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I am currently suffering from De Quervain syndrome, which sounds like a romantic 18th-century nervous condition but is actually a dead common form of tendonitis named for Dr. Fritz De Quervain, a Swiss physician who also won the Grand Prix at the 1914 World Fair in Paris for co-inventing a hospital bed.
In any case, I am pecking this newsletter out mostly with my left hand, so forgive any errors!
Regular Applause readers know of my love for the spoof movies of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker (Airplane! Top Secret! and the Naked Gun films) and I’m happy to report that the latest iteration, starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson and directed by Lonely Islander Akiva Schaffer, mostly lives up to their standard.
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(My only real quibble is that Neeson’s cop character is a fighting machine, whereas Leslie Neilson’s Lt. Frank Drebin mostly succeeded through spectacularly lucky ineptitude.)
Liam Neeson in a scene from “The Naked Gun.” (Paramount Pictures via The Associated Press)
What really pleased me, however, was the filmmaking team’s adherence to the tradition of “crazy credits”— not just extra goofy scenes, but silly shoutouts, puns and visual gags in the credit scroll.
This is a beloved tradition in ZAZ movies: Naked Gun 2½’s credits include such gems as:
Dolly Grip ……………………. Jon Falkengren
Poli-Grip ……………………… Martha Raye
What the hell is a Grip? …. Person responsible for maintenance and adjustment to equipment on the set
And:
Production Painters …… Nick Bridwell, Donnie R. Puga
Impressionist Painters … Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar “Skip” Degas
In the new The Naked Gun, the credit for Set Dressers is followed by “Set Dressings” (Ranch, Thousand Island), Toolperson is followed by “Tool Non-Person” (Buzz-saw) and at one point, a Snellen eye chart scrolls by.
In these trying times, it’s the little things that sometimes deliver joy.
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