Let's pretend O. J. Simpson was never in this one, okay? (Quotes from The Naked Gun)

Leslie Nielsen's character, Frank Drebin from the 1988 movie The Naked Gun: From the files of Police Squad!

JD's Quotes:

The Naked Gun series spoof a lot of works but are based off of a 1982 ABC TV series called Police Squad! which was canceled largely for being too hip for the room, so to speak. Leslie Nielsen starred in the series which ran for six episodes in total and took up the same role in the movie series. The math is simple in that there were half as many installments of the Naked Gun movies as there were the original Police Squad! episodes. At least people picked up on the comedy by the time it rolled around to the theatre, having revamped several of the show's gags to make the franchise a great success as far as comedies go. Here are some of the film's most memorable quotes:

1. George Kennedy as Captain Ed Hocken: He's alive Frank, though he's on life-support. Doctors say he's got a 50/50 chance of living,... though there's only a ten percent chance of that.

2. Hilarious innuendos:

Priscilla Presley as Jane Spencer: I've heard police work is dangerous
Leslie Nielsen as Lt. Frank Drebin: It is, that's why I carry a big gun
Jane: Aren't you afraid it might go off accidentally?
Frank: I used to have that problem
Jane: And, what did you do about it?
Frank: I'd just think about baseball

3. Frank: Hey, that's a honey of an ankle bracelet you have there
Jane: Oh! Did it slip down there again?

4. Frank: How 'bout dinner? I know this little out of the way place that serves great Viking food.

5. Frank: It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy. Boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl and girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.
Jane: Goodyear?
Frank: No, the worst.

6. Frank: Jane, since I met you, I notice things that I never knew were there before; Birds singing,. . . dew glistening on a newly formed leaf,. . . stoplights.

If you haven't seen this flick, the dialogue is essentially like that throughout. Couple that with the added bonus of a great sight gag every few seconds and you really miss something every time you blink or answer the telephone. Even aside from the fact that it's packed full of punchlines of all kinds, how do you not like a series of movies with a recurring villain named Papshmir (You can guess how that's pronounced)? Furthermore, if Ricardo Montalban plays one of the bad guys, it doesn't matter if it's Star Trek or Naked Gun, it just works.



Want all three Naked Gun movies? Get them all complete with commentaries on this DVD set:




Check out a hilarious video montage from this classic comedy:

While you do THAT, you can massage the grapes. . .wink, wink, nudge, nudge

Lucy's quotes:


~Horatio Sanz as Saddam Hussein

~Jimmy Fallon on SNL's Weekend Update

~ Chris Parnell (On the right) in the infamous Cowbell sketch

Every year or two, some jerk gets clever and writes an article with a title along the lines of ''Saturday Night Dead'' making an obvious pun on Saturday Night Live. Still, even though I don't watch EVERY SNL episode, not a year goes by when I don't come across at least a few new sketches that I never forget.

Forrrrrrr instance, I'll never forget the cork soaking sketch. Of this much, I am sure. If I'm a senile old lady at age 134 and I can't remember the name of any of my 78 cats which I'm sure I'll be living with by then, I'll still remember the entire cork soaking sketch. I'll know everyone involved, like host/musical guest Janet Jackson who couldn't keep a straight face trying to avoid the obvious implied words and of course Horatio Sanz and Jimmy Fallon, who could rarely keep a straight face EVER when in the same sketch together.



The setting: A tour group is being lead through the workings of a vineyard, you see. The vineyard is either in Italy or just run by an italian family, something like that. Jimmy Fallon plays ''Marcello'' and Horatio plays ''Giuseppe'' and they are the tour guides. They bring the crowd into the place where they, ahem, soak the corks for the wine bottles. Here's a quote from this completely, squeaky clean, non-vulgar sketch:

Chris Parnell as ''tour group guy'': Do you ever run out of corks to soak?

Jimmy/Marcello: Oh, uh yeah, I'll never forget this one vintage was unusually large and I thought Giuseppe would need extra corks.

Horatio/Giuseppe: And I thought Marcello would need more corks.

Jimmy/Marcello: So, we soaked each other's corks at the same time. Remember that?

Horatio/Giuseppe: Can you imagine that? Me soaking his cork while he soak mine? . . .Oh boy

Jimmy/Marcello: Yeah, yeah

Horatio/Giuseppe: What year was that?

Jimmy/Marcello: What year? The year we soaked each other's corks?

Horatio/Giuseppe: Yeah

Jimmy/Marcello: Yeah, that was what? It was like sixtyyy..., late sixties right?

Horatio/Giuseppe: Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy/Marcello: Sixtyyy-eight?

Horatio/Giuseppe: I want to say seventy. . .

. . .

Jimmy/Marcello: . . . Now, you're sure it wasn't earlier than that?

Horatio/Giuseppe: Eh well, it was some time around there.

Jimmy/Marcello: Let's just say between 68' and 70', okay?



For years I will remember the goofy look on Maya Rudolph's face when she enters the room and Rachel Dratch as a very old, experienced soaker of corks. It's a classic. Right up there with Dana Carvey getting down with the pepper mill, which I dream about at least one night a week. That was hot.

Hey T, I should get my own National Geographic Special, no?

JD's quotes:


Tony Sirico plays my favorite Sopranos character. His character is the eccentric Paulie Gualtieri, aka Paulie ''Walnuts''. Paulie was far and away the source of most blatant humor on the show, in my humble opinion. He was full of Goombah brand humor, Goombah brand logic. Goombah brand BS. The black belt master of Goombate (pronounced: Goom-bah-tay, see: Italian Martial arts).

Somebody requested quotes from The Sopranos last week or so, something we hadn't touched on yet, so I did a post of the famous chicken soup for the soul quote. I've had a chance to review several Sopranos episodes again and I have to say, although the last few seasons were alright, watching the episodes from the first three or so, I was reminded of how great the show really was. The straight humor was much more frequent then. The Sopranos shares a common bond with Deadwood other than being an HBO broadcast.

They both have a freakish ability to be funny in the context of brutal, violent dramas. It's a kind of magic that they work. Both dramatic series, I consider to be as funny as any sitcom or sketch comedy ever was...in their own way. I like to laugh when I don't expect it. When you're looking for a punch line, it's hard to be surprised. On a show like this when life is grave and somebody says something completely absurd and startles a belly laugh out of you, it's a blast. The Sopranos did this constantly in their first few seasons.

To celebrate the king of Sopranos humor, here's one of my favorite conversations involving Paulie ''Walnuts'' Gualtieri as he sits with ''T''-Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and they watch a nature program about snakes:

Paulie: Amazing thing about snakes, is that they reproduce spontaneously.

Tony: What do you mean?

Paulie: They have both male and female sex organs. That's why somebody you don't trust, you call a snake. How can you trust a guy who can literally 'go f**k themselves'?

Tony: . . . Don't you think that expression would come from the Adam and Eve story? When the snake tempted Eve to bite the apple.

Paulie: Hey, snakes were f**kin' themselves long before Adam and Eve showed up, T.

One pound of sausage at Satriale's: $4.49
One Lap-dance at the Bing: $20
One billable hour of legal counsel from Uncle Junior's attorney: $500.
A lifetime of counseling for Tony and AJ: $841,753
One lesson from Professor Paulie's Goomba BS 101 course: Priceless

The true importance of a ref (A Suspicious George Foreman Quote)

JD's quotes:

One good George Foreman quote deserves another. George after all, is the most quote-worthy of all the knockout-punchin', grill-pimpin', Bow-tie wearin', sermon preachin', former heavyweight boxing champions of the world! Okay, he's probably the only one, but still.

Anyway, George called the Roy Jones Jr. VS John Ruiz fight as HBO's resident former boxer/commentator in 2003. At the beginning of the fight George made this interesting prediction:

''This night, the referee is gonna be the most important man in the ring other than the fighters.''

Some might consider this a blooper and maybe it is...I have to wonder though. See, I know George is very polite but clever. He has on occasion mildly insulted people by wrapping a compliment around the insult first before he delivers it. Then, they don't really know what hit 'em. You never know with him. If I were the ref I might loosely consider the prospect of getting offended. Of course, if it really was a clever Foremanian insult, good for George. George was a boxer for decades, he probably knows Mills Lane was the only good boxing ref in the history of Queensberry rules... Oh yeah, I said it. I'm just edgy like that.


Check out George on the Australian Television show Rove Live hosted by Rove McManus:

The eventual corruption of George Foreman (A Funny Boxing Quote)

JD's quotes:


Well, we're a few hours away from the fight with Roy Jones Jr. and Felix 'Tito' Trinidad and HBO was smart enough to give us a refresher course again as they do before their PPV fights. In order to remind us of the kind of fighters about to go toe-to-toe, they showed one of each of their previous fights. Last night, they showed 2003's Roy Jones Jr. vs John Ruiz match and followed that up with the excellent Trinidad vs Fernando Vargas fight from 2000. The Trinidad/Vargas fight is a landmark for me because it's the night I realized that Larry Merchant had rubbed some of his bizarre whimsy off onto former champ, grill-daddy and sometime commentator George Foreman. Yes, that's right, we're quoting Larry Merchant again...it won't be the last time either people. Mark my words. Better yet, mark his.

So, here's the setup. The commentators ringside for HBO at the fight are Larry Merchant, Jim Lampley and George Foreman. Fernando Vargas has always been known as a baby-faced fighter and apparently Trinidad had taunted him about it pre-fight. So, this goofy exchange takes place between our old buddy Larry and Big George:

Larry Merchant: Well, he called him a baby and so far he's uh-done everything except diaper and powder him. But, late in the round, the baby started to yowl.

George Foreman: There's a little blood on the side of Trinidad's-right side of Trinidad's eye. So, that baby can scratch.

Poor George, clearly infected with HLLV-The Human Loopy Larry Virus.
Thank God there's no vaccine for it. We'd have so much less material for you.