page_title: Police Squad!
section_title: Opening sequence
hierarchical_section_title: Police Squad! / Production / Opening sequence
caption_attribution_description: Commentator Lorne Greene broadcasting over the C.B.C. national network
context_page_description: Police Squad! is an American television comedy series broadcast on the ABC network in 1982. It was created by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, and starred Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin. A spoof of police procedurals, the series featured Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker's usual sight gags, wordplay and non sequiturs. While a parody of many television shows and movies, it bore a particular resemblance to the Lee Marvin cop show M Squad and the late 1960s series Felony Squad. Although the show was canceled after six episodes, it later successfully spawned The Naked Gun film series from 1988 to 1994. In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #7 on its list of 60 shows that were "Cancelled Too Soon".
context_section_description: The show's opening sequence was a satire on traditional crime-drama opening sequences, particularly those of M Squad and various Quinn Martin shows such as The Fugitive and particularly The New Breed (which also starred Nielsen). Hank Simms, who had worked as an announcer for some of Martin's programs, announced the title of each episode, though the spoken title never matched the title caption. The sequence introduces Nielsen and North as their characters during a shootout, as well as Abraham Lincoln impersonator Rex Hamilton, who dramatically returns gunfire to John Wilkes Booth. Hamilton never appeared in the show itself.
  Another recurring gag used in the opening sequence was the introduction of a "special guest star", a celebrity who was introduced but immediately murdered during the credits. Lorne Greene, Georg Stanford Brown, Robert Goulet, William Shatner, Florence Henderson and William Conrad appeared as special guest stars during the show's run. A scene with John Belushi, tied to blocks of concrete under water, was filmed but replaced with footage of Henderson following Belushi's death before the episode was broadcast. Belushi's death came as a shock to Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker, as they had joked about it after he had almost choked during the filming of the scene. A list of possible celebrity death shots was included on the show's DVD release in 2006.
caption: Lorne Greene was a special guest star in the first episode.
exif: {}