The Naked Gun 2 1/2 : The Smell of Fear (1991)

Comedy sequel “The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear” is a far lesser return than the first film which remains a laugh-out-loud pleasure of my 1980s youth. Every ounce of joy here can be attributed to Leslie Nielsen, back as Lt. Frank Drebin and in Washington, D.C., for a prestigious LEO honor. As with John McClane, where Frank goes, so does trouble. And death. Here, Frank gets mixed up in a Big Business scam to keep oil as America’s energy source forever and ever, damn the Earth, let’s make some money. The decades old jokes hit Big Oil and George Bush I and yet still feel sharp because the environmental conversation has not moved one inch. Conservatives hold on to their wealth and demand the world to stop. Liberals seek a future. I digress. Apologies. The successful laugh ratio is iffy, at best. The whole movie could lose 20 minutes more and come out sharper. I still dig George Kennedy as the clueless tough cop, and Anthony James -– a regular in Clint Eastwood films –- as an assassin with a song on his lips. B

Airplane! (1980) and Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)

“Airplane!” has been a favorite since I first saw it 30 years ago. A spoof of 1970s-era airplane disaster flicks such as “Airport,” plus “Saturday Night Fever” and “From Here to Eternity,” it is the tale of a shell-shocked flyboy vet (Robert Hays) who buys a ticket on a Chicago-L.A. flight to woo back the stewardess (Julie Hagerty) he loves. But tragedy – food poison! – strikes, and Hays must command the airplane after the crew is laid ill. Insert dramatic music.

Directors/writers Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker just kill it, every joke either a gold-star winner or so awful, you laugh anyway. The genius is how nearly every actor – Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Robert Stack -- in the film is dead-set serious no matter what insanity occurs. My favorite bits change with each viewing, from Barbara Billingsley talking jive to the white man saves Africa spoof to the wrong engine sound and a horse in bed. I could drone on for hours about this classic, but just know this is the ultimate pick-up film on any bad day. Leslie Nielsen as the doctor is a cinematic god. RIP, sir. A

The sequel – aptly named “Airplane II: The Sequel” -- is not classic, or even really memorable. The cherries are far outnumbered by the shit balls in this mostly scene-for-scene remake-part-sequel set not in airplane, but a passenger ship Space Shuttle headed to the moon.

Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers moved on to greener pastures, as did much of the cast, leaving some guy named Ken Finkleman to helm this space ride. He’s the guy who made “Grease 2.” The semi-plot: An onboard computer control goes whack, causing mayhem. HAL spoof! Boring! Hays and Hagerty return, both on Ottopilot. Jokes about armed terrorists boarding unscathed as old ladies are strip-searched is funnier now than the 1980s, in a twisted way. But even at 85 minutes, the film nose dives. C+

Police Academy (1984) & The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

“Police Academy” and “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” are 100-proof 1980s comedy spoofs: Silly gags, slapstick pratfalls and lots of (literal) toilet humor. They ridicule the myriad of police thrillers and grim film noirs that still come out a dime a dozen even now. “Police Academy” was the first to take the self-righteous piss out of the genre, but my compass points toward “Naked Gun.”

“Police Academy” revels in the “Porky’s” humor that ruled the early 1980s: Bawdy sex jokes, nudity at every chance, and ripping the wheels off of the Politically Correct Bandwagon. The set-up: The mayor of a large city declares that all citizens -- regardless of eligibility -- can join the police force. Naturally, idiots, scum, nerds, dweebs and gun-nuts hear the call of duty. The joke is, of course, that the police head-honchos are more incompetent and the downtrodden losers prevail. The writers dish stereotype gags on every minority group there is – black women, Latinos, gays, women, etc. “Blazing Saddles” and “The Producers” did far worse damage. But those films were finely scripted and hilarious from start to finish, they had and have a reason to exist. This is a stoner hit-or-miss comedy affair, and everything filmed seemingly thrown in. Steve Guttenberg is the wiseass charmer, always thumbing his nose at authority in full Bill Murray-Chevy Chase mode. B

“The Naked Gun” is a quick flick that is glorious entertainment. The “Airplane” Zucker-Abrahms-Zucker team clearly loves the films they mock. More importantly, they love Leslie Nielsen. We open with a stand-alone short that’s even funnier now – 1988’s leading dictators, terrorists and despots meet for lunch, planning to destroy America. Suddenly Lt. Frank Drebin (Nielsen!) lays waste to the room. Ghadaffi gets his ass kicked. Khomeini gets poked. Gorbachev has that weird red mark on his head wiped off. In perfect dead-pan, Nielsen says, “I knew it.” None of this makes sense, but it was every American’s truest dream that year. (Joke’s on us. Nielsen was Canadian.) We then jump into a hilarious, barely-credible-on-purpose L.A. conspiracy involving an evil tycoon (Ricardo Montalban) trying to whack the Queen of England. Every joke is a grade-school bad pun, obvious slapstick or goofy sight gag. But they work wonders, even the lesser jokes. Nielsen sends “Gun” into orbit, how serious he is in every moment. His “National Anthem” is gold. A cure a bad day. A