Pamela Anderson. who I'm very happy to see getting to sink her teeth into a part like this that is very silly and very fun. I had a blast. And the other thing, this movie is short. Yes. This movie is under 90 minutes long. Do stay through the credits.

There's a very good post credits gag, and there are gags strewn throughout the credits, which I appreciate. But this movie gets in, makes you laugh, and gets out. And I'm just delighted to see that. Yeah. I felt largely the same way about the jokes. I think there are. certainly a couple of kind of longer bits where I felt like I've seen this joke a million times. You know, there are things that I didn't think were as clever.

But there are also a lot of things that I think are a lot of fun and that do remind me a lot of airplane and of the naked gun movie. There's a bit with sort of constant exchanges of coffee cups that reminds me a lot of something that they would have done in airplane. And I think Nissen, the more you get into this, the more I felt like he was kind of Oh, yeah, this is right. At the very beginning, I thought, like, do I feel like he's a little awkward in this? But I think as he gets into it, I think it kind of makes more and more sense. I will say, like, in a movie like this, you always have a few things go by that are like, that's in poor taste or whatever. And there were a few of those. And unfortunately, they threw in a joke that contains a really nasty ablest slur. You may know it as the R word. I hate to seeing that in a movie. It's, well, we're quoting from. from a song and there's sort of a joke about, are you really supposed to say that word? But there's no question in my mind. That joke is supposed to be that that word is funny and saying that word is funny,

Tee-he-he, it really bothers me. It pulled me directly out of the movie. It took me a little time to get back into this sort of groove of laughing that I had been in before because that is a slur and I do not want you to throw slurs into your comedy. I'm sorry. So I found that very disappointing. But once I kind of worked my way back from that reservation, which of course I still have, I do think they did a good job. Speaky goes jokes and poor taste. I remember they make this reference to in the beginning, which we've seen in the trailer, to O.J. Simpson.

And O.J. Simpson, formerly played football, obviously had a big case in the 90s. You can Google him. For those who aren't aware. For those who haven't heard. And I feel like there's a reference there. And I remember seeing he's a prominent black man, fell from grace. And I grew up with him watching, again, in the naked gun movies. And then later on, there's also a Bill Cosby joke.

Yes. I remember thinking at the time, I wonder if anyone thought, hey, we're making two jokes about Provident Black Ben who fell from Grace in this film. When I'm like, there's so many other people who fell from Grace and so many other jokes we could have made. So I will say that does seem to be an issue of joke density, where they're like, how much can we pack in here? And as long as it's funny, is it going to be okay? because Linda, you're right.

When they said the R word, I feel like I laughed with a question mark. And I feel like at that point, I was like, ha, ha, ha, ha. And then I tried to listen to what Liam Neeson was saying afterwards to like,

I guess to kind of land the joke. And I remember in that moment, the crowd was laughing so loudly that I didn't actually catch it. So I don't know if I just sat in a theater and heard the R word and heard these other jokes that are kind of drowned out

by the audience's laughter based on the joke density in it. Which for me, I was like, well, maybe this could have been like, paste a little bit better in terms of those jokes. But that's not really what this franchise has ever done before. So I cinch your apprehension, and I just want to validate that because I kind of felt the same way.

I don't want to make it sound like I expect every joke in a movie like this to be in good taste because they're not. I've already referenced airplane, which I love. There are plenty of jokes in very poor taste in airplane. And I don't want to suggest otherwise. That just happened to be the one that kind of yanked me out of it. I do think that it helps a lot to have, as we've been talking about, to have so many jokes and so much going on, that it sort of pushes you forward to something else. And they definitely got into some business that I did think was very funny. There's a whole Pamela Anderson sequence that I think she really commits. You know, I got to respect that. Well, and yeah, and to talk about that segment a little bit more, it involves her singing. And she's kind of trying to hold someone's attention by singing. And what I love about that scene, it's a little bit of a callback to a scene in an early naked gun movie where Leslie Nielsen is kind of trying to pretend to be Enrico Palazzo and sing to a giant crowd and it goes horribly.

And it manages to be a little bit of an echo and a little bit of a callback without being a direct repetition or a direct reference to it. And so it still feels like it's in the spirit of the original movies without just being like, remember that scene where Leslie Nielsen sang as Enrico Palloso. so. Like, that's part of what I love about it. Yeah, I felt like they really invested in trying to find their version of the humor and, like, appreciate what they had liked about those growing up. I mean, like, the writers of the movie, it's not just the director. Like, it's also Dan Greger and Doug Mande who, I know at least Dan Greger worked on the script for Chippendale Rescue Rangers as well, which is very funny. They were not trying to just repeat. They are clearly, like, genuine comedy fans, genuine comedy people who are making largely

jokes that are funny and work and are so dense as well. Like we, I mean, we've talked about the density a little. But a spoof in general is like, you're going to catch stuff on a second watch that you did not catch the first time. I actually think that this movie is way more joke dense than the original naked gun, which I rewatched recently. Like for the first naked gun movie, like compared to airplane, airplane is like a joke a second. Yes.

And the density is much thicker. Foreground, background. And this one kind of lands in between the two of them in a way that I think is really good. That part is really fun because it gets you just caught up in it right away. And I mean, they let you know the tone immediately, which I think is also very essential for a movie like this. You do not want a bait and switch. And so it just felt so committed to on all of those levels. And I think that's a really necessary thing for this particular subgenre.

And that really worked. Yeah. You know, Linda alluded up front to the fact that there is a kind of a McGuffin in this film that is literally called a plot device. Yeah. And they establish so quickly, like what Linda always says about like there's a box, everybody wants the box. I don't need 25 minutes of lore explaining why everybody wants the plot device. And by cutting out that fat, you are just left entirely with jokes. And at the same time, you cut so much out of it that you also have room for weird.

Asides. And we don't want to get into like spoiling weird asides, but there's a thing with a snowman that is really deeply weird. There's a very, very filthy kind of set piece involving infrared camera technology. They're kind of able to expound on a few of the jokes. It's not just rapid fire sugar high, where they'll occasionally do bits that draw out laughs. I just really appreciated that. I was never bored. Yeah. I'm a big fan of Lonely Island. And so core to their whole thing is just like really, really, really stupid humor. Yeah. Executed at a high level.

Yeah. And I think that that is what the bones of this movie are. And yeah, that's what I needed for just under 90 minutes. For sure. And I think one of the reasons why I appreciated seeing Pamela Anderson in this movie that is so silly is that I think when somebody has been kind of involuntarily transformed into something. something of a punchline as she was for a long time. Oh, yeah.

And really kind of batted around in kind of the pop culture sense of her. Sometimes there is a sense that maybe I'm going to come back and I'm going to be really serious, which of course she did in the last showgirl and the really interesting stuff that she's done around not wearing makeup when she's out in public. And there have been a lot of really interesting pieces of kind of what I think is a pretty introspective and interesting phase of her career. But at the same time, you should also be able to do this. this and still have people respect you and understand that you're not a punchline. You know what I mean?

You should be allowed to do comedy and do humor and be very, very silly. And that doesn't take away from the fact that you still deserve respect and you still deserve to have not only your personal self, but also as in this case, your talent. Because I think she's very funny in this. I think she has a real feel for the comedy in this. I like the fact that her comeback, if you want to call it that does not have to all be about, you know, I do something super, super serious and in big quotes important. Mornful meditations on aging. Right.

Exactly. I really like the fact that she's like, no, no, no. You can also still be, you know, play up the fact that you're hot and funny and, you know, that that can also be a piece of what you do when you are back kind of in the public eye under your own power and on your own terms. I also just like seeing her with Liam Nissen. Like, there was a moment in the back of my mind, not the joke, but I was like, I don't think either one of these people thought they'd be here in the 90s and I'm enjoying this. Absolutely.

Yeah, I feel like watching her, if you look at her performance and look at Priscilla Presley's performance, I feel like they picked two people that really understood what they were doing. I mean, there's a scene where Pamela Anderson walks out and runs into a poll. I think if I'm not going to say, and I feel like that was so reminiscent of all of the physical comedy that we see, Prasley do where she's falling down the stairs. But it's all because you're meant to be this bombshell and you're kind of subverting that expectation constantly, which it felt good because I remember watching it. I remember thinking like Pamela Anderson and it, that's fine. I wonder if she knows, like within seconds, her showing on screen is like, oh, she knows, she knows.

She knows this franchise. She's a part of this. So it's, it was great. It made me want to see her more in serious, funny, whatever. Because I'm like, yo, if you're taking this seriously, then I'd love to see more that you do with drama or whatever else you want to put on your resume after this. Absolutely. I just kept having the thought like good for her.

Absolutely. That's what I sort of kept thinking. All right. Well, tell us what you think about the naked gun. Find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash PCHH and on Letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR Pop Culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. Up next, what's making us happy this week.

Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week. week. What's making us happy this week? Ronald Young Jr., what is making you happy this week? So everybody knows that the Switch 2 recently came out. You know, people, very, very popular system. I am a gamer and I was looking at the Switch 2, but I did not get a Switch 2. I actually went back to my Switch 1 and I've been playing a lot of Mario Kart recently. And I mean a lot of Mario Kart. Like, when I get off this call, I'm going to do a quick Grand Prix before I get into work real quick. It's just really been bringing me a lot of joy. And of course, doing Mario Kart brought me to Super Smash Brothers, which I was never good at as a kid.

But as an adult, I'm like looking up Reddit. I'm trying to find button combinations, all of that. As a person who played a lot of Call of Duty recently to like kind of like feel good and do something repeatable that feels good, it just feels good to play a game that just is so reminiscent of my childhood. So that's Mario Kart and Smash Brothers on the regular switch. You don't even have to get a new one. Get it all one. All right.

Thank you very much, Ronald. Junior, Daisy Rosario, what's making you happy this week? So, you know, Stephen mentioned earlier, Pop Star, Never Stop, Never Stop, Never Stopping. I love that movie so much. It's so good. But what I would like to recommend, because it really is making me happy, is if you have seen the movie, but you have not listened to the soundtrack, listen to the soundtrack of the movie, because you have the full version of all of the songs.

And there are so many more jokes. in a lot of those songs than are in the movie. What a good idea. I have not done this. Oh my God. Stephen, you haven't done it. I'm like genuinely.

No, and I love that movie so much. The Mona Lisa song is even funnier, the longer it goes on. Like any of the songs in it, they're so funny. But the movie is, of course, like, edited to be a great movie.

So, like, sometimes you're just using the snippets of the songs or things, but they really did write, like, these full joking songs. And so every once in a while, I'll just put the soundtrack on when I'm, like, cleaning or something because it's very, very, very funny. And the amount of times I say out loud,

oh my God, that's so stupid, but it's so funny. Significant. So if you like the movie, it's like having bonus content that you never got to. The full soundtrack is in all the usual places. Go listen to the actual full soundtrack because the songs are totally funny. There are jokes that you have not heard. Oh, thank you, Daisy. It's exciting. The soundtrack of Pop Star, never stop, never stopping. Thank you very much, Daisy. What a good idea. Stephen Thompson, what is making you happy this week? Well, it has been a huge couple of weeks for my teenage self. I saw Weird Al Yankovic in concert for the umpteenth time in 40 years last week.

I just saw a new police squad slash naked gun movie. Is there a new Dave Berry book? You know, I'm gearing up for a new spinal tap movie. My 14-year-old self is nothing, if not culturally, super served. But sadly, like so many comedy nerds, I've also been grieving. the loss of Tom Lerer, a wonderful satirist who died last weekend at 97. He was a huge, huge part of my childhood and kind of my gateway into comedy. Of course, the best way to mourn Tom Lerer is to play his music, and I've been doing that. It's been wild to hear music from the 50s and

60s, you know, full of references that are now often pretty obscure and still find jokes that still feel extremely biting. You know, lots of people in the wake of his death have been referencing songs like poisoning pigeons in the park and the Vatican rag. Those are seared into my brain from a childhood spent listening to Dr. Demento. But the one that still jumps out to me the most is a song that Tom Lerer wrote in the mid-60s called National Brotherhood Week. But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week, Lena Horn and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek. It's fun to eulogize the people you despise as long as you don't let them in your school.

As long as you don't let them in your schools is still a very biting line 60 years later. It's an anti-hypocracy song, basically. A deeply anti-hypocracy song. I actually went down a rabbit hole of reading about the real National Brotherhood Week, which was celebrated in the U.S. for decades. Fortunately, we solved all those problems. As you go through his catalog, which is so sharp, so fun, also entirely in the public domain.

You can download it in its entirety for free from his website. It is such a treasure trove. Famously, Lera kind of retired from music, was a very well-regarded math professor for decades after kind of leaving music. But just left behind a wonderful legacy was an inspiration to so many comedians and satirists and comedy writers. He was a huge influence on Weird Al Yankvik.

And just, you know, I got to interview him 25 years ago and found him to be just a lovely, lovely man. Definitely mourning his passing, very happy that he had a very long life. And it has been such a delight, albeit a bitter, sweet one, to go back and revisit his catalog. All right. Well, Stephen, as you know, I'm also a big fan. So I'm glad that you made mention of this and glad that we had a chance to hear. Thank you very much.

That is Tom Lehrer. You can find his music all over the place. And as Stephen said, in the public domain. So when we do these, what's making me happy this week, we do not share them in advance. And sometimes that leads to very interesting moments where I, because I always go last when I'm hosting, have to think to myself, am I going to change my happy now that I know this? Or am I not going to change my happy? So I have something to tell you, Ronald, I did get a switch to. Oh.

Talk to me about Donkey Kong Bonanza. Have you been playing it? That's it. That's it. That's the one I'm dying. That's it. I did get one. And I have been playing.

Donkey Kong Bonanza. So Donkey Kong Bonanza is a game where you are Donkey Kong, the big ape, and you are running through different levels, and you're accompanied by Pauline, who's your little friend, and you run through there and you battle various monsters and you grab various items and you have to get over various obstacles. It's that type of game, not that different from like Mario games and stuff like that. If you have played old Donkey Kong, it doesn't feel like old Donkey Kong. You know, you're obviously not just running up the girders and jumping over barrels. There's just like a big world that you are running around in. It's a really fun game. The animation of Donkey Kong himself, I find very entertaining. Every time I get a banana, he's like,

banana, and it's very inspiring to me because he's very excited about bananas. And we should all strive to be as happy, I think, as D.K. is about his bananas every time he gets a banana. And I will also say, This game is essentially built to be a just destroy everything game. You can just kind of walk around punching and destroy all the terrain that's around you, which sometimes is very much what I'm in the mood for. So I definitely recommend if you choose to go the route of the Switch 2, now that, like, I think the supplies of them are getting a little looser. It's getting a little easier to get them.

Definitely easier now, yeah. It's not quite Black Friday at Target, you know, kind of stuff. Linda, can you play old Switch games on your Switch 2? Yes. You can? Yes. Yeah. Oh, I'll see you soon, Linda.

There you go. I'll see you soon. Anyway, Donkey Kong, Bonanza is what is making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter. That's at npr.org slash pop culture newsletter. That brings us to the end of our show, Daisy Rosario, Ronald Young Jr., Stephen Thompson. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. This episode was produced by Jenei Morris and Mike Katzif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Kareedi. Hello, come in, provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next week.