Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today I thought we'd do another You Should Laugh More post.

Research has shown that laughter is good for us. It has all kinds of health benefits. Despite most of us knowing this, none of us laugh enough. Yeah, I know, being an adult is tough, and furthermore there is a lot of grim stuff happening in the world. These things may be true, but that just is all the more reason for trying to get a little laughter into our lives.

A few weeks ago I did a short intro to Airplane, a movie which often makes film lists as one of the funniest comedies of all time. All of the movie is wonderful, but perhaps the most famous line from the film is spoken by a Leslie Nielsen. In response to being told "Surely you can't be serious" he responds straight-faced with I am serious, and don't call me Shirley. It's a funny line by itself. Puns are usually considered dad joke territory and make us groan more than laugh, but this one is so unexpected that it is funny. The humor is amplified even more by Nielsen's delivery.

And there we go. Leslie Nielsen. He had previously been a serious actor (as had everyone who stared in Airplane) but now we knew he had real comic talent. His next movie was not quite as good as Airplane, but it was very close. In The Naked Gun he stared as detective Frank Drebin and the story they tell is even more zany than Airplane.

Anyway, we aren't here to do a review. I'll leave that to others who are better at such things. I want to instead pick out some of my favorite clips.

Now when I started drafting this post, I was planning on picking from the entire film as I had done for my Airplane post, but the more I thought of it I thought I would focus on my favorite part of the film, the completely wild 3rd act which involves Drebin trying to foil an assassination attempt on a visiting Queen Elizabeth at a baseball game.

Warning, there might be some spoilers here. It is a comedy, so I don't really think spoilers apply as the story is only there to give an excuse for jokes, but if you really really hate spoilers, you might want to click out now.

To begin with, Drebin has been kicked off the police force. He has discovered that one of the players is going to be the killer, so he has to find a way to get onto the field in order to search the players. His first attempt is to impersonate the opera singer, Enrico Pallazzo, not thinking ahead to realize he would have to sing the national anthem.

Here he is bumbling his way through singing it.

From there, he changes disguises from the opera singer to an umpire. He then finds himself on the field behind home plate. At first he is hesitant, not entirely sure what to do, but upon seeing the crowd reaction to his calls, he goes a little wild.

The killer is going to strike during the 7th inning stretch. But the 7th inning starts and he still has no idea who it is. So what to do? Delay as long as possible, trying to avoid calling the 3rd out. The results are hilarious. Especially when the umpires start fighting.

Anyway, the 3rd act baseball game is the best part of the film, but the entire thing is great and well worth watching. A few of the political jokes may not hold up these days, but all the rest do and it is just as funny as ever.

I'll leave you all with one more clip. This one has the line that gives this post it's title. When Drebin saves the day and takes off his mask, everyone doesn't recognize him as police detective Frank Drebin but instead as...

This joke is one that outlived Nielsen. When he died in 2010, ESPN published an obituary for "Enrico Pallazzo". It is so good. I reread it every now and then just for a laugh. Read it here. The entire thing is filled with The Naked Gun in-jokes, so you might want to watch the movie before reading it.

So what do you think? Did it make you laugh or was it just stupid? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.