'It's Enrico Pallazzo': The inside Story of 'The Naked Gun' Baseball Game

http://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/naked-gun-baseball-game-scene-national-anthem-angels-mariners-dodgers-stadium-enrico-pallazzo/zztjoa4obui818oo9waqjyf34

by grzm • 8 years ago

101 58 8 years ago

sportingnews.com

user9822• 8 years ago

[T]he national anthem seemed fair game for spoofing in 1988. That’s a major contrast to 2018, when the anthem has been elevated to a sacred, untouchable level by a large segment of the American public.
“I don’t know that we’d get away with that scene today,” Abrahams said. “We probably wouldn’t.”

adventured2• 8 years ago

January 1991 changed all of that, the start of the Gulf War. In the two decades immediately following the 1960s cultural revolution and Vietnam mess, patriotism was far more subdued. The fervor around military patriotism, which is heavily linked to the flag and anthem, was likewise much less rampant.

The military industrial complex figured out culturally how to best goose their giant slush fund. The rah rah cheerleading of the Gulf War was both easy (it wasn't a difficult conflict) and extremely effective. Americans felt good about the results of the Gulf War - a feel good change versus the long hangover of Vietnam - for a solid ~15 years, until Iraq devolved into a bloody civil war after the second war. Throw 9/11 on top of the first Gulf War, combined with a modest national debt circa 2001, and you have a recipe for an explosion of military spending. They can't keep up the military spending without keeping the American public pumped up on patriotism, it's like a blinder. Otherwise people start asking questions, like: why are our bridges falling apart while we're vaporizing $100 billion every year on our military in Europe and Asia? Why can't we afford national high-speed rail?

user9822• 8 years ago

Then again, this is the opening to The Naked Gun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LIHoEJAA4k

mc322• 8 years ago

I'm not sure about that. It's a comedy. I think people do consider context and can take that into account --even today, even if they would be your run-of-the-mill Trumper. On the other hand, Roseanne[1], whom I do not blame, did a lame physical joke about imitating ballplayers adjusting their jockstraps[3] after a horrendous rendition of the Natl Anthem and got dragged over coals for it[2]. It was BEFORE the Gulf War.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls1YVhcLD2c

[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgSIFG_SceA

[3]http://www.cbs8.com/clip/14386580/roseanne-barrs-cringe-wort...

adventured2• 8 years ago

That Roseanne anthem incident happened July 25 1990. Operation Desert Shield launched August 7 1990. By July a military conflict was looking increasingly likely. It was in the news constantly.

Throughout July 1990, Saddam Hussein was openly threatening war and throwing around war rhetoric at Kuwait, UAE and the US. On August 1st Iraq terminated diplomatic talks and then invaded on August 2nd. Kuwait had its military on full alert for an invasion that July. The likelihood of war had been escalating since at least April of 1990.

It's plausible Roseanne did that precisely because the cultural atmosphere was primed to provoke a reaction, as she is prone to do.

neurobashing• 8 years ago

Along similar lines, I strongly believe that "Blazing Saddles" could not be made today. It would send people into utter hysterics, and not the kind the writers intended.

czbond• 8 years ago

I agree with you. I saw it for the first time last year, and went "oh wow - this is edgy by today's standards". I was surprised it was played on TV.

empath752• 8 years ago

I don't think mel brooks would want to make blazing saddles, as it was, today. It would carry a very different meaning than it did at the time.

maxxxxx• 8 years ago

That's one of the funniest movie scenes ever. The anthem is so painful.

berbec• 8 years ago

Rosanne was worse.

wyldfire• 8 years ago

Every time I hear our national anthem, I hear "...buncha bombs in the air..." and chuckle a bit to myself.

“I don’t know that we’d get away with that scene today,” Abrahams said. “We probably wouldn’t.”

Without a doubt! These days, this gag would appear to be political and would be polarizing.

bigwheeler• 8 years ago

It's the same old story- Boy finds girl, boy loses girl. Girl finds boy, boy forgets girl. Boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.

akhilcacharya5• 8 years ago

Goodyear?

eyesee• 8 years ago

No, the worst.

duxup4• 8 years ago

Netflix, or Amazon, or someone. Please bring back Police Squad!

carlivar• 8 years ago

We would have come earlier but your husband wasn't dead yet.

akhilcacharya5• 8 years ago

Allegedly Ed Helms wants to play Drebin in a sequel/reboot though thankfully it seems to be languishing.

https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Ed-Helms-Naked-Gun-Remake-Ma...

LeoPanthera• 8 years ago

I can't imagine it being the same without Leslie Nielsen.

oneeyedpigeon• 8 years ago

So difficult for someone to follow that. You need someone with the gravitas of a serious actor but with the tiniest of glints in their eye, willing to send themselves up, has to have spot-on timing, and an ability to do slapstick. Closest kind of match I can think of is someone like Steve Carrell, but he's probably not straight enough. I think Nielsen fit that role more perfectly than anyone else possibly could.

duxup4• 8 years ago

It wouldn't but that style of humor is sadly been missing for too long.

Time for someone to take a shot.

DoofusOfDeath• 8 years ago

I just watched the Police Squad episodes a last month. I think they're very funny, but I must say the jokes become repetitious even within just 6 episodes.

I'm sure that style of humor allows more variety of jokes, but it seemed to me like that particular writing team reached its limits.

akhilcacharya5• 8 years ago

Not that the story should be the main appeal of a parody, just that there must be a good story for the jokes to serve. Although “Airplane!” was a joke- and gag-heavy enterprise, the film had an obvious story with three distinct acts, along with a main character who had a clear arc. “Top Secret!”, though, had major narrative and character issues.

It seems like modern style parodies seem to ignore this point entirely but it is exactly why Airplane and Hot Shots and Naked Gun worked. I can’t think of a single spoof that has worked so effectively since the 90s.

LanceH• 8 years ago

Community regularly spoofed a wide variety of shows very well.

akhilcacharya5• 8 years ago

I guess you are right about that (The paintball episodes and the KFC shuttle episode being my favorites). I was more thinking along the lines of films.

Intermernet• 8 years ago

Tropic Thunder, but it's almost a meta spoof.

r_smart• 8 years ago

I was going to say this. I just saw that movie for the first time about 6 months ago and it killed me. For some reason I had it in my mind it wasn't a good movie, but it's one of my recent favorites now.

mrec• 8 years ago

The plot of Airplane! was lifted verbatim from a non-comedy 1957 movie called Zero Hour!, specifically because AZZ knew they couldn't write plot.

They were up-front about it - paid for the rights - but it does suggest that writing comedy and writing plot are very different things.

conradfr2• 8 years ago

"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" is a very good one from ten years ago (especially if you're into rock history).

abraham_lincoln• 8 years ago

I've always enjoyed Last Action Hero and also True Lies.

zapita• 8 years ago

It was their usual collaborative process: One idea would lead to another, then another, then another. One gag would piggyback onto something else. Everyone contributed, and all agreed to not take sole credit for anything.

I wish collaboration worked that way in software development!

jwfxpr• 8 years ago

I think software development would work best if it focused on software, not jokes.

Endy2• 8 years ago

I don't think there's much of a difference. If software devs were focused on entertainment value of their output rather than some other nonsensical metric, it might be a much better thing.

glangdale• 8 years ago

I disagree. I have preferred one implementation over another because it's funnier. Plus, focusing on the jokes rather than software was more or less a necessity in a fairly high-pressure startup situation.

jl6• 8 years ago

For me as a non-American, this scene is where most of my knowledge of baseball comes from.

ubernostrum2• 8 years ago

This game features the Mariners and Angels, two real-life baseball teams. But that was never the plan. The Zuckers and Abrahams, three Wisconsinites, hoped for some hometown flair.

“We wanted the Brewers,” David Zucker said. “We applied to MLB and they said you have to take the Mariners. … I think they were trying to help that franchise. That was a weak franchise (at the time) and must’ve been weaker than the Brewers.”

I doubt it was in any way deliberate, but there's another angle here.

MLB was in a phase of expansion in the 1960s. Two teams were added in 1961 (in the American League), two in 1962 (National League), and plans were in place to add four more -- two in each league -- in two groups. The National League would gain two new teams in 1969 (Montréal and San Diego), and the American League would gain two new teams in 1971. The 1971 expansion would add the Seattle Pilots and the Kansas City Royals, with the Royals being a replacement for the former Kansas City Athletics, who relocated to Oakland after the 1967 season.

But Missouri Senator Stuart Symington didn't want Kansas City to go three full seasons without a local team, so the AL expansion was moved up, and the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots began play in 1969 instead. Seattle was nowhere near ready for such an accelerated schedule; they played in a decrepit and poorly-converted minor-league stadium, and the team was disastrously bad and had trouble with finances.

The Pilots' ownership filed for bankruptcy protection shortly before the 1970 season was scheduled to begin. The team ended up being bought by Bud Selig, who immediately relocated them to Milwaukee, where they still play as the Brewers.

Seattle eventually got a permanent MLB franchise in another round of expansion in 1977, when the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays began play. But there is still a feeling among baseball fans that the rush to push the 1971 expansion up two years, and the dealings in the offseason after 1969, resulted in Milwaukee "stealing" Seattle's original major-league team.

So having Milwaukee get its baseball spotlight stolen by Seattle was arguably poetic justice.

Bud Selig, incidentally, went on to become MLB Commissioner, and is a pretty notorious character. His rise from minority owner of an eventually-relocated franchise (the Milwaukee Braves, who moved to Atlanta), to outright owner of the Brewers (née Pilots), to Commissioner, is just full of shady stuff.

masonic• 8 years ago

... including forcing the Astros to switch leagues to the AL to balance him moving his team from the AL to the NL.

ubernostrum2• 8 years ago

The league switches at least had some rational justification. Yanking the Pilots out of Seattle was pure vanity. The owners' collusion in the 80s was pure greed. The retaliation against Fay Vincent was pure vengeful pettiness. And the "tie" in the All-Star Game, followed by making it "meaningful", was a pure travesty.

Besides, everybody's focused now on the possibility of expanding to 32 teams and redoing the entire league and divisional alignments anyway.

retSava• 8 years ago

How great this was is that this is still very, very funny despite me not knowing jack crap about baseball (as a non-american).

The last time TNG was up on HN someone recommended Angie Tribeca and I have to say, after a handful of episodes, it's the best replacement I've seen so far.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3597790/

dingaling• 8 years ago

“She goes, ‘I don’t know the (bleepin’) song!’”

That should have been a clue to them that the English actress spoke for most of the World. The whole baseball scene was funny but utterly alien and confusing to me. What was parody and what was gameplay?

Imagine a comedy finale set in a cricket match. Over a billion people have some familiarity with the rules but it probably still wouldn't be a good idea.

conradfr2• 8 years ago

As a (French) kid I fell of the couch laughing during the umpire scene, and to this day I still don't know the rules about strikes.

deadmetheny• 8 years ago

Imagine a comedy finale set in a cricket match. Over a billion people have some familiarity with the rules but it probably still wouldn't be a good idea.

It'd be a great idea if it was being made in a country for people who have familiarity with the rules. Not everything has to, or even should be, intended for a global audience.

klodolph• 8 years ago

Hollywood makes its biggest movies today by those rules—strip everything out that doesn’t resonate with a global audience—and the results are pretty bland. It’s okay to have a scene in Paris but don’t make it too French, just show a Bistro and some landmark like the Louvre or Notre Dame and that’s enough. It’s okay to make a movie about war but only if it’s World War II and the Nazis should be handsome, well-dressed, and unrepentantly evil. Ideally you should include a scene in China but by god don’t actually cast an Asian actor in a leading role.

Even though these rules make a lot of money for big Hollywood studios (over $18 billion just for MCU movies alone) it would be a sad, dark place if those were all the movies we had.

empath752• 8 years ago

why not -- Austin Powers has a sumo scene, and that's even less popular than baseball is.

danso2• 8 years ago

As someone who has never watched a pro baseball game in its entirety, I think why the scene works so well is that it transcends baseball. Even if you don't know the conventions, Leslie Nielsen's character is familiar enough to that point in the movie that you know whatever he's doing is him going overboard and being slow on the uptake.

RickJWagner• 8 years ago

Love that movie.

hudibras• 8 years ago

I'd be willing to bet that every single one of the millions of people who have watched this movie in the last 30 years has laughed at "Hey, it's Enrico Pallazzo!"

I will go to my grave insisting those are the four funniest words ever uttered in a movie.