Paramount Television/Kobal/ShutterstockWhen you think of The Naked Gun, the idea of Leslie Nielsen alternating between slapstick comedy and deadpan pun-laden dialogue is the definition of what makes this funny cocktail work. And while the new Liam Neeson Naked Gun reboot might not totally capture Nielsen’s specific energy, it comes very close, and might send fans back to the Naked Gun films, in search of similar laughs. But which version of The Naked Gun is truly the best? The answer is: The TV show that most people have never seen, which is fantastically funny, and nearly impossible to watch.That’s right, although the first Naked Gun movie came out in 1988, it was actually a remake/reboot of the 1982 TV series Police Squad! Created by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, the series came out just two years after their hit comedy film Airplane!, which also found Nielsen in a memorable turn as a doctor who’s perhaps best remembered line is “stop calling me Shirley” (a gag involving the word “Surely” and the name “Shirley.”) If that kind of stuff makes you cackle, Police Squad! was stuffed with it. If you thought various names-that-have-another-meaning jokes couldn’t get better than Airplane! or The Naked Gun, the very first episode of Police Squad featured Detective Frank Drebin (Nielsen) questioning a murder suspect, Sally Decker (Kathryn Leigh Scott), about why she shot a man named Twice. When he asks her if she shot the man named Twice, a hilarious exchange ensues, including the answer, “No, once.”These kinds of jokes are the tip of the punny iceberg in Police Squad! And nearly all the main gags from The Naked Gun films originate here. But one running joke that the films never quite replicated was Drebin’s frequent visits to Johnny the Shoeshine Guy (William Duell), a character who gives Frank the word on the street on various underworld activities. He also advises priests, brain surgeons, and in one episode, gives baseball tips to Tommy Lasorda of the LA Dodgers. Essentially, in the Police Squad! universe, all knowledge of the universe can be ascertained with extra cash slipped to Shoeshine Johnny. This one running gag alone gives Police Squad! a kind of Douglas Adams quality, which is something that the films never quite manage.Despite Shoeshine Johnny not making it into The Naked Gun movies, most of the other characters from the films originated in the TV series, albeit nearly all played by different actors. Nielsen, of course, plays Frank Drebin in both the show and the films, but his boss, Captain Ed Hocke, and partner, Detective Norberg, were recast for the movies, and in Norberg’s case, was renamed to the very similar sounding “Nordberg.” In the show, that character is played by original Mission: Impossible veteran Peter Lupus, while, in the films, Nordberg is infamously played by O.J. Simpson, which is just one example of Police Squad! aging slightly better than its more famous film counterpart. Meanwhile, the role of Captain Hocken was played by George Kennedy in the first movie, but was played by Alan North in the TV show. Weirdly, North played a nearly identical police chief character — albeit in a serious role — in the 1986 fantasy cult classic Highlander. Was Police Squad! North’s secret audition for Highlander? Aren’t you glad you know these things?Alan North and Leslie Nielsen on the set of Police Squad! | Paramount Television/Kobal/ShutterstockPolice Squad! also featured a super-hilarious introduction in which every episode revealed a celebrity guest star, only to feature that person getting murdered in the very first scene in which they were revealed. (In Episode 4, William Shatner gets shot at in a restaurant, only to choke on his wine.) The show also proclaimed that every episode would feature “Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln” and featured the famous president pulling a gun at the Ford’s theater and returning fire after his hat his shot off. Obviously, no other scenes of Lincoln appeared in any episodes.Like the writing of Airplane! in which the Zuckers lifted actual dialogue from the older airplane drama Zero Hour (1957), for Police Squad! plenty of the non-jokey dialogue was taken from a straight crime drama show called The M Squad (1957). This method underscores the genius of this creative team in the 1980s; not all the humor was based on puns and sight gags, but instead, on context. Overly earnest dialogue from Zero Hour or The M Squad was laughable because of the way Leslie Nielsen delivered the lines. This single fact is one of the reasons why the humor of The Naked Gun franchise is so pervasive and enduring: It’s funny, generally, because the lead actor plays things straight, not unlike Adam West’s immortal take on Batman.In a twist that was good for moviegoers but bad for TV, ABC canceled Police Squad! after only six episodes. The reason? Audiences had to pay too close attention in order to get all the humor. That’s right, Police Squad! was canceled for being too smart, and would likely be canceled today, too. In light of the current TV climate in which some networks apparently want characters to overtly explain what they’re doing at all times, it’s nearly impossible to imagine some of the subtle and layered humor of Police Squad! blowing up today. The cinema renaissance of this kind of metafictional comedy is certainly encouraging. And the original Naked Gun films are still hilarious classics. But, if you wanted to watch the show that started it all, tracking down episodes of Police Squad! is difficult. Some fans have uploaded complete episodes to YouTube and Dailymotion. But your best bet will probably be to track down this near-perfect comedy series on DVD.The Naked Gun reboot is in theaters on August 1, 2025.