For the most part of her career, Leslie Nielsen was best known for her severe and dramatic roles. His great stature and low voice had casting directors offering him games as commanders, managers and even heavy. Many may remember the Nielsen stone face turn The 1956 “prohibited planet” As captain in “The Poseidon Adventure”, or playing a cop in the 1972 cop drama “The Bold Ones: The Protectors”. In 1977, “Day of the Animals”, he played a man of the man’s outdoor who loses his head and, quite dark, declares crazy domination over animals and women. Some may remember that he can remember his breath for a long time, as he said in “Creepshow”. Many will be shocked to attend Nielsen Beat and the assault by Barbra Streisand in the 1987 “Nuts” drama.

However, Nielsen appeared in a handful of comedies, in particular, playing Dr. Rumack in the farce Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker “Airplane!” The parody proved that he had a talent for impassive comedy, and he was able to say the most stupid things possible with an impassive face. Later, the Zaz team would operate Nielsen to play at Lieutenant Frank Drebin during their 1982 “Squad police!” Television series! ” This led to a 1988 cinematographic adaptation entitled “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” “Effectively change the course of Nielsen’s career. From that moment, he was best known as a Slapstick actor. Since Nielsen liked to bring PET machines to the interviewsIt was a change that he clearly kissed.

After “Airplane!,” Nielsen played in 16 parody films, until his death in 2010. Some of them were embarrassing failures (he appeared in horrible usurgents and last days like “Stan Helsing”, “2001: A Space Travesty,” and the politically irresponsible politically “an American tale”), but others were legitimate comedy classics. Here are his five best parody films, classified for playful debate purposes.

In Rick Friedburg “Spy Hard” usurpation 007, Nielsen plays Dick Steele, the WD-40 agent, who takes a mission to save an innocent abduction victim called Barbara Dahl (Stephanie Romanov). Oh wait. Barbara Dahl. Barbie doll. I understand. The villain he faces is the nasty general resentment (Andy Griffith), who had robotic arms and who can attach various weapons and tools to his shoulders. The boss of Dick Steele is the game of Charles Durning and “Spy Hard” also has support roles for Barry Bostwick, Marcia Gay Harden and Curtis Armstrong. Ray Charles hilariously plays a bus driver, and there are Hulk Hogan, Fabio and MT cameos.

“Spy Hard” came just before parody films go to idiocy, making it one of the best examples of the kind of the decade.

Nielsen parody films have always been stronger when they get a particular genre or film, which allows them to stand out from the wave of Friedberg / Seltzer parody which infected the 2000s. “Spy hard” Lampoons James Bond Films, yes, but it also folds in the tropes of all the spy shots that the genre has to offer. “Spy Hard” also allowed Nielsen to play its relatively straight role, which has always been its greatest comic talent.

The best part of the film may be that “Weird Al” Yankovic sang the opening theme song, Riffing on James Bond Music Stylings, which instantly wins additional points. “Spy Hard” has certainly been more efficient (but not as good) than Yankovic’s own 1989 parody of 1989.

Little like the rendering of Mel Brooks in 1995 of the classic Vampires of Bram Stoker, but I admit a weakness. There is a daring and theatrical melodramatic tone to “Dracula: Dead and Love It” which makes it serious and, I dare say, hilarious. Nielsen plays Dracula, again on the line between a serious performance and an idiot. He bonks his head, slips on bato of bata and pursues himself a lot, but most of the film sees him doing a serious imitation of Bela Lugosi.

Nielsen is also surrounded by several excellent comic performance. Lystette Anthony bites her role as Lucy, while Amy Yasbeck has fun as Mina. Steven Weber participates in one of the biggest stages of vampire’s stale in the history of cinema (so much blood!), And Peter Macnicol deserved an Oscar for his turn that Renfield. The scene where he denies eating insects in front of Dr. Seward (Harvey Korman) is the comedy equally with Harold Lloyd. It also helps that “Dracula” is an excited film, possessed by a lease that only Brooks could manage well. When Dracula’s brides try to seduce Renfield, he declares that it is bad … before shouting that they should harm his brain.

“Dracula” is a little unshakable compared to the more popular “young Frankenstein” of Brooks (and much better), but it is nothing to sneeze. Indeed, / film even wrote a missive once right declaring that It doesn’t suck much.

The 1990 parody of Bob Logan “restsd” could serve as a non -official result of “The Exorcist” as well as for parody. Linda Blair returned to the genre, this time to play Nancy Aglet, a woman possessed by the devil when she was a girl. Blair is not only the game, but it is hysterical both like the repressed Nancy and the Randy Satan. Nielsen plays the character of Father Merrin, now named Father Mayii (yes, you can do it), and he is joined by the Karras stand-in, Father Brophy (Anthony Starke).

/ The film excited “reproached” in the pastAnd our article rightly pointed out that the usurpers work better when they send something serious. The error of many recent parody films is that they send almost everything that is popular, getting rid of a point of view and hoping to stream the laughter a little more than the recognition sock. “RESSED” plunges into the dark and horrible history of “The Exorcist”, but it also draws from the modern phenomenon of nasty and shallow evangelical televangelists (Ned Beatty and Lana Schwab Play Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker types).

But the film, like the Zaz movies before, cracks the whip on the jokes, putting a play on words or a visual gag every three seconds. “RESSED” is relentless, and most jokes land incredibly well. Some gags have not aged well, of course – that is to be expected for a 35 -year -old film – but it is largely impeccable.

One of the funniest films of all time, “Airplane!” Of Zaz. is a parody of a dark disaster film that no one has heard of. The story tells that Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker leave their new VHS recorders running all night, wanting to see what strange garbage run in the hours of the late 1970s. They found “Zero Hour !, Hall Bartlett, a plane disaster film with Dana Andrews. .

Disaster films were very popular in the late 1970s, and Leslie Nielsen even played in one of the best: “The Poseidon Adventure”. He returned to play the very serious Dr. Rumack in “Airplane!,” A film on bad fish causing an escape from illness and nausea during a night flight to Chicago. A former SSPT soldier, played by Robert Hayes, has to take control of the plane when the pilots all become sick. He must also reconnect with Julie Hagerty, who played his ex-girlfriend. Peter Graves, Kareen Abdul-Jabbar, Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges also appear.

I would tell some gags here, but it would be to repeat gags that you already know. The film is widely known, and it is often in the lead lists of the funniest films of all time. If you haven’t seen it, do it immediately.

Some purists can oppose “The Naked Gun” being at the top of this list, because it is fundamentally different from “Squad police!”, The television program that inspired it. “Police squad!” The character of Nielsen, Lieutenant Frank Drebin, crosses a drama of hard cop with a stone face and a taciturn behavior. “The Naked Gun” lets him be much wider, engaging in falls, farting in microphones and carrying outdoor condoms. Humor, as such, is a little more obvious accordingly.

But I say “Feh” to purists, like “the naked pistol”, despite the change of tone, is unbearably hilarious, and it establishes a perfect balance between seriousness and slapstick. The intrigue implies an evil billionaire, played by Ricardo Montalbán, plotting to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II (Jeannette Charles) using a system of control of the spirit. Frank Drebin is involved in a femme fatale (Priscilla Presley) in her investigations.

“The Naked Gun” was a massive success, making more than $ 150 million with a budget of $ 12 million, more or less guaranteeing that parody films will occur for at least another decade. And they did it! We also have good on the way. Thanks to the success of “The Naked Gun”, Nielsen, previously a heavy one, was now a beloved actor of a new generation. “Plane!” may have redirected Nielsen’s career towards comedy, But “The Naked Gun” made him immortal.

This year, the Akiva Shaffer of Lonely Island (Director of “Hot Rod” and “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” brings “The Naked Gun” to Liam Neeson to play the son of Frank Drebin. He seems to be a good Choice, as Neeson also has a talent for the delivery of Deadpan. One of our most anticipated films of 2025.