It even makes it more funny juxtaposed liked this, when Lee Marvin stands silently, sympathetic while Leslie Nielsen says, "We would have come earlier but your husband wasn't dead then."
those Zucker brothers sure made some good shows. the z leaning tower in the window or the Roman Colosseum is there a drive into town. I’d like the subtle humor
they did the same thing earlier with Airplane!, and Zero Hour (they just bought the rights to Zero Hour, to avoid any potential lawsuits for plagiarism).
Leslie Nielsen explained why he thinks the show didn't get the viewership they needed: Basically, the humor in Police Squad, like the humor in their movie "Airplane!", is largely visual, which means that in order to get the most out of it you have to stay focused and pay attention. Other shows can be enjoyed passively while doing other things here and there, but Police Squad requires your undivided attention. "Airplane!" and their other movies did fine because when you're in the theater you're expected to pay attention to the screen. ua-cam.com/video/TaPbDmZe-lg/v-deo.htmlsi=Qqw4lyGbiuh0mbQe&t=122
As Leslie Nielsen himself said, one of the reasons the show was canceled was because it couldn't be viewed like most TV shows, nonchalantly as you were doing other things because most of the jokes required the viewer to pay strict attention. It worked much better as a movie because people were far more likely to give their undivided attention. The other issue, as @LTNetjak pointed out is that these types of jokes would be very difficult to keep fresh for 26 episodes a year. Maybe if they had 100 people on their writing staff...
I knew they had to be satirizing some old school police drama. The intro where Lee Marvin comes under fire after casually walking out of his car is kind of comedic itself.
I figured Police Squad made that scene up. LOL. I imagine that scene made ZAZ laugh and that's where they got the idea to zero in on this particular show.
The same guys who made this also made "Airplane!". That movie was also a spoof of something else: "Zero Hour" for which the producers paid $2500 for the rights (even though they didn't have to because it was a parody and protected by law). This is a short video that shows the side by side comparisons of the two, similar to the one in the video above: ua-cam.com/video/8-v2BHNBVCs/v-deo.htmlsi=V7Mi7wntSB63UMne
Good catch but the plot is significantly different. In the M Squad episode Jim fell but didn't shoot Twice. He was the auditor but had the flu so Phil Din. He was the night watchman. So completely different stories...?
Just a few days ago, I started watching M SQUAD. The early episodes had a somber opening theme, but the later episodes had a theme composed by Count Basie. I watched, I listened and said, "Hey, wait a minute! The makers of POLICE SQUAD! They watched reruns of this show!" I had no idea how identical it was until I watched your video. I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed, even though I was five years late.
I was watching this episode of Police Squad yesterday and remarked to myself how well written the serious dialogue is!!! Little did I know it was taken wholesale!!! Gotta love the cheek of the writers though.
I'm not surprised. This is exactly how they made Airplane. If you watch it and Zero Hour side by side, you'll see the same thing. Some of the lines and shots are taken directly from Zero Hour.
Outstanding editing!! Like others here, I had no idea they (Zucker, Zucker & Abrams) were parodying M Squad. They basically mixed M Squad with a little schtick, and voila. It's fascinating how well this worked in theaters, yet how bad it failed on TV. Like the Firesign Theatre, they use obscure historical references and multilevel puns that sometimes takes a bit of engagement to catch the humor. If you're a Milwaukee native, and are familiar with its East Side during the 70s, there's even more buried gems. Eg, Morry's on Prospect was a happening hangout for UW-Milwaukee students. And the El Tubador Club was probably a spoof of the El Matador Club or El Vagabond Club.
Oh yeah! I watched Police Squad! when it first came out and thought it was really funny. Then many years later when I saw my first episode of M Squad, I thought, "Wow, this seems really familiar!" Now I can't watch M Squad (very serious show) without laughing inside! Even the music is amazing!
At the time, I thought Police Squad was a spoof on all the generic 1970s detective shows, just like I thought Airplane was a spoof of the Airport series of disaster movies from the 1970s. Wrong on both counts it turns out! LOL!
Well, while AIRPLANE! is primarily a parody of ZERO HOUR, it does include several elements of AIRPORT 1975 (e.g., the sick teenage girl, the singing nun, "The stewardess is flying the plane?!").
Sally Deckard the one who did the shooting in Police Squad is mentioned in all epilogues when they are talking about the case they solved and will go to prison with Sally Deckard.
Over the 6 episodes they actually mention every "bad guy" from the previous episodes. If the show was still on the air they'd have to catch the "bad Guy" right away so they could start listing all the people in jail. 😂
Amazing! This was all completely unknown to me despite being a huge fan of Marvin and Nielsen both. Take a meagre-funded television cop show, and there’s no way the latent menace in Lee wouldn’t make you take it seriously, or that likewise, Leslie’s gravitas wouldn’t make you see the same thing as hilarious. The latter’s casting makes total sense now, both white haired, tall men, of stature, with resonant bass-baritone voices too.
Fans and critics call it fastidious parody with an eye for detail. ZAZ would call it “cutting corners”. I can imagine them saying, “The shots are already blocked and storyboarded, and the basic plots and characters are already written! We don’t even need to come up with a title sequence - or a title! We’re surprised anyone actually found our source material. We tried to go obscure. We also kept a lot fo the straight dialogue, but we just wanted to focus on writing original jokes. Ok, you got us - SEMI-original jokes. Ok, ok! Really old Vaudeville schtick and Catskill comic jokes with a whole heap of the Stooges thrown in. But we PROMISE we will never use these jokes again! Honest!”
This is an excellent comparison!! I had no idea that police squad was such a detailed parody! Very good work! (I actually never watched M squad). I was just as surprised when I saw some of the scene for scene comparisons of Airplane! to "zero hour" .. needless to say the detailed work of Zuckers/Abrahams went over the heads of many of us!
@@tommywestphallssnowglobe164 well thanks for what u have! I actually looked into buying the original m-squad on Amazon but it seems to be over $200 LOL .. One other thing; I cant help but wonder if the film "Top Secret" was based on any one thing. I know they used some Elvis movies (like the Elvis movie "Loving You" resembles the "pizza Parlour scene quite a bit) however not one film in particular like "zero hour" or the m-squad example here. Any thoughts?
I don't think Top Secret Is based on another film like PoliceSquad-MSquad but based on a number of spy films. On the other hand i'm preparing a vídeo comparing gags from Police Squad! And The Naked Gun. They reused a lot!
@@tommywestphallssnowglobe164 Oh I know what u mean. I never really thought about how many gags they recycled. Makes u wonder which one out of the three really wrote most of the funny stuff. Hmmm? Anyway .. look forward to your video. Thanks!
Much like how Airplane! was just the script of Zero Hour lifted literally verbatum but with punchlines, Police Squad was just the script of an old episode of M Squad lifted literally verbatum but with punchlines.
You might want to watch the Zero Hour Airplane comparison. Try not syncing them together. Play the original, then play the Police Squad version. It makes it funnier when you see how almost verbatim they take it.
Given that Airplane lifts many verbatim moments from Zero Hour (legally), this isn't surprising at all. This was how they made sure the story was just grounded enough to be credible.
@@jedijones It likely was. When these same people made Airplane!, they used a movie they owned the rights to. Given how many cop shows there have been over the years, this was likely something they owned as well.
Oh man I never knew. This made me laugh even harder . After all these years not knowing that it's a direct spoof of a specific movie. I think people in '82 took Police Squad as a serious drama, done very poorly😜. I loved it and was disappointed when it cancelled so soon.
Actually no, we knew it was the people that did Airplane, and we knew it was Leslie Nielsen, so we knew the exact type of humor we were going to get, and greatly looked forward to it! Only sorry that it didn’t make it, but that was the fault of the network executives who mistakenly thought the humor would be too quick for audiences. They were wrong, so The Naked Gun was born.
The ratings were not bad, a network executive thought it made people think to hard about the skit's after a long days work. That is how dumb network executives are.
@@snazzle9764 It was actually cancelled in the middle of the first season. They only aired four episodes of “Police Squad!” of the ones they’d already filmed. With the last two being broadcast some time later. OP is right, executives felt that the show’s flaw, if you can call it that, was that “you had to pay attention,” in order to get the jokes. Hence why Z,A & Z ended up feeling a movie would be a better vehicle for the concept. Fortunately, they were able to get the money to make that possible, the rest was history, and the whole world got introduced to Detective Lieutenant Sgt Frank Drebin instead.
Reminded me of that great western - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence starring John Wayne, James Stewart, and Leslie Nielsen as Liberty Valence, and who can forget Lee Marvin in Airplane
If Leslie was stared for the M Squad it would look Dead Serious! And my name is not even Shirley. It work so well for them in Police Squads because the cast was fitting the mood of the old style movies.
we didn't deserve this series, Police Squad! It's too good for most people, giving them Marvel movies can make them laugh enough, that's how mediocre we are
@@galfisk Just wondering if the people who sold them the rights knew they would never again be able to remake that story because Airplane ruined it for being used as a drama ever again.
After watching this comparison I am conflicted. Clearly, Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers were great fans of M Squad and studied the episodes closely. I really can't decide whether to admire them for the effort of recreating the scenes (and making them funny) or think them lazy. In a way, I wish I hadn't watched this.
think about how weird all parodies are better when you compare to the original and see how he injected comedy while staying true to the original. It takes more work than to simply make a comedy.
Funny. When I saw the opening portion of Police Squad the first time I thought of was M-Squad. I used to watch it as a boy. Also the movie Airplane was almost verbatim a movie made in the 50's. I can't think of the title though.
when you see composition and u think its great .. but than you see the source and its even better :D just look at whole framing with a purse .. Besides that , we can feel totally different with different cast .. in such case from drama to casual comedic type people
Police Squad is a spoof of M Squad just like Austin Powers spoofed the James Bond franchise. If I watch the Sean Connery 007 movies now (Gold Finger, Moonstruck, From Russia with Love), I can’t stop laughing after watching Austin Powers. I love spoofs of serious drama it’s how I stay sane in this insane matrix in which we live.
The cheap production values of Police Squad! was a better fit than the movies' more elaborate look. The writers, though, were relieved when it was canceled. They couldn't keep up the pace of a weekly series and much preferred the longer pre-production schedule of the films. It's too bad they didn't keep Alan North, he was much better at doing a straight face.
Brilliant editing work, but how anyone could sit through M Squad these days is beyond me. Leslie Nielsen makes more sense. Lee Marvin was a mean, nasty drunk.
crikey, i was convinced that 'Police Squad' was shot in color, oh well we indeed learn something new every day... but the other show looked like it copied this scene straight outa frank drebbins show.plagiarism in all its forms was the same back then
The scripts for M Squad must have been copyrighted. I wonder if the producers of Police Squad bought the rights, or if it was produced by the same company,
I heard one report that as late as the 2010's many were claiming that all copies of "M Squad" were considered "lost." But an obsessed fan somewhere unearthed the copies and there was a DVD set produced. When ZAZ did Police Squad in the early 1980's, no one could have predicted UA-cam. And so now thay are, for lack of a better term, outed.
It even makes it more funny juxtaposed liked this, when Lee Marvin stands silently, sympathetic while Leslie Nielsen says, "We would have come earlier but your husband wasn't dead then."
I did live with a guy once....the usual slurs, innuendos...
those Zucker
brothers sure made some good shows. the z leaning tower in the window or the Roman Colosseum is there a drive into town. I’d like the subtle humor
Juxtaposed, what is it?
😂
@@daneriksson8947 Well, that when two similar images are reproduced next to each other. But that’s not important right now.
As a big fan of police squad, I had no idea that they apparently based quite a bit of it on M Squad. Amazing job editing.
they did the same thing earlier with Airplane!, and Zero Hour (they just bought the rights to Zero Hour, to avoid any potential lawsuits for plagiarism).
I'm learning that M Squad existed from this video.
the greatest crime in cinematical history is cutting the Police squad after just 6 episodes
And all because some humorless executive had a tree branch wedged firmly up his own ass.
Probably just as well; I dont know how they could've kept it going for more than a season
Drebdin is on the case.
@@BGNOLAIt would definitely take some very creative writing. Luckily each episode was only 30 minutes long.
Leslie Nielsen explained why he thinks the show didn't get the viewership they needed: Basically, the humor in Police Squad, like the humor in their movie "Airplane!", is largely visual, which means that in order to get the most out of it you have to stay focused and pay attention. Other shows can be enjoyed passively while doing other things here and there, but Police Squad requires your undivided attention. "Airplane!" and their other movies did fine because when you're in the theater you're expected to pay attention to the screen. ua-cam.com/video/TaPbDmZe-lg/v-deo.htmlsi=Qqw4lyGbiuh0mbQe&t=122
I'm now picturing a strange alternate universe where Leslie Nielsen headlined _The Dirty Dozen_ while Lee Marvin portrayed Frank Drebin.
Wow...I would love to see that movie.
Not like it couldnt have worked, he played a damn good straightman villian in Columbo, it also guest stared Columbo favorite Patrick Mcgoohan too
I could see that, Marvin was funny in Cat Ballou
and won an Oscar for best actor. Leslie Nielsen
was a heavy in his early career.
No wonder the tag line of the series is "In Color"! It makes all sense now!
It sense now makes all!
Back in the 60's, many TV shows were still shot in black and white. Some of the shows shot in color would tag them as "In Color" in the opening. 😊
@@genapruitt Especially Quinn Martin series.
@@genapruittto encourage people to buy color tvs
I always thought the bars around the cashier but nowhere else was a sight gag, but it's the same in both
I was surprised to see that too.
Suppose you could argue that the bars would do nothing to prevent a gun shot. In M Squad, the barrier is more solid.
That's hilarious!
Police squad! In color. Way ahead of its time . It's a shame it only lasted the short time it was out there.
True! At least it was replaced by a multi-million-dollar film franchise years later.
Actually, color was used for many years afterwards and often still is.
@@JonSmith-cx7gr I do enjoy full colour productions when studios can get the ink budget.
Back in the early ,mid 60's shows converted to color so they literally did advertise they were in color.
As Leslie Nielsen himself said, one of the reasons the show was canceled was because it couldn't be viewed like most TV shows, nonchalantly as you were doing other things because most of the jokes required the viewer to pay strict attention. It worked much better as a movie because people were far more likely to give their undivided attention.
The other issue, as @LTNetjak pointed out is that these types of jokes would be very difficult to keep fresh for 26 episodes a year. Maybe if they had 100 people on their writing staff...
I knew they had to be satirizing some old school police drama. The intro where Lee Marvin comes under fire after casually walking out of his car is kind of comedic itself.
I figured Police Squad made that scene up. LOL. I imagine that scene made ZAZ laugh and that's where they got the idea to zero in on this particular show.
The whole "Woman abruptly takes a gun from her purse and mortally shoots two guys for petty theft" thing I thought was surely comedically contrived.
I know, the show looks stupid compaired to police squad
Now we know why it perfectly captured the feel of the old police shows.
The same guys who made this also made "Airplane!". That movie was also a spoof of something else: "Zero Hour" for which the producers paid $2500 for the rights (even though they didn't have to because it was a parody and protected by law). This is a short video that shows the side by side comparisons of the two, similar to the one in the video above: ua-cam.com/video/8-v2BHNBVCs/v-deo.htmlsi=V7Mi7wntSB63UMne
Good catch but the plot is significantly different. In the M Squad episode Jim fell but didn't shoot Twice. He was the auditor but had the flu so Phil Din. He was the night watchman. So completely different stories...?
Completely different indeed...
Altogether. Completely different stories.
@@stevers62 Completely different stories!
stevers62 completely different stories
So Jim Fell shot twice once?
Thanks for doing this! Also, as in Police Squad, M Squad had a scene where Lee Marvin goes to a shoe shine guy and pays him for info.
I love Frank's monologue about living with a man from this episode. "Sent a nice gift, never got a note" "....can't go back"
This is brilliant. Thanks for putting this together.
Just a few days ago, I started watching M SQUAD. The early episodes had a somber opening theme, but the later episodes had a theme composed by Count Basie. I watched, I listened and said, "Hey, wait a minute! The makers of POLICE SQUAD! They watched reruns of this show!"
I had no idea how identical it was until I watched your video. I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed, even though I was five years late.
I was watching this episode of Police Squad yesterday and remarked to myself how well written the serious dialogue is!!! Little did I know it was taken wholesale!!! Gotta love the cheek of the writers though.
cigarettes?.. yeah, i know.. LOL
Superb work.What a clever tribute.
Thanks
I dont think they saw it as a tribute. Just a good framework for jokes.
@@007TisseTrold More insult than tribute.
That was brilliant ,very good work .
I'm not surprised. This is exactly how they made Airplane. If you watch it and Zero Hour side by side, you'll see the same thing. Some of the lines and shots are taken directly from Zero Hour.
Outstanding editing!! Like others here, I had no idea they (Zucker, Zucker & Abrams) were parodying M Squad. They basically mixed M Squad with a little schtick, and voila. It's fascinating how well this worked in theaters, yet how bad it failed on TV. Like the Firesign Theatre, they use obscure historical references and multilevel puns that sometimes takes a bit of engagement to catch the humor. If you're a Milwaukee native, and are familiar with its East Side during the 70s, there's even more buried gems. Eg, Morry's on Prospect was a happening hangout for UW-Milwaukee students. And the El Tubador Club was probably a spoof of the El Matador Club or El Vagabond Club.
I love that story.
Thank you for the edit, I had no idea!
i was a regular watcher of msquad,seahunt.boston blackie ect...................luved em
Oh yeah! I watched Police Squad! when it first came out and thought it was really funny. Then many years later when I saw my first episode of M Squad, I thought, "Wow, this seems really familiar!" Now I can't watch M Squad (very serious show) without laughing inside! Even the music is amazing!
The fact that Lee Marvin was then cast as Leslie Nielsen's sidekick in The Naked Gun movies makes my heart full.
At the time, I thought Police Squad was a spoof on all the generic 1970s detective shows, just like I thought Airplane was a spoof of the Airport series of disaster movies from the 1970s.
Wrong on both counts it turns out! LOL!
Well, while AIRPLANE! is primarily a parody of ZERO HOUR, it does include several elements of AIRPORT 1975 (e.g., the sick teenage girl, the singing nun, "The stewardess is flying the plane?!").
@@rareimer They even bought the rights to Zero Hour, just in case. They're that similar.
Sally Deckard the one who did the shooting in Police Squad is mentioned in all epilogues when they are talking about
the case they solved and will go to prison with Sally Deckard.
Over the 6 episodes they actually mention every "bad guy" from the previous episodes. If the show was still on the air they'd have to catch the "bad Guy" right away so they could start listing all the people in jail. 😂
Out standing.
I'll give your channel a mention on my next Memory Bubble Episode covering this classic series!
Thanks!!
"We would've come earlier at a better time, but your husband wasn't killed then."
This was VERY well done.
Amazing! This was all completely unknown to me despite being a huge fan of Marvin and Nielsen both. Take a meagre-funded television cop show, and there’s no way the latent menace in Lee wouldn’t make you take it seriously, or that likewise, Leslie’s gravitas wouldn’t make you see the same thing as hilarious. The latter’s casting makes total sense now, both white haired, tall men, of stature, with resonant bass-baritone voices too.
Except they first asked Robert Stack to play Frank Drebin.
Excellent work. Arguably the most interesting thing I've seen on UA-cam!
Thanks!
Let's not oversell it.
Wow! What a heritage! Proper police drama and proper police dramedy!
Loved Police Squad when it came on the telly, and was shocked when it was pulled. Oh, such humour !! Thank you, Tommy And wonderful pairings. LOL
Fans and critics call it fastidious parody with an eye for detail. ZAZ would call it “cutting corners”.
I can imagine them saying, “The shots are already blocked and storyboarded, and the basic plots and characters are already written! We don’t even need to come up with a title sequence - or a title! We’re surprised anyone actually found our source material. We tried to go obscure. We also kept a lot fo the straight dialogue, but we just wanted to focus on writing original jokes. Ok, you got us - SEMI-original jokes. Ok, ok! Really old Vaudeville schtick and Catskill comic jokes with a whole heap of the Stooges thrown in. But we PROMISE we will never use these jokes again! Honest!”
Wow, that’s incredible! I knew there was an influence but had no idea it was so symmetrical. thanks for posting. 👍
This is an excellent comparison!! I had no idea that police squad was such a detailed parody! Very good work! (I actually never watched M squad). I was just as surprised when I saw some of the scene for scene comparisons of Airplane! to "zero hour" .. needless to say the detailed work of Zuckers/Abrahams went over the heads of many of us!
I wish I could find the full episode of M Squad, this is the best I can do with the pieces I have.
@@tommywestphallssnowglobe164 well thanks for what u have! I actually looked into buying the original m-squad on Amazon but it seems to be over $200 LOL .. One other thing; I cant help but wonder if the film "Top Secret" was based on any one thing. I know they used some Elvis movies (like the Elvis movie "Loving You" resembles the "pizza Parlour scene quite a bit) however not one film in particular like "zero hour" or the m-squad example here. Any thoughts?
I don't think Top Secret Is based on another film like PoliceSquad-MSquad but based on a number of spy films. On the other hand i'm preparing a vídeo comparing gags from Police Squad! And The Naked Gun. They reused a lot!
@@tommywestphallssnowglobe164 Oh I know what u mean. I never really thought about how many gags they recycled. Makes u wonder which one out of the three really wrote most of the funny stuff. Hmmm? Anyway .. look forward to your video. Thanks!
@@redshiftexperiment You can get M Squad on eBay for $50-60.
Much like how Airplane! was just the script of Zero Hour lifted literally verbatum but with punchlines, Police Squad was just the script of an old episode of M Squad lifted literally verbatum but with punchlines.
You might want to watch the Zero Hour Airplane comparison. Try not syncing them together. Play the original, then play the Police Squad version. It makes it funnier when you see how almost verbatim they take it.
Good idea.
Lee Marvin was still alive at the time of 'Police Squad'. I wonder if he ever saw an episode and what he thought of it.
I've never seen M-Squad but that's pretty good.
Given that Airplane lifts many verbatim moments from Zero Hour (legally), this isn't surprising at all. This was how they made sure the story was just grounded enough to be credible.
But...was this...legal?
@@jedijones It likely was. When these same people made Airplane!, they used a movie they owned the rights to. Given how many cop shows there have been over the years, this was likely something they owned as well.
I love that "Bookie" is changed to orthodontist!!
LOL at the Leaning Tower of Pisa and The Colosseum. I got to find a place to watch these.
Your living room?
Oh man I never knew. This made me laugh even harder . After all these years not knowing that it's a direct spoof of a specific movie. I think people in '82 took Police Squad as a serious drama, done very poorly😜. I loved it and was disappointed when it cancelled so soon.
Actually no, we knew it was the people that did Airplane, and we knew it was Leslie Nielsen, so we knew the exact type of humor we were going to get, and greatly looked forward to it!
Only sorry that it didn’t make it, but that was the fault of the network executives who mistakenly thought the humor would be too quick for audiences.
They were wrong, so The Naked Gun was born.
@@VolkswagenNut1969 My gun was born naked too.
The ratings were not bad, a network executive thought it made people think to hard about the skit's after a long days work. That is how dumb network executives are.
It was way ahead of the curve. That's what's sad.
But Leslie Nielson himself said the ratings suffered more and more after each episode?
@@snazzle9764 It was actually cancelled in the middle of the first season. They only aired four episodes of “Police Squad!” of the ones they’d already filmed. With the last two being broadcast some time later.
OP is right, executives felt that the show’s flaw, if you can call it that, was that “you had to pay attention,” in order to get the jokes. Hence why Z,A & Z ended up feeling a movie would be a better vehicle for the concept. Fortunately, they were able to get the money to make that possible, the rest was history, and the whole world got introduced to Detective Lieutenant Sgt
Frank Drebin instead.
@@michaeljames4904 I think Frank is too dumb in the movies
@@ribbonsofnight Ah but that fella sure could catch a vase.
Nothing like a shot-by-shot remake of a 25 year old show to ensure a successful and long-lived new comedy series.
Never fails.
I had no idea police squad was a spoof like this!
Much hilarious fun; thank you for sharing. Cheers
This is M Squad, not Cheers.
Reminded me of that great western - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence starring John Wayne, James Stewart, and Leslie Nielsen as Liberty Valence, and who can forget Lee Marvin in Airplane
By a strange coincidence, Airplane is an almost scene-by-scene (and dialog) copy of Zero Hour (1957) 😜
Nice work 👍🏼👍🏼
If Leslie was stared for the M Squad it would look Dead Serious! And my name is not even Shirley. It work so well for them in Police Squads because the cast was fitting the mood of the old style movies.
The girl on Police Squad was Kathryn Leigh Scott from DARK SHADOWS, so she was a pro at keeping a straight face while delivering ridiculous dialogue.
Jajajjajaja she must have been
Bite your tongue!
I had no idea that it was made this this!
we didn't deserve this series, Police Squad! It's too good for most people, giving them Marvel movies can make them laugh enough, that's how mediocre we are
At least we had 5 episodes.
@@tommywestphallssnowglobe164 6.
You are.
So the pilot of Police Squad! was lifted from a M Squad episode, just redone with wacky gags.
Correct!!
And the plot from Airplane! Is lifted from Zero Hour, which they bought the rights to in order to be able to (ab)use it freely.
@@galfisk Just wondering if the people who sold them the rights knew they would never again be able to remake that story because Airplane ruined it for being used as a drama ever again.
@@jedijones I don't think a serious remake of zero hour would be seen as a big loss
@@ribbonsofnight It's a loss for all of us.
way cool to catch that
Are there other episodes in Police Squad borrowing/inspired by M Squad episodes in the same way as the pilot.
Don't think so
@@tommywestphallssnowglobe164 damn. Thanks for the reply.
When I was a kid, M Squad kind of scared me. Now, not so much.
Flying High (I think it was 1980 or 1982) was similarly based on a B&W movie. The two films were almost scene for scene remakes.
Is that Beverly Garland in the M Squad episode?
You should put Zero Hour & Airplane side by side, the exact same lines told straight faced in both, only in Airplane theyre SuPPoSeD to be funny.
Thought so! Boy, what a task
@@tommywestphallssnowglobe164 Have you seen this... ua-cam.com/video/8-v2BHNBVCs/v-deo.html
Because ...that's just what they'd be expecting (them to be)
This is fascinating.
Not side by side, it's top bottom comparison
Touche
I didn't realize how hilarious M Squad was.
IN COLOR
great job
After watching this comparison I am conflicted. Clearly, Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers were great fans of M Squad and studied the episodes closely. I really can't decide whether to admire them for the effort of recreating the scenes (and making them funny) or think them lazy. In a way, I wish I hadn't watched this.
Sorry but I think Is better to know.
think about how weird all parodies are better when you compare to the original and see how he injected comedy while staying true to the original. It takes more work than to simply make a comedy.
The problem is they also copied jokes from other sources.
@@tommywestphallssnowglobe164 The truth hurts but we must face it!
@@jedijones To me, it seems like a case of cinematic plagiarism.
Just like with Zero Hour and Airplane, the Zucker brothers and Abrams copied it like a Xerox.
The first name of the lead character in both series is Frank. I wonder if that’s a coincidence or not.
Wow great watch. I love Police Squad so much. I wish writers weren't so PC and lazy today to make such funny shows.
Zucker brothers.. 'Now everybody knows how we did it'
Excellent
Dial M for Police.
Funny. When I saw the opening portion of Police Squad the first time I thought of was M-Squad. I used to watch it as a boy. Also the movie Airplane was almost verbatim a movie made in the 50's. I can't think of the title though.
zero hour
Wow, what a shocker! Thanks for this eye-opening footage!
when you see composition and u think its great .. but than you see the source and its even better :D just look at whole framing with a purse .. Besides that , we can feel totally different with different cast .. in such case from drama to casual comedic type people
Oh, SH*T!! I loved M Squad!!
Oldie but a goodie!
That was great!
Thats an amazing coincidence!
I forgot all about "M Squad" ...and what does the M stand for?
Good question
MURDER
Metro, usually.
Police Squad is a spoof of M Squad just like Austin Powers spoofed the James Bond franchise. If I watch the Sean Connery 007 movies now (Gold Finger, Moonstruck, From Russia with Love), I can’t stop laughing after watching Austin Powers. I love spoofs of serious drama it’s how I stay sane in this insane matrix in which we live.
They must have bought the series to copy it so much or the studio produced both and let them.
Lee Marvin had white hair even in 1958!
and don’t call me Shirly 👍🏼
The cheap production values of Police Squad! was a better fit than the movies' more elaborate look. The writers, though, were relieved when it was canceled. They couldn't keep up the pace of a weekly series and much preferred the longer pre-production schedule of the films. It's too bad they didn't keep Alan North, he was much better at doing a straight face.
Just wow
Brilliant editing work, but how anyone could sit through M Squad these days is beyond me. Leslie Nielsen makes more sense. Lee Marvin was a mean, nasty drunk.
Nothing is new under the sun
crikey, i was convinced that 'Police Squad' was shot in color, oh well we indeed learn something new every day... but the other show looked like it copied this scene straight outa frank drebbins show.plagiarism in all its forms was the same back then
The scripts for M Squad must have been copyrighted. I wonder if the producers of Police Squad bought the rights, or if it was produced by the same company,
I heard one report that as late as the 2010's many were claiming that all copies of "M Squad" were considered "lost." But an obsessed fan somewhere unearthed the copies and there was a DVD set produced. When ZAZ did Police Squad in the early 1980's, no one could have predicted UA-cam. And so now thay are, for lack of a better term, outed.
Great catch and it shows that people in the 1950s really should have laughed more.
yeah, I can't see how they could watch that and not be reminded of Police Squad 20 odd years later
like..wow..
Police squad somehow sounds more badass
Airplane ! was a copy of Zero Hour ! with slap stick humor. It's not like Hollywood has ever made a remake right?
Yeah, but they all passed it off as original thought. And it was received that way, too. Kind of shifty.
What a coincidence!
Nope.... Lt. Frank Drebin was a more professional and a serious police officer, committed to leaving no stone unturned in the line of duty.
Uncanny!
Brilliant!! lol
This is similar to how Airplane was a scene by scene remake of Zero Hour.
ua-cam.com/video/8-v2BHNBVCs/v-deo.html
Aww