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| From Amazon.ca |
I only began watching movies regularly at the theatre from the late 1970s when I was approaching my mid-teens and one of my highlights was catching the 1980 "Airplane!", the David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker comedic buffet of craziness that had people rolling in the aisles because of the scattergun gags that came even faster than in the average Mel Brooks movie. The producers also broke the mold by casting serious actors such as Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves who could deliver crazy lines in a straight-faced manner. Who could forget "Have you ever seen a grown man naked?", "I take mine (coffee) black...just like my men" and "Don't call me Shirley"?
One of those actors was the late Leslie Nielsen who hailed from Regina, Saskatchewan and was the brother of Erik Nielsen, a Progressive Conservative member of Parliament who was also once the Deputy Prime Minister between 1984 and 1986. I'd known about Nielsen since I was a little kid because he was always appearing in television dramas in serious roles as straight-edged cops or corrupt officials. Earlier than that though, Leslie had appeared as the starship commander in the 1956 "Forbidden Planet" which has been seen as a prototype for "Star Trek".
But his career made a major 90-degree turn when he took on "Airplane!". He was no longer the typical straight arrow but because of his zany performance as Dr. Rumack, he was seen as one of the most hilarious stone-faced comedians this side of Buster Keaton. And a couple of years later, he got his chance to take charge in another Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker project...this time on television as Lt. Frank Drebin on the 1982 "Police Squad!". Once again, the laughs came fast and furious (especially in our household) but after six episodes, it was suddenly cancelled for the lame reason that the head honcho of ABC Entertainment had thought that it required too much of the viewers' brain cells to get all of the humour. I had also wondered whether the craziness of the episodes could have lasted an entire season of twenty-two shows without exhausting itself but surely, it could have gone beyond six episodes (don't call me Shirley) which is why I think there may have been more at play behind the scenes than a mere disagreement of how much humour a person could take.
By this point, fans of "Police Squad!" know that the series was an affectionate comedic reference to the NBC cop show "M Squad" of the late 1950s starring Lee Marvin. And the parody extended to the opening credits and the jazzy theme song. Crazily enough, this is Ira Newborn's second time on the Reminiscings of Youth series since I also wrote about him when he came up with the groovy fusion theme for the legendary comedy variety series "SCTV" in 1981.
Well, nothing groovy or fusion about the theme for "Police Squad!". Newborn came up with an epically snazzy Big Band jazz tune that greeted viewers for each of those half-dozen episodes and slaughtered fellow Canadian thespians for half of them. Another wonderful thing is that there is a full version of the theme and it got played in its entirety for the first cinematic feature version in 1989, "The Naked Gun", another laugh riot.
So, when "Police Squad!" had made its premiere in March 1982, what Japanese pop singles were also making their mark on the record shop shelves? Well, we have three records that came out on the same day, March 21st.
Kyoko Koizumi -- Watashi no 16-sai (私の１６才）
Takashi Hosokawa -- Kita Sakaba (北酒場）
Chiemi Hori -- Shiokaze no Shojo（潮風の少女）
