YMMV / The Naked Gun

• Adaptation Displacement: While it's more of a spin-off than a film version, the original TV series did not last very long and was not as popular as the movies, leading many people to believe that the franchise only exists as a movie trilogy. Since the TV show only lasted six half-hour episodes, the movie trilogy actually lasted longer, both in screen time and in real-life-time.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The inmates at the state prison (where Frank has gone undercover) riot in the cafeteria simply because they don't like the food they're being served. As depicted in the film the gag is quite funny, but in fact something like that did once happen at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco (it was known as "The Spaghetti Riot"). In the movie, this culminates in the prisoners making the guards eat the awful food!
• Awesome Music:
  • "Drebin the Hero", the music that plays when Frank beats up the anti-American world leaders in Beirut. The same score was reused for the openings of the next two sequels.
  • In 33⅓ the music in the background during the starting of the Untouchables shootout parody.
  • The main theme that plays during the opening credits counts as well.
  • The arrangement of "This Could Be the Start of Something Big" from 33⅓. So good that an instrumental is also heard in the end credits.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The reason many of the gags work. Mook getting offed in a vat of stuff in a hot dog factory? Not terribly funny. Big Bad later finds the mook's finger in his hot dog? Hilarious!
  • Frank's increasingly awful attempts to comfort Mrs. Nordberg while inadvertently making things much worse. Especially because her husband is, well, O.J. Simpson.
    Ed: Don't worry, Wilma. Your husband is gonna be all right. Just think positive. Never let a doubt enter your mind.
    Frank: He's right, Wilma, but I wouldn't wait until the last minute to fill out those organ donor cards. (Wilma starts crying again)
  • Frank cleans out his desk and finds evidence that exonerates a criminal who'd been proclaiming his innocence. Then Ed informs him that the guy already went to the electric chair two years ago, and Frank awkwardly shoves the evidence back inside his desk.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The repeated torment Nordberg (played by O. J. Simpson) suffers is either this or becomes even funnier, depending on your viewpoint. Especially the line that he "wouldn't hurt a fly" spoken by his on-screen wife, and especially since Simpson succumbed to cancer. In the network TV version, Frank, after unknowingly shutting down Nordberg's life support system and not noticing where the rushing hospital staff are headed, says "Just be glad you're not that guy's wife."
  • In the opening sequence of the first film, a member of the Beirut council suggests attacking New York and Washington, DC. Thirteen years later, the 9/11 attack occurred.
  • In the first movie, Frank stops a mind controlled Reggie Jackson from assassinating the Queen by dropping a fat woman on him from an upper balcony in the baseball stadium. This has actually happened several times since the movie came out, with far less comedic results, one of them even occurring during the 7th inning, much like in the movie.
  • Frank getting into the crowd reactions while disguised as an umpire by over selling the strike calls, to the point he starts break dancing while calling them. This has become a very hot button topic in the last few seasons of Major League Baseball with umpires drawing attention to themselves, to the point that now retired Joe West (who was one of the umps in the movie) even advertising his appearances in games.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Frank's proposal of marriage to Jane in 2½, which included his acceptance of support to reduce ozone layer reduction became this with the ozone layer finally being regenerating during that tail-end of Turn of the Millennium thanks to activism and measures aimed at limiting ozone-damaging chemicals—not to mention the increased availability of safer alternatives.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • In the first movie, it was Frank's Accidental Public Confession to Jane, which manages to get an entire baseball stadium full of brawling people to stop fighting and make up with each other, including an Arabian man and a Hasidic Jew.
  • Jane reverses the roles in the third movie, at the Academy Awards. The director for the show even remarks on the dramatic quality of her speech and its effect on the auditorium.
  • It might be a fight between them, but when Frank breaks his promise to stay out of police work Jane not only knows Frank well enough to immediately know what he's actually been doing, but she doesn't buy his attempt to cover it with cheating with another woman for a second. It says a lot about their relationship that the idea that Frank is cheating on Jane never even enters her head but also she considers the idea completely absurd when Frank tries to deflect with it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • O. J. Simpson playing a cop. Especially if you get a kick out of all the abuse Nordberg takes through the three films.
  • The Hubble Space Telescope appearing on a "Wall of Failures" back before its mirror was fixed.
  • In 2½, Frank casually mentions that he and Jane are ancient history, like the Democratic party. At the time, the Democrats had lost three presidential elections in a row. But guess who got elected only one year after this movie came out? For further laughs, note George H. W. Bush's worried facial expression at the end of the film when Frank mentions that he hopes the Democrats will one day put forth a decent candidate.
  • 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.
  • Drebin mangling the American national anthem only got funnier when Christina Aguilera did it in Super Bowl XLVII.
  • One man butchering his own national anthem? How about an army orchestra butchering other nations' anthems, three times, with their heads of state listening?
  • The scene with Drebin going to the bathroom with his radio mic on has happened in real life. Note the woman speaking trying valiantly not to laugh... and failing miserably.
  • Tanya attempting to distract the Price Waterhouse accountant becomes even funnier in the wake of the Best Picture mix-up at the 2017 Academy Awards. A Price Waterhouse accountant was apparently distracted by Emma Stone to the point that he handed the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty.
  • Frank admitting that the truth doesn't hurt as much as jumping onto a bicycle with the seat missing becomes even funnier when in Wrongfully Accused, it happens for real.
  • Gorbachev at the Beirut council saying the Americans "[believe he's] a nice guy". The film was released before his policies of perestroika and glasnost unintentionally led to the fall of the Iron Curtain, ironically improving his reputation in the West.
  • Frank "[shooting] the bastards" in the Shakespeare-in-the-Park production of Julius Caesar, thanks to the same production's controversy for its perceived violence by sponsor Delta Airlines in 2017.
  • Frank checking the Angels' pitcher for any weapons, but just finds items used to doctor the ball instead, is downright hilarious after MLB announced a crackdown on pitchers using foreign substances in June 2021, which includes umpires checking pitchers as they leave the mound.
  • Susan Beaubian, who played Mrs. Nordberg in the first film, went on to play jury foreperson Armanda Cooley in American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The mass Face Palm from 33⅓, frequently used in Internet review shows and as a forum reaction to perceived Epic Fail or Too Dumb to Live moments.
  • Drebin's "Nothing to see here! Please disperse!" speech in 1 has become a common reference when a real-life event is considered to be downplayed by media or governments.
  • There's a growing set of fans that consider the first film a baseball movie due to the climax at the California Angels game, in the same way fans consider Die Hard a Christmas movie.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • The beginning of the first movie, where Frank sneaks into a conference in Beirut, where several world leaders are planning a terrorist attack to humiliate the United States, and proceeds to beat the living crap out of everyone in the room, all while rousing adventure music plays. And the best part? This was Frank's vacation.
    Muammar al-Qaddafi: Hey, who are you?
    Frank: I'm Lt. Frank Drebin! Police Squad! And don't ever let me catch you guys in America! [the window shutter hits Frank in the face and he loses his balance, falling out the window]
  • Stephanie, the driving school student in the first movie, taking a level in badass as she helps Frank chase Nordberg's would-be killer in an epic car chase... in the middle of her lesson. And she flips off an angry trucker for good measure. Special mention to the driving instructor (John Houseman), completely and totally unfazed by the gun violence.
  • Ed calling Hector Savage's bluff in 2½ and getting him to surrender. Subverted when Frank screws it up with the tank, but it still shows exactly why Ed is the Captain.
• Nightmare Fuel: The "Manchurian candidates" for Vincent Ludwig's plot in the first movie, who go blank-faced and robotically intone: "I....must kill....[Name]" once they're "triggered." It's fairly frightening for younger viewers - particularly when it's revealed that Ludwig's final sleeper agent is Jane!
• One-Scene Wonder: Numerous examples, though John Houseman's driving instructor from the first film is a particular standout. Also, "Weird Al" Yankovic appears in all three films in this capacity.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • The trucker who tried to rape Jane in the third movie is a certain Gul Dukat. (Also counts as Playing Against Type- he's more known as a Magnificent Bastard alien, not a sleazy trucker/attempted rapist.)
  • Paul Feig is part of the audience at the Academy Awards ceremony in 33 1/3.
  • Also in the third movie, one of the boys in the Jurassic Park parody is a pre-Saturday Night Live Taran Killam.
• Sequelitis: It seems that each movie relies more heavily on sexual/toilet humor than the last, and the first film is the only one considered uncontroversially great.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Hooray for L.A." in Naked Gun 33⅓, obviously a parody of "Hooray for Hollywood".
• Tear Jerker:
  • Frank's pleas for Jane to snap out of her hypnotic state at the end of the first film. Particularly this line:
    "If you don't love me, you might as well pull that trigger, because without you, I wouldn't want to live anyway."
  • While overall being very funny, the shots of everyone in the ballpark embracing because they're so moved by what they're seeing and hearing can be quite touching, especially of the Jewish man and the Arab man...and the mailman and the dog. If you listen carefully, you can hear the dog whimpering, indicating that he's genuinely apologizing for having barked at/chased/bitten the guy.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Drebin's crack about the Democratic Party being "ancient history" was a topical reference to the fact that they'd lost the last three presidential elections at the time of the film's release. As always, the current power dynamic between the two major parties is always in flux.
    • One of the pictures in the "Hall of Failures" (in the Blues Club in 2½) was of Michael Dukakis, former Governor of Massachusetts who lost to George H. W. Bush in a landslide.
  • The fist film has a Batman Cold Open in which Drebin confronts a rogue's gallery of American enemies of the era: Idi Amin, Muammar Gaddafi, Ayatollah Khomeini, Yasser Arafat, Gerry Adams, Nicolae Ceausescu, Fidel Castro, and Mikhail Gorbachev. All of these people are now dead or otherwise out of power, or in the case of Adams had his negative depictions largely reversed. In fact, Khomeini and Ceausescu died the year after the film released, and Amin had already been in exile for ten years.
  • While on a stakeout in the first film, Drebin and Hocken eat pistachios, with part of the joke being how their faces and hands get stained red by the nuts they're eating. Pistachios imported from the Middle East were dyed red to try and hide stains and discoloration that occurred due to harvesting practices in the region. These red pistachios were already disappearing from shelves by the time the first film was produced as US farmers began growing pistachios and used different harvesting methods that didn't cause blemishes that needed to be hidden.
  • Nuclear Energy interest (KABOOM) among the representatives of American Energy Firms was relevant during the time when opposition to nuclear energy were prominent among enviromental consciousness along with increased fear after two prominent nuclear meltdowns (Chernobyl and Three Mile Island) before declining after 90s.
  • In The Naked Gun 2½, a bar put the Hubble Space Telescope, which had been launched with a flawed reflector mirror, with the Hindenberg and the Titanic as one of the biggest disasters in human history. Corrective optics installed in 1993 fixed the problem, and it's now considered one of the most successful satellites ever launched.
  • One review for 33⅓ noted that the movie's March 1994 release "turned out to be just in time" given three months later O.J. Simpson was arrested accused of murder and Anna Nicole Smith married an octogenarian billionaire, thus the movie was the last time either weren't Overshadowed by Controversy in a way that makes such a wacky comedy "look tame by comparison".
  • A film with a plot that revolves around the attempted assassination of Queen Elizabeth II instantly places it anytime before her actual death in September 2022.
  • 2 and 1/2 makes fun of the Exxon Valdez disaster which was still fresh in America's mind.
  • The climax of 33 and 1/3 is at the Oscars so the movie mentions celebrities who were famous at the time like Shannon Doherty, Phil Donahue, Mary-Lou Retton and Pia Zadora.
• Values Dissonance: As fitting for a film series that ran in the late 80s to early 90s, this has some of it.
  • The Reveal in 33⅓ that Tanya has a penis, and Frank giving us a Vomit Discretion Shot in response. At best, it was simply crude in the early 90s, but it's much more mean-spirited today with better awareness of transgender rights and "trans panic" being called further into question. In Frank's defense, it was a really deformed penis.
  • Similarly, there's Frank and Jane's therapist's visibly shocked and disgusted reaction to the Frank revealing that he is the one who dresses up in sexy lingerie to try and get turned on for sex with Jane. For a mental health professional, his negative attitude towards cross-dressing is pretty ignorant even for the mid-90's and certainly now.
  • While it is not uncommon in American media to paint Arabs as villains, as Modern Warfare proves, the decision to paint all Arabs as evil terrorists without redeeming traits would not fly today, where concerns about Islamophobia are quite high. Most of the media that feature Arabs as villains usually paint the villains as extremists with the majority of Arabs depicted as either allies or as innocent victims of the extremists.
  • Nuclear energy being shown negatively in 2½ would be seen as a continuation of misinformation (some of them being backed by fossil fuel companies as an added irony) resulting from fear on Three Miles Island and Chernobyl (former being well-contained and latter being result of Soviet mismanagement). Today, nuclear energy is seen by many in the scientific community as the best way (that is currently available) to produce energy with little impact on the environment.
• Values Resonance: 2½ is all about the coal, oil, and nuclear lobbies controlling interests in Washington, not allowing renewable energy to take a foothold. This struggle is still going on today, except nuclear energy no longer having large political power it once had due to public fears and said coal and oil lobby's roles in its stagnation. Although part of it loops back around into Values Dissonance due to people realizing nuclear power is a much cleaner, safer, and more reliable energy source than people give it credit for—particularly when many nations trying to migrate to green energy to battle Global Warming ended up falling back to coal when solar and wind power proved unable to fulfill their needs.
  • "Mommy Court" in 33⅓ is a court that actually has mommies with their kids running it, but these days it looks more like a working mother's dream job, as more and more families need both parents working, while dealing with the incredibly high (and still escalating) cost of care for their young children.
• Watch It for the Meme: Many people watch 33⅓ only for the "mass facepalm" scene.

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