Trivia / The Naked Gun

• Acting for Two: Richard Griffiths in the second movie; justified in that one of the characters he played was actually a professional impersonator, hired specifically to pose as the other one.
• Actor-Shared Background: Drebin mentions that his mother is from Wales. So is Leslie Nielsen's.
• California Doubling: The baseball scenes in the first movie, which take place at an Angels home game, were actually filmed in Dodger Stadium. (Los Angeles is doubling for Anaheim here.)^note The Angels actually used Dodger Stadium as their home stadium from 1962-65, calling it "Chavez Ravine" for their games
• Completely Different Title: Instead of literally translating The Naked Gun (which wouldn't make much sense in the language), the European French version has Is there a cop to....
• Corpsing: In the White House dinner scene in the second film, Frank manages to launch a half lemon across the room where it lands in Winnie Mandela's elaborate headpiece. The actress can be seen struggling to keep a straight face.
• Development Hell: A reboot, which would be about Drebin's son, has been tossed around since the mid-2000s, but David Zucker is adamant that it not go ahead unless they can cast actors who have never, ever done comedy.
• Fake American: Leslie Nielsen was Canadian.
• Fake Nationality: In the first movie, Mexican actor Ricardo Montalbán plays an obviously Germanic villain (Vincent Ludwig).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: 30 years after Frank declared "It's the bomb!" as the winner of Best Picture at the Academy Awards in the third movie, Oppenheimer (in which most of its second act is devoted to the execution of the Manhattan Project), went and did the same.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The TV cuts, which feature many extra scenes not found in the theatrical releases. They were never released to VHS, DVD, or Blu-ray, so the only way to legally see them is if you taped them off TV.
• Life Imitates Art: On July 26, 1990, Roseanne Barr sang The Star-Spangled Banner at an MLB game in a similarly butchered manner as Drebin in this film.
• Money, Dear Boy: Ricardo Montalbán took the role of Ludwig to pay for a new car.
• The Other Darrin: Neither Hocken nor Nor(d)berg was played by the same actor as in the series.
• Real-Life Relative: Charlotte Zucker, mother of Jerry and David Zucker, plays Vincent Ludwig's secretary Dominique.
• Recycled Script: If you've seen Police Squad!, you'll recognize a few jokes here and there that ZAZ reused for the movies.
• Referenced by...: In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic briefly watches the first film.
• Refitted for Sequel: The wedding flashback scene from the third film was originally filmed as the ending for the second film. The scene was even shown as a preview for the former movie in select Paramount VHS titles during their 1993 holiday rebate campaign with McDonalds.
• Stunt Double: Parodied; suddenly, Leslie Nielsen can do multiple front flips and perform a complicated dance with Priscilla Presley.
• Trans Character, Cis Actor: In the third movie, trans character Tanya Peters is played by cis actress and model Anna Nicole Smith.
• Wag the Director: The hospital was originally named "Our Lady Who Never Got the Pickle" in the script for the first movie, but it was changed at the polite request of Ricardo Montalbán, who was a devout Catholic and found the gag disrespectful.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Bait-and-Switch: One of the deleted scenes concerns the baseball announcers saying that the umpire and managers are on the field discussing the game. It turns out they're actually discussing economics.
  • Fee Fi Faux Pas: Played with in one of the Deleted Scenes:
    Frank: Why you sniveling scum! You're no better than your old man!
    Johnny: My old man's dead!
    Frank: Oh, sorry, Johnny, I forgot.
    Johnny: Yeah, well, maybe this will help refresh your memory a little. (slips Frank a bill)
    Frank: Oh yeah, he is dead.
  • Bo Derek was considered for the role of Jane.
  • The movie was originally going to be called "Police Squad", but the title was changed because Paramount feared that it would be confused with Police Academy.
  • Police Code for Everything: A deleted scene (which is seen in most TV airings) involves Frank informing the front desk of the hospital that they've got a 411 in progress. The woman replies, "411? Oh my God, fire!" Frank corrects her: "No no, 1411." She replies, "My God, a poison gas leak!" Frank tries again, "No no, a 1414." The woman screams and jumps out the window.
  • A fourth Naked Gun film starring Leslie Nielsen almost happened; in 2009, it was announced that a made-for-TV sequel was in development. It was titled The Naked Gun 4: Rhythm Of Evil and would have centered around Frank Drebin training a young rookie. The Zucker-Abrams-Zucker team wanted nothing to do with it, so the script was written by Alan Spencer which he considered "really funny" and it even convinced Paramount executives to briefly greenlight the film to go to theaters. A script rewrite enhanced the story to where Frank Drebin would be training a whole new generation of unintentionally-incompetent cops. It is unknown if George Kennedy, O. J. Simpson, or Priscilla Presley would have been reprising their roles as Capt. Ed Hocken, Officer Nordberg, and Jane Spencer. Otherwise, things were looking good for Naked Gun 4... until Spencer was ordered by Paramount to reduce Nielsen's part down to a cameo before ordering Frank to be omitted altogether. Spencer opted to quit the project instead, causing it to enter Development Hell until Leslie Nielsen himself sadly passed away at the age of 84 the next year, sadly putting an end to any possibility of a Naked Gun 4 baring his name on the marquee, forever.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Robert Goulet previously played himself in an episode of Police Squad! as the "celebrity guest who dies in the opening scene" before playing the villain of the second film.
  • Jeff Wright plays three characters: the head usher in the first movie, the sex shop assistant in the second and the grocery store manager in the third. Of course, it could be the same guy holding down different jobs in each movie.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic appears in all three movies. In the first and third movies, he plays himself. However, in the second movie, he plays a criminal holding the police station at gunpoint. (Well, we never hear the guy's name, but presumably that's not Al..)
  • Joe Grifasi plays the dock worker in the first movie and the Oscar director in the third.

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