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TV Review – Police Squad! In Color

Probably everyone is familiar with the Naked Gun series of movies starring Leslie Nielsen as Detective Frank Drebin, but not many people remember those movies got their start on a short lived television series called Police Squad! The show was created by the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams, who also created the movie Airplane!

When I say it was a short lived series, I mean it was very short. Only 6 episodes aired before it was cancelled. TV Guide called the reason for the cancellation the most stupid reason ever given by a network. According to a spokesperson for ABC: “‘Police Squad’ was cancelled, because the viewer had to watch it in order to appreciate it.”

I think it’s easy to say that shows such as the Sopranos, 24, or Lost never would have survived in the 80s, where TV viewers were not expected to actually watch them.

Well, anyway, on to the review. Fans of the show love to complain that the show was never given a chance to develop a following. However, I’m not sure that would have helped. The type of rapid-fire and multilayered humor works better in movies because it’s actually very repetitive. While you can get into the zone of the humor over an hour and 10 minute movie, after watching several episodes spread over several weeks you start noticing the similarity of the jokes. For example, every episode had a joke where Detective Frank Drebin would offer the victim a cigarette, only to have him or her say, “Yes, it is.” I guess what I’m saying is that timing is everything in comedy, and when you spread the jokes out over weeks instead of hours, something is lost. Imagine watching the movie Airplane! over a period of several weeks instead of in one sitting and you’ll get the idea.

That being said, the show was still hilarious. Like in Airplane! or the Naked Gun movies, the jokes come at you like a machine gun, sometimes like a shot gun, with jokes having multiple layers of humor. That stupid ABC spokesperson was right about one thing, you have to pay attention to the show. Compared to Three’s Company, it was probably difficult for stupid American’s to enjoy it. But compared to the multilayered Lost, it’s a piece of cake.

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Why does Amazon’s search engine suck so badly?!

I wanted to find a book for my son on Amazon. I had the subject matter, Batman, the title, Double Trouble, and the publisher, Scholastic. I couldn’t find it. Maybe it doesn’t exist, I thought.

I decided to try google with the site:amazon.com command. I.e., “batman double trouble scholastic site:amazon.com” without the quotes, and sure enough the book was found.

Can someone explain to me why Amazon makes it so hard to find stuff? I have to wonder what other merchandise Amazon offers for sale that is hidden from the public!

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