A Substantial Gift (The Broken Promise):
Written by: David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker
Directed by: David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker
Original airdate: March 18, 1982
Synopsis:
Outside the Bijou Theatre, special guest star Lorne Greene is thrown from a moving car. The glittery handle of a dagger protrudes from his chest and he dies.
Crime is rampant in the city and anyone can be a victim or perpetrator. Just look at seemingly innocent Sally Decker. After begging for a pay advance from her boss at the ACME Finance Credit Union, she spur of the moment kills him and a customer, staging the scene to look like a failed robbery.
Sergeant Frank Drebin Detective Lieutenant Police Squad is called to the scene. As a member of this special division of the Police Department, he makes his way through a confusing account of the events from Sally. Frank’s boss, Captain Ed Hocken, explains that the alleged gunman, Ralph Twice, was a good family man, and Frank becomes suspicious that there’s more to this case.
Frank makes his way to the Police Squad lab and meets with Ted Olsen. Ted has discovered that Ralph was standing too close to the teller, demonstrating how many more Barbra Walters interviews are destroyed with the gun at varying distances.
Frank and Ed make their way into Little Italy and console Mrs. Twice, offering insightful explanations she can give her daughter for her father’s absence. Frank then becomes suspicious of Sally when during her statement, she paints Ralph Twice as a con man who was extorting the credit union for protection money.
Further testing shows that Ralph couldn’t have fired the shots, so Frank gets a new lead from Johnny, a local shoe shiner with his ear to the ground. Johnny tells Frank that Sally had been involved in low end scams recently, and sends him to see a man at an “all night wicker place,” where it’s confirmed that Sally owed a lot of money to her orthodontist.
Frank discovers that Sally had paid her debt to the doctor, and had actually also broken off a mild romantic relationship the two had. Frank disguises his voice as the doctor, and tricks Sally into a meeting. When Frank arrives, Sally begins to cry at his accusations of involvement, but his keen detective skills have proven that Sally Decker has several other aliases, and a gun fight erupts.
When both Frank and Sally’s guns are shot empty, Frank calls for her surrender. She attempts to run but is stopped by Ed, with the help of 2 sergeants. Back at Police Squad, Frank and Ed marvel at his bluff, and freeze uncomfortably on a laugh as they wait for the credits to end.
Arrive on the Scene:
The creators of Police Squad are Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (abbreviated to ZAZ), Jim Abrahams and brothers David Zucker and Jerry Zucker. The trio founded a small theater known as The Kentucky Fried Theater in 1971 which led to their sketch comedy film The Kentucky Fried Movie. This was followed in 1980 by the trio's breakout hit Airplane!, which remains a revered comedic milestone. Subsequent collaborations include Top Secret!, Ruthless People, and The Naked Gun.
Each member of the group also had individual solo careers:
David Zucker directed BASEketball, My Boss's Daughter, Scary Movie 3 and 4
Abrahams directed Jane Austen's Mafia!, Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux
Jerry Zucker directed Ghost, First Knight and Rat Race
Leslie Nielsen portrayed Sergeant Frank Drebin, detective lieutenant of Police Squad. Jerry Zucker explained that the name Drebin was picked blindly from the phone book. Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker had met Nielsen when working on Airplane! (1980) and felt that their kind of humor matched. The team felt that Nielsen would be perfect as Drebin, as the character lampooned the roles that Nielsen had played in television dramas such as The Bold Ones: The Protectors and S.W.A.T..
Alan North played Captain Ed Hawkin. He served in the United States Navy during the Second World War. After the war, he became a stage manager and made his Broadway debut in 1955 in Plain and Fancy. Other than Police Squad, he’s best known for the movies Serpico, Highlander and The Long Kiss Goodnight. We’ve talked about him before as the irritable police officer in See No Evil, Hear No Evil.
Ed Williams was Ted Olsen. He had been a broadcasting and speech teacher at Los Angeles City College in Southern California for many years, and had some previous acting experience. Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker were amazed by his performance. Despite the success of his performances in Police Squad!, and later The Naked Gun films, he only had minor roles in other movies.
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.
Rex Hamilton only ever appeared as an actor in the opening credits for Police Squad. He was also a set photographer on the movie Lamia: The Zombie Slayer, which although being filmed in the early 80’s, wasn’t released until 2018.
Special guest star Lorne Greene is a Canadian actor, best known for playing “Pa” Cartwright on Bonanza, and Commander Adama in the original series of Battlestar Galactica and Galactica 1980. He was also a well known country singer.
William Duell plays Johnny in all six episodes. He was best known for his roles as Andrew McNair in the musical 1776, and Jim Sefelt in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He also appeared in Airplane as a reporter, and was brought on as Johnny the shoe shiner in Police Squad afterwards. A theater scholarship at Green Mountain College is named after him.
7 foot tall “Tiny” Ron Taylor played Al. His face is never seen in the show, and he reprised the role in The Naked Gun. He made other film appearances in Road House, Rocketeer, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Alien Nation: Body and Soul and Alien Nation: The Enemy Within, as well as Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
Barbara Tarbuck played Mrs. Twice. She’s a long time working actor, having appeared in many TV shows such as The Incredible Hulk, Dallas, Little House on The Prairie, M*A*S*H, Falcon Crest, Moonlighting, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Enterprise, NCIS, Glee, American Horror Story and Dexter to name just a few. She was also in the movies Curly Sue and S. Darko. We’ve seen her before in the Quantum Leap episode “Reberto!”
Terry Wills played a character named Jim. He was the garbage man in Child’s Play 3.
Terrence Beasor played Dr. Zubatski. He’s had a long career in bit parts. He’s got a lot of Star Trek credits, playing Captain Talmage in TNG episode “Man of the People”, and voicing Borgs in Voyager and the Star Trek video games Invasion, Elite Force 1 & 2, Armada 2, and Starfleet Command 3.
The Dental Assistant was played by Mallory Sandler. She was also in Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane, The Naked Gun, and The Naked Gun 33 ⅓.
One of the patients at the dentist is an uncredited David Schwimmer in his first on screen performance.
The Ring of Fear (A Dangerous Assignment):
Written by:
Story by: David Misch
Teleplay by : Tino Insana & Robert Wuhl
Directed by: Joe Dante
Original airdate: March 11, 1982
Synopsis:
Nobody is safe in the city, not even special guest star Georg Stanford Brown who has one dropped on him. And not Mike Shultz, either. Mike was paid off to throw a boxing match, but he won it anyway, causing mob boss Montague Martin to lose a lot of money. He has Mike killed and the scene staged to look like a suicide.
Sergeant Frank Drebin Detective Lieutenant Police Squad is called to the scene, where Captain Ed Hocken is already suspecting foul play. Frank is tasked to go undercover, and he devises a plan to find a good boxer and straighten him out. During a tense card game at Jim’s Gym, with manager Saul Cooper, Frank wins the contract of Buddy Briggs. He’s also warned that while he may have a fighter, he will never get a fight.
Meanwhile at the lab, Ted matches facial hair to Martin’s goon, Luca Burnett. Now armed with some damning evidence, Frank stops in to see Buddy, and pitches his plan. Buddy is hesitant to get on board, fearing retaliation from Martin, when his wife, Mary, arrives home drunk. Realising he’s become a disappointment to the love of his life, Buddy vows to become a contender so he can provide Mary with all the things he ever promised for her.
Frank and Buddy arrive at Morey's Bar, and attempt to antagonise Cooper into organising a fight between Buddy and Cooper’s prize fighter, known as “The Champ.” When Cooper rejects the offer, Frank and Buddy antagonise The Champ head on in front of the press, leading to Buddy throwing a knockout punch. With the punch making headlines, The Champ is forced to defend his title, and a match with Buddy is set.
With Buddy’s confidence so high, Martin knows the only way to buy him off, and take a fall is to kidnap Mary. Frank tells Buddy to get in the ring and beat The Champ, while he finds Mary. Frank gets a hot tip from local shoeshiner, Johnny, who sends him back to Jim’s Gym. Frank finds Luca Burnett sleeping, and Mary escaping already. When Luca awakes, he takes Mary into a steam room as hostage and an obscured gun fight breaks out, ending with Frank fatally shooting the henchman.
Back at the fight, Buddy is down for the count in the twelfth round as Martin demanded, but when he sees Mary in the crowd, her words of disappointment ring in his ears. He gets to his feet and lands another knockout blow to The Champ, winning the fight.
Martin is arrested and brought back to Police Squad, where Frank tells him to do some boxing up at the Stateville Prison. Pleased with his comeback, they freeze for the credit roll while Martin tries to make a hasty escape.
Arrive on the Scene:
Director Joe Dante went on to have a stellar career, making the films Piranha, The Howling, Gremlins, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Innerspace, The ‘Burbs and Small Soldiers. He’s also directed plenty of television episodes for shows such as Eerie Indiana, Masters of Horror, Witches of East End, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Salam, and the recent series of Hawaii Five-0.
Tino Insana & Robert Wuhl worked as story editors on all 6 episodes of Police Squad! They are both fairly recognisable bit part actors. Wuhl notably played Alexander Knox in Batman (1989). David Misch was a writer on Mork & Mindy before this, and later went on to be a writer and producer on the animated series Duckman.
Special guest star Georg Stanford Brown is most well known for his roles in the TV series The Rookies, Roots, Roots: The Next Generation, Linc’s and Nip/Tuck, and the movie House Party 2: The Pajama Jam. He actually directed the next episode of Police Squad and later went on to win a PrimeTime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a season 5 episode of Cagney & Lacey. We’ve seen him before in the Wilder & Pryor movie Stir Crazy.
Buddy is played by professional “that guy” Patrick St. Esprit in his debut role here. After this he was in Love Boat, Knight Rider, Dr. Quinn, ER, Walker Texas Ranger, X-Files, JAG, Revolution, Castle, Scandal, Narcos, Big Little Lies and most recently SWAT to name just a few. He was also in the movies Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Super 8.
Mary was played by Tessa Richarde. She has a couple dozen credits, but her most notable role was as a motel guest in National Lampoon’s Vacation.
Cooper was played by Floyd Levine, who made his rounds on plenty of TV shows including Kojak, Starsky & Hutch, Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, TJ Hooker, Murder She Wrote, Melrose Place, Baywatch and many more. He was also in the movies Death Wish, Flying High II: The Sequel, Good Burger, Babylon 5: Thirdspace, Coach Carter, Norbit, Meet Dave and The Hangover. We’ve apparently seen him as Frank Lot in the Leslie Nielsen spoof Repossessed.
Irwin Keyes played Luca. He is definitely a “that guy.” He was in The Warriors, Death Wish 4, The Flintstones and House of 1000 Corpses, and did heaps of TV including the revival season of Get Smart, Black Scorpion, CSI and Pretty Little Liars among others. He was uncredited in Friday the 13th where he apparently played a busboy.
Grand L. Bush played The Champ. He’s probably most recognised for his roles in Die Hard, Exorcist III, Freejack and Street Fighter, but we’ve seen him in Licence to Kill and Lethal Weapon 2 before now.
Thomas Rosales Jr. played Mike Shultz. He was in the Lois and Clark episode “Ultra Woman” playing a thug, and the Voyagers episode “Bully and Billy” playing a soldier. He also played prisoner #2 in Naked Gun 33 ⅓, and a gang member in Predator 2.
One of the poker players is Tony Sirico. He most notably went on to play Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri in the series The Sopranos.
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