Here’s an idea. If you don’t have a kid of your own, borrow somebody else’s. Tell ’em you’re going to watch a cop show. Put on Police Squad!, but don’t tell ’em it’s a comedy. About the point where Abraham Lincoln stands up and returns fire, that kid’s going to sit up straight and have a ball.
Police Squad! starred Leslie Nielsen and Alan North. It ran on ABC for six weeks in the spring of 1982 and Kathryn Leigh Scott was the main guest star in its first episode. It later inspired three successful movies called The Naked Gun, and the locksmith gag in episode five made me stop breathing recently. I don’t actually intend to blog about this show, but I am going to sprinkle the episodes here and there over the course of the year, maybe on an evening I don’t feel like writing. It’s a show that loses its shine very, very quickly; watching all six in even a week gets pretty old really fast. But I’ll treat the kid to one every once in a while, and I do mean treat. Even with a good half the gags sailing over his head, he was wide-eyed and glowing. “That was HILARIOUS,” he shouted.
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 