• Leslie Nielsen
    Bio:
    Leslie William Nielsen OC 11 February 1926 28 November 2010 was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian Nielsen appeared in over one hundred films and 1 500 television programs over the span of his career portraying over 220 characters Born in Regina Saskatchewan Nielsen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and worked as a disc jockey before receiving a scholarship to Neighborhood Playhouse Making his television debut in 1948 he quickly expanded to over 50 television appearances two years later Nielsen made his film debut in 1956 and began collecting roles in dramas westerns and romance films Nielsen s performances in the films Forbidden Planet 1956 and The Poseidon Adventure 1972 received positive reviews as a serious actor though he is primarily known for his comedic roles Although Nielsen s acting career crossed a variety of genres in both television and films his deadpan delivery in Airplane 1980 marked a turning point in his career one that would make him in the words of film critic Roger Ebert the Olivier of spoofs Nielsen enjoyed further success with The Naked Gun film series 1988 1994 based on a short lived television series Police Squad in which he starred earlier His portrayal of serious characters seemingly oblivious to and complicit in their absurd surroundings gave him a reputation as a comedian In the final years of his career Nielsen appeared in multiple spoof and parody films many of which were met poorly by critics but performed well in box office and home media releases Nielsen married four times and had two daughters from his second marriage He was recognized with a variety of awards throughout his career and was inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame Description above from the Wikipedia article Leslie Nielsen licensed under CC BY SA full list of contributors on Wikipedia

In 2010, cinema lost one of its greatest comedic voices. Leslie Nielsen was the undisputed king of parody films, also referred to as “spoof movies”. Few actors have a stranglehold on one sub-genre as Nielsen had on these niche satire flicks. With the release of smash-hit comedy blockbuster Airplane! in 1980, Nielsen’s career took a drastic shift from dramatic character-actor, to the go-to spoof performer. If you wanted your parody movie to have any validity, casting Leslie Nielsen would be the best way to gain it.

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For the last 30 years of his career, Nielsen was in 16 spoof movies, even a cameo in a few of them was big enough to earn him top billing. He starred in some other straight-up comedy movies like Mr. Magoo, or Camouflage, but the spoof genre is where he truly made his mark. Most of these movies are not great, to say the least, but Nielsen was always a welcoming face that elevated everything he was in.

16) ‘Stan Helsing’ (2009)

Stan Helsing movie 2009, pinhead, crying baby, video store, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs

Stan Helsing is barely a movie. Even for a cheap spoof, the acting is atrocious to the point where you often feel bad for the actors, who look totally abandoned. The script is ostensibly comprised of rejected jokes from the Scary Movie series, but even that is unfair to Scary Movie. The most immediate thing you’ll notice about Stan Helsing is its cheapness. A massive chunk takes place in a car, a clear effort by the producers to skim on paying for more locations. It’s the Saving Christmas of parody movies. There are scenes where the director takes old stock footage and overlays fart sounds. It’s shoddier than an Ed Wood joint, only Ed Wood films are actually funny.

Stan Helsing is also one of the horniest movies ever made. Its understanding of drugs and sex genuinely makes you wonder if it was written by a pubescent 12-year-old boy. The issues go far beyond it just being immature, (immature teens wouldn’t even find this funny), it’s just poorly constructed. Sometimes you legitimately wonder “What part of this scene did the director think was funny?”. Leslie Nielsen turns up, briefly. He plays a waitress. The joke is that Leslie Nielsen is playing a woman. Ha. The only funny thing about Stan Helsing is that Nielsen clearly knows it’s a trash movie, so he barely even tries.

15) ‘An American Carol’ (2008)

Big Fat Important Movie, An American Carol, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs, Michael Moore, interviewed by press

How the mighty have fallen. David Zucker, co-director of spoof classics, The Naked Gun and Airplane!, delivered this travesty to screens in 2008. An American Carol (AKA, Big Fat Important Movie) is a pathetic, flaccid, and furious conservative tirade against the documentaries of liberal director Michael Moore. It might as well be called “Strawman: The Movie”; instead of substantive critiques of Moore, An American Carol paints him as a Nazi sympathizer, pro-slavery and pro-terrorist. Prominent conservative actors come out to play in this attempt to be hip and funny, from Jon Voight to James Woods, to (groan) Kevin Sorbo. It’s propaganda that was rejected by all sides.

Michael Moore isn’t a sacred cow; there’s so much of his persona and directing style that has been parodied brilliantly in the past, but An American Carol fails because it’s so patently angry, relying on 90 minutes of fat jokes rather than any intelligent observations. It’s as if a high school bully made a movie mocking the smart kid in class as a retaliation for the smart kid getting better grades.

14) ‘Spanish Movie’ (2009)

Spanish Movie, Doctor, Pink Hair, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs

Leslie Nielsen has an arbitrary and disposable cameo as an inept doctor in this Spanish-language spoof. Spanish Movie has an uncomfortable amount in common with the worst of the spoof genre, including Seltzer & Friedberg joints like Disaster Movie and Epic Movie. It consists entirely of lame non-sequiturs that aren’t even close to resembling actual jokes.

The characters are all intensely unlikeable, and the script has the vibe of something written at the last second. It’s a visually repugnant film. It’s overexposed yet somehow too dour at the same time. It’s difficult to find an English-subtitled version of Spanish Movie, and for good reason. It shouldn’t be seen by anyone.

13) ‘The Creature Wasn’t Nice’ (1983)

Creature wasn't nice, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs, Spacesuits, Scared

The Creature Wasn’t Nice is less of a parody movie and more of a comedic pastiche. It’s a farcical take on sci-fi schlock, and a riff on popular space movies like Alien, Star Wars, and 2001: a Space Odyssey. There’s a reason this flick has been completely lost to time; it’s just plain bad. A lot of the gags are funny in theory, but are executed in such a dull way that it deflates any entertainment value. Nielsen is good as the cowardly, self-important ship captain ‘Jamieson’, but he’s dominated by the irritating performance of Gerrit Graham, playing the impossibly obnoxious ‘Rodzinski’, a character that ruins every scene he’s in. Unfortunately, Rodzinski is in most scenes.

It's such a cheap flick that you can occasionally see the top of the set. While this may be an intelligent, subtle gag in a more competent spoof, here it’s obvious that the movie is just incompetent. There’s only one laugh, when the vicious Alien breaks into an unexpected musical number about “eating faces”. Everything that The Creature Wasn’t Nice strives for was done far better by John Carpenter in his 1974 debut, Dark Star.

12) ‘Dracula: Dead and Loving it’ (1995)

Leslie Nieldsen as Count Dracula in Dracula Dead and Loving It
Image via Columbia Pictures

If it weren’t for Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Dracula: Dead and Loving It would be the weakest Mel Brooks film. Brooks’ ill-fated Dracula spoof is wholly unimpressive and woefully out of touch. It’s flatly shot, with no energy to the cinematography or editing. The set design looks like a stage play, which illustrates that Dead and Loving It would be more at home as a one-hour theatre show, than a stretched-out 90-minute movie.

Most jokes are unoriginal riffs on the Dracula tale, but if you want something funnier and more unique, try What We Do in the Shadows, or even Vampire’s Kiss.

RELATED: Every Mel Brooks Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best Though the actors (led by Nielsen as Count Dracula) are all up to the task, Peter MacNicol steals the show with his committed take on Dracula’s ghoulish slave, Renfield. Unless you’re a Mel Brooks or Leslie Nielsen completionist, steer clear.

13) ‘2001: A Space Travesty' (2000)

2001- A Space Travesty, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs, Straws, drinks, hostess

2001: A Space Travesty is peculiar in that it feels like a movie entirely written in another language, then run through Google translate to English, so every line feels just a little bit off. Nielsen plays ‘Marshall Dick Dicks’, a detective sent into space to save the President of the USA, who’s been taken hostage.

There is a lot of charm with puppets and prosthetics in 2001: A Space Travesty, and the set design, cinematography, and directing demonstrate much more ambition than your average spoof flick. What severely holds it back is that it’s never funny. However, it’s so absurd, random, relentlessly paced, and corny, that you won’t feel bored or annoyed.

10) ‘Wrongfully Accused’ (1998)

wrongfully accused, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs, Titanic spoof

Wrongfully Accused is a parody mash-up of The Fugitive and Patriot Games, starring Nielsen as a concert violinist who is framed for murder and hunted by the cops, led by Rambos Richard Crenna. Jokes in spoof movies are often hit-or-miss, but in Wrongfully Accused, it's full of mostly misses with occasional sort-of-hits. It’s the movie equivalent of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.

This forgettable, middle-of-the-road comedy endlessly throws pop culture references and famous movie one-liners at you with no rhyme or reason. Every other minute has some send-up of Braveheart, Titanic, Mission Impossible, The Usual Suspects, or any other moderately relevant movie at the time. It’s like an 80-minute episode of late-stage Family Guy, sometimes it may make you chuckle despite yourself, but for the most part, it’s completely disposable.

9) ‘Repossessed’ (1990)

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In a pseudo-sequel to The Exorcist, Repossessed is about Nancy (Linda Blair) falling victim to a demonic spirit inhabiting her body. When Nancy was a child, Leslie Nielsen’s ‘Father Jedediah’ expelled the evil entity from her, but 30 years later, it’s come back to finish the job. Like how Dracula: Dead and Loving It benefits from Peter MacNicol’s amazing performance, Repossessed owes most of its charm to the animated silliness of Linda Blair. Blair is having a blast ‘reprising’ her role from the original 1973 classic and is responsible for many of the film’s best lines.

Where Repossessed falls short is the third act. Even though Ned Beatty makes a welcome appearance as a send-up of infamous Pentecostal charlatan, Rick Bakker, he isn’t enough to prevent it from becoming tedious. Like Wrongfully Accused, Repossessed is mostly unremarkable.

8) ‘Superhero Movie’ (2008)

superhero movie, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs, dragonfly punching criminal

As you’ve already guessed by the name, Superhero Movie is a parody of pre-2008 superhero cinema, especially the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy. Unfortunately, Superhero Movie isn’t anywhere near as entertaining, nor funny as the movies it’s parodying, but it is fast-paced and short enough (less than 70 minutes) that you’ll never be bored. Released just before the beginning of the MCU and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, there’s something nostalgic about Superhero Movie. It’s a time capsule of all the tropes we could expect from cape movies back before the superhero genre became the dominant media of our time.

It has the typical failings of most spoof films, like many derivative jokes and over-reliance on references, but it’s a hell of a lot better than its contemporaries like Date Movie, Vampires Suck, and Meet the Spartans. The cast ranges from hilarious to awful. For example, every scene with Kevin Hart’s character is unwatchable, but the scenes where Christopher MacDonald and Brent Spiner play off one another are wonderful. Leslie Nielsen plays the ‘Uncle Ben’ equivalent here. Nielsen isn’t phoning it in, which is admirable, but the jokes aren’t doing him any favors.

7) ‘Spy Hard’ (1996)

spy hard, Nun, Hospital gurney, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs

In his review of The Naked Gun, Roger Ebert wrote “You laugh, and then you laugh at yourself for laughing. Some of the jokes are incredibly stupid. Most of them are dumber than dumb.” This line perfectly encapsulates why spoof movies are so fun to watch. Spy Hard is a movie that throws so many absurd visuals at the screen, that you can’t help but laugh. Your brain tells you that it’s dumb, that the acting is hammy, and the stakes are non-existent, but you’re engaged nonetheless.

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A lot of the jokes are cringeworthy, and there’s a huge leap in quality between Spy Hard and the Naked Gun series, but there’s something so endearing about watching Leslie Nielsen act as an inept spy who thinks he’s all that. There’s also a great title sequence by "Weird Al" Yankovic that parodies bond themes.

6) ‘Naked Gun 33 1⁄3: The Final Insult’ (1994)

Naked Gun 3, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs, Anna Nicole Smith, SHouting

The Naked Gun trilogy is extraordinarily impressive, in that each entry is only a little weaker than the last. As audiences discovered with the Johnny English sequels, sustaining laughs throughout 3 movies without coming stale and joyless is a tall order. The only other parody trilogy that comes close to The Naked Gun is the Austin Powers series.

The Naked Gun 3 is the weakest of the trilogy, but this is to be expected. Like a warm blanket, this third movie may show signs of aging, but it’s still reliable and does its job. Fred Ward makes a welcome addition to the franchise as this installment's villain ‘Rocco’, who conspires to bomb the Academy Awards. The writers keep the series fresh by setting the story in new locations and adding increasingly absurd set-pieces. It has no lofty ambitions, just to be another fun Nielsen romp, and that’s precisely what it is.

5) ‘Scary Movie 4’ (2006)

Brenda and Cindy wearing Saw-like traps on their necks and looking shocked in Scary Movie 4.
Image via Dimension Films

There are five Scary Movie's, #5 is appalling, #1 & #2 are merely okay, yet #3 and #4 are surprisingly good. It’s no coincidence that Scary Movie 3 & 4 are the entries that star Nielsen and are directed by spoof directing legend David Zucker (before the trainwreck, An American Carol, ruined his reputation).

Anna Faris and Regina Hall return as ‘Cindy’ and ‘Brenda’, best friends who must survive an alien invasion, Saw-esque torture traps, and Grudge-like ghosts. Leslie Nielsen, playing the dim-witted President of the USA, has some of the funniest scenes in the movie, in particular a hilarious parody of the George W. Bush, “My Pet Goat”, incident.

4) ‘The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear’ (1991)

Naked Gun 2, Best and Worst Leslie Nielsen spoofs, Sewage, Swimsuit, disgusted

There’s not much to say about Naked Gun 2 that also couldn’t be said about the first and third entries. The only variation in quality is that Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker didn’t return as screenwriters, so the comedy of Naked Gun 2 is less dynamic and clever, but all-in-all, it’s a great time.

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The glue holding the Naked Gun series together isn’t just Nielsen, but his amazing chemistry with co-stars George Kennedy and Priscilla Presley. Nielsen’s love interests are usually one-dimensional, extremely age-inappropriate women who solely exist to be a prize to be won by Nielsen at the end. Presley on the other hand, elevates the material and refuses to merely be attractive set-dressing.

3) ‘Scary Movie 3’ (2003)

The President runs over an alien in Scary Movie 3
Image via Dimension Films

The best of the Scary Movie films, Scary Movie 3 is a send-up of everything from M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, to The Ring, to 8 Mile. The thing that sets apart Scary Movie 3 & 4 from bad parody flicks, is that the main characters are likable and funny themselves, not just avatars for the writers to spurt out references.

There is reference humor, but the jokes are not reliant on audiences being familiar with the movies alluded to. Anna Faris once again proves that she is a brilliant comedic actor to be reckoned with, and Leslie Nielsen debuts his President character with a flurry of chaotic energy and absurdity.

2) ‘Airplane!’ (1980)

A group of people playing instruments in a cockpit in the movie Airplane!
Image via Paramount Pictures

Even if you haven’t seen Airplane! (AKA, Flying High), you’re probably still aware of its many iconic jokes through pop-culture osmosis. Not only was Airplane! the catalyst for a wave of spoof movies that would last 30 years, it was also the film that saw Leslie Nielsen’s career drastically swing from a respected dramatic actor to a legendary, deadpan comedian, and the unquestionable emperor of spoof cinema.

Directed by the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams, Airplane! was a critical and commercial smash hit, and is now considered one of the greatest comedies ever (Airplane! 2: The Sequel, is also surprisingly decent). The American comedy landscape would look a lot different if Airplane! didn’t exist. What Airplane! gets right that so many of its copycats don’t, is that Nielsen is at his funniest when he’s at his most stoic. Too many bad Nielsen spoofs rely on him pulling silly faces or doing prat-falls rather than giving him good material to work with. Airplane! is also home to some of the best film editing of the 20th century, and one of the greatest musical scores.

1) ‘The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!’ (1988)

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The Naked Gun is a brilliantly written flick, also directed by The Zucker Bros. and Jim Abrahams. It is the spiritual successor to the 1982 TV show, Police Squad, a fantastic show by the same creative team, canceled far too soon. The humor, pacing, and plot perfected the spoof movie template, which every other bad parody desperately tried to replicate.

Nielsen is at his best here, his comedic timing is impeccable. Just the smallest sideways glass or innocuous line delivery can have viewers roaring with laughter. The Naked Gun is the pinnacle of what the parody genre can achieve. Everyone who worked on it was at the height of their talents. If you haven’t seen it, you owe it to yourself to watch The Naked Gun, as well as its sequels, if only to pay respects to the comedic genius of the incomparable Leslie Nielsen.

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