Naked Gun Fun

By IAN WILSON

Terrible anthem singing … check.

Clueless umpiring … check.

Baseball bloopers … check.

No doubt about it, The Naked Gun is a baseball movie.

Hey, if Die Hard is a Christmas classic, well then yippee ki-yay, you bet The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is a baseball film.

And not only is it a baseball flick, just like Field of Dreams and The Hill, it has ties to Western Canada.

Here’s a look at five of those links:

DEADPAN DREBIN

The Naked Gun and its two movie sequels focus on the adventures of police Lieutenant Frank Drebin, played masterfully by Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, he was a prolific actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and over 150 television shows. His family lived in the Northwest Territories before moving to Edmonton in 1930. Nielsen graduated from the Alberta capital’s Victoria School of the Arts and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943 at the age of 17. He trained as an aerial gunner and after the Second World War he moved to Calgary, where he worked as a disc jockey at a radio station.

From there, Nielsen studied theatre in Toronto and New York until Hollywood came calling.

(One project on home soil saw Nielsen star as Don MacIntosh in a 1979 CBC TV series called The Albertans, about cattle ranchers and oil tycoons, which was promoted as a Canadian version of the show Dallas.)

In The Naked Gun, Nielsen steals most of the baseball scenes he appears in. His undercover work as Italian opera singer Enrico Pallazo leads to a cringe-worthy singing of the American national anthem. He then hides himself behind a mask as the home-plate umpire and engages in strike-calling shenanigans that leave the pitchers and hitters shaking their heads in disbelief. Drebin later inserts himself in a rundown, actively gets in the way of defensive players, blows obvious calls, tosses the real members of the umpiring crew out of the game and pulls a gun on those questioning his authority.

It is all absurd, of course, but Nielsen does it with a straight-faced expression that he first made famous as Dr. Rumack in the 1980 comedy classic Airplane!

HALOS VS. MARINERS

The two teams featured in this 1988 oddball movie are the California Angels and the Seattle Mariners.

The game footage was actually filmed at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, rather than Angel Stadium in Anaheim. There were only two Major League Baseball (MLB) players: Jay Johnstone, a two-time World Series champion, and National Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson. More on Reggie in a moment.

The Alberta connection to the Angels and the Mariners came in the form of the top minor-league affiliates for those organizations at the time. The Calgary Cannons were Seattle’s Triple-A farm team in the Pacific Coast League (PCL) from 1985 through 1994. Meanwhile, the Angels sent their top prospects to the Edmonton Trappers in the PCL from 1983 to 1992. The Alberta franchises developed quite the provincial rivalry over the years, although it’s unlikely they experienced any on-field antics quite as outlandish as what fans of The Naked Gun witnessed.

Todd Cruz, who was one of the Angels players in the film, was a shortstop with the Trappers in 1981.

Wally Joyner suited up for the Trappers before he took over first base duties from Rod Carew as a member of the Angels. He didn’t appear in The Naked Gun but he was in the 1994 baseball movie Little Big League.

DEVILISH ANGEL

Reggie Jackson was the biggest baseball star in the cast.

He had a pivotal scene where he was directed by villain Vincent Ludwig – played by Ricardo Montalban, who was known for his roles on Fantasy Island and in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II.

“I must kill the Queen,” Jackson repeated as he walked robotically from right field to the infield to retrieve a handgun from under second base.

Drebin’s attempt to thwart Jackson sparked a bench-clearing brawl. After Jackson escaped from the pile of punch-throwing Angels and Mariners, he made his way towards the box seat of Queen Elizabeth II again, but Drebin accidentally caused a spectator to fall from the stadium’s upper deck and flatten the would-be hitman.

The scene culminated with a fan excitedly exclaiming, “Hey, it’s Enrico Pallazo!” when Drebin removed his umpire mask to reveal himself as an unwitting hero.

Jackson experienced many great baseball moments over the course of his career, including an historic visit to Edmonton in 1983.

Participating in an exhibition match between the Trappers and Angels at Commonwealth Stadium – the home of Edmonton’s Canadian Football League squad – Jackson was the main attraction. A total of 24,830 fans showed up for the special May 16th matchup, which is still the highest attendance ever for a baseball game in Alberta .

“It seemed like almost all of them were there to see Reggie. Before the game, Reggie made his way to the Angels dugout via the running track and crowds of people lined the bottom rows trying to get a glimpse of this larger than life hero,” said Bob Brown, who was a teenager when he attended the game.

ROYAL VISITS

Jeannette Charles portrayed Jackson’s target, Queen Elizabeth II. It was a lookalike gig that landed her numerous royal roles on TV and in film.

Her Majesty fit right in at the ball game, engaging with the crowd, uncorking a wild ceremonial first pitch, and even getting in on the wave when it came around.

The real-life Queen of England made numerous stops in Alberta and Saskatchewan over the decades.

In 1951, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited Calgary and Edmonton as representatives of King George VI. She became Queen the following year and the two returned to Calgary in 1959.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) centennial brought them back to Western Canada for a Regina visit in 1973. That tour included a trip to the Calgary Stampede.

Five years later, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh opened the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton.

In 1985, she visited the Alberta capital as well as the Canadian Forces Base (CFB) in Cold Lake, and in 1987 Queen Elizabeth spent time at the Wanuskewin archeological historic site near Saskatoon. 

A tour of Spruce Meadows, an internationally renowned show jumping facility in Calgary, took place when Queen Elizabeth visited Alberta in 1990.

The centennial of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 2005 resulted in an extensive royal tour of both provinces.

IN THE BOOTH

The original Naked Gun film boasted a ridiculous seven-person team of announcers in the broadcast booth.

That team included Curt Gowdy, Dick Enberg, Jim Palmer, Mel Allen, Tim McCarver, Dick Vitale and psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers. 

McCarver – a Hall-of-Fame broadcaster and two-time World Series champ – was a big fan of Nielsen’s work.

Among his on-air assignments was a trip to Calgary for the Winter Olympics in 1988, where he was a correspondent and play-by-play announcer for freestyle skiing.

Fans of The Naked Gun films can look forward to a fourth installment in the series. Liam Neeson will star as Frank Drebin Jr. in the movie, which is set to be released in the summer of 2025.