I think we're missing a very important point here... You found a topic that required watching Get Smart, Sledgehammer and Leslie Nielsen's catalogs in their entirety. That's brilliant!

The way he dodged the question in that interview was hilarious. He made NO ATTEMPT to answer whatsoever lmfao

I truly was not bothered by what appears to be joke stealing until i heard him throw his brothers under the bus and try to claim he has no influences and that his own work is truly the first of its kind.

Sledgehammer certainly needs to be praised more and acknowledged. Great show.

Fun fact: The creator of Sledge Hammer (Alan Spencer) wrote a potential fourth Naked Gun movie in 2009 that was thought to be very funny and Paramount was even on board and Leslie Nielsen was in on it. But the Zucker Abrahams Zucker team tried to prevent it from happening. Ultimatley Leslie died and the project never happend. You can read about this in the Naked Gun 3 wikipedia artictile

Something worth noting about the Zero Hour / Airplane issue is that per Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! the studio brought up the issues with the seeming idea of their parody being plagurism with jokes sprinkled in. In the end to mitigate any legal problems they literally bought the rights to Zero Hour. That doesn't excuse anything else that they may or may not have done with taking jokes straight from other sources of course, but figured it was worth mentioning.

My friend's uncle wrote Sledge Hammer, a brilliant show and the episode 'Haven't gun will travel!' has one the best ending jokes of all time, like the entire show was made just for that one sentence at the end and it's brutal!

While I do feel like some were copied. A lot of examples are just different guys doing the same joke. Of course they both rattle cups, It’s one of the most iconic things to do in prison movies.

There's a difference between stealing one joke, and stealing a ton of jokes. The shoe thing, for example. Maxwell Smart was famous for his shoe phone, used in practically every episode. Meanwhile, the clip you showed from Naked Gun was about tools in the shoe, which is fairly different. The "prison changes you" joke, though, is practically the epitome of "let me copy your homework".

To their defence, they bought the rights to "Zero Hour" so they couldn't get sued. So that makes "Airplane" both a parody of and a remake of said film.

This is a fascinating subject, because it really is such a fine line between homage, plagarism, or simply people thinking of the same joke. The swiss army shoe, as an example, I think is clearly an homage. Even as a kid I saw that as an homage poking fun at the shoe phone from Get Smart. Little jokes like Nordberg kicking through the door while trying to kick it open I think can be written off as simply someone else thinking of the same joke. It's such an easy joke, that I think MOST people could have come up with that if they were told to write an absurdist police comedy. There are definitely jokes in this list though that are sus. The "I used to be white" joke is clearly just taken from the other show. I don't even know if I could consider it an homage. It's a bit of a shame that the writers, even during interviews, wouldn't state their sources of inspiration and give credit where credit is due.

Sledge Hammer was shown on ITV regional tv in the UK when they moved to 24/7 programming. It felt like a well kept secret that only me and my best mate knew about. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing" was a catchphrase only we used. Thanks for your great detective work on this one. Smart, Drebin and Hammer would all be proud!

Thanks for the Sledge Hammer exposure. As a fan since it aired, I've long been convinced it was just never going to get any respect.

It's annoying that Zucker wouldn't acknowledge Sledge Hammer as an influence. The examples are transformative enough that I consider them "inspired by" rather than "copied", at least in this case I don't feel there was anything to hide, and perhaps more people would have know about the series if Zucker *had* given it credit. It does make me wonder if Zucker *did* feel the degree that he could be "inspired" by others was something he didn't want to draw attention to, and Sledge Hammer just happened to be unlucky in that it was neither popular enough for enough people to catch the influences (unlike Get Smart) not copied so directly that Zucker couldn't ignore it (unlike Zero Hour).

I think the line between plagiarism and homage is actually a pretty clear one. If the influence is acknowledged, it is homage, if it is denied, it is plagiarism.

Plagiarism exposure week

Excellent video. Get Smart is one of the great comedies in American television, finding a unique niche in the spy craze of its era, especially when many examples were already tongue in cheek as is. The original series Police Squad was a spot-on send up of those Quinn Martin-type TV shows that dominated the airways of ‘60s-‘70s. Sledge Hammer was a great parody of post-Dirty Harry cop films and TV series, something that needed ribbing very badly. The problem with Mr. Zucker is his refusal to acknowledge his predecessors in any way. Certainly, Blake Edwards knew his silent comedies; The Great Race is one long silent film gag reel, and with Sellers’ Clouseau he found the perfect vehicle for these elaborate sight gags he adored. But I don’t think Edwards would ever claim he was never influenced by Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, or Laurel. He wanted to continue in the tradition. Zucker fails to admit he is in a tradition. He does not know how to differ between taking melodramas like Zero Hour or MSquad and redoing them as farce, and redoing scenes from previous farces. He seems to think the copying of whole comedy skits is the same thing as copying scenes from a melodrama. It is not. From melodrama it is parody: from another comedy it is plagiarism. Great essay.

Another stolen joke in Airplane is where some reporters are interviewing someone and then they say "Aright, let's take some pictures!" They then proceed to remove framed pictures hanging from the walls. That same joke is in the 1941 film Hellzapoppin!. There might be more parallel jokes in there as well. They both operate in that heightened reality.

I detest when comedians/comedy writers act like they invented something all on their own. Like they didn't grow up watching comedy and that's why they got in the business in the first place. The best artists are the ones who acknowledge what came before as building blocks to where they are today. Excellent video. Very informative and entertaining! 😊

This is both heartbreaking and heart warming at the same time. I hate that it wasn't as original as I once believed, but I do love Get Smart and loved Sledge Hammer for a shirt time back in the 80s but remember it so little. And who doesn't love the old Peter Sellers movies. Especially The Party and the first two PPanther movies? For my money, I'd much rather watch Get Smart and The Peter Seller movies.

I feel like my world has been shattered😂. Honestly this channel always brings quality to the table.

Sledgehammer was also the origin of the joke: "Do you know the next time I shoot someone, I could get arrested?"

This is heartbreaking to see as a HUGE Naked Gun fan, but thank you so much for this research. This is important for people to see.

The Swiss Army Shoe seems more like a reference to 'From Russia With Love' to me, rather than theft of the Get Smart one. Interesting video, if a little disappointing to see that a lot of the jokes weren't too original. I've also never heard of Sledge Hammer, but it looks great.

The funniest thing in that Airplane comparison is that all the actors in the satire have WAY better screen presence and are way more believable, despite being slightly less low-key in their performances. It makes it so much funnier.

I love the Naked Gun movies and the writers seemed superhuman to me. This puts it into perspective. They should've given credit to their influences and then it would've been fine.

The real punchline in the "used to be white" scene from Naked Gun 33 1/3 is when Frank says "Yeah, I remember the Osmonds."

Is David Zucker running for office? The way he completely ignored a revealing question & talked about himself was truly spectacular!!😂 Amazing presentation & research

The Naked Gun movies are amazing! Especially 1 & 2. I will never tire of them. Isn't that right, mr. Poopy Pants!?

"In preparation for this video, I forced myself to watch MOST OF THE BEST FILM AND TELEVISION COMEDY EVER MADE." I resepct you suffering for your art. If you had to toss in all of the Marx Brothers' films, you probably would've died.

Man this is rough. I love these films so much, but the evidence is pretty cut and dry. Homages only work if you’re blantant about them or if they're from well-known entities (doing a Godfather parody, for example). Taking from lesser known works and not giving them any recognition at all looks like you're blatantly trying to hide something

David Zucker seems to have a wee bit of a problem sharing the credit....

With Airplane it's not an issue because that was a direct parody and the point was they added jokes on top of that existing story. The Naked Gun ones? Yeah that's not a good look, especially considering Zucker's comments.

Beverly Hills Ninja (which I love) also used the grapple hook gag Also, Sledge Hammer is the GOAT

Something like this kind of does make something like An American Carol make more sense.

A lot of those scenes really transform the joke, even if it's just adding a stethoscope to Leslie Nielson's ears. A few are derivative, and I think only one, the swear joke, seemed to be a joke that really wanted to be told again and again. It does not feel like plagiarism, just like a great love for comedy. It is pretty bad that the influences are not acknowledged, though, but some people's egos are amazingly big.

He watched every episode of Sledge Hammer!! Does this mean retrospective on Sledge Hammer! soon???

“Did Hats Off Entertainment plagiarize the idea of doing a video about plagiarism in December 2023 from HBomberGuy?”

That swinging door gag has been around for so long, its been an expected joke since films began. But, as you mentioned, that's typical of comedy through the years.

The out-of-control automatic wheelchair gag was also used in 2006's Pink Panther; and the student driver gag was used in the 3rd Johnny English.

Pointing to American Carol to point out how Neilson fails without good jokes was excellent.

Brilliant video. I'm a big fan of Naked Gun and Leslie Nielsen, but I never knew any of this. That being said, I wouldn't trust David Zucker with anything I've created or anybody else's creations.

I’m shocked that they stole jokes from “Sledge Hammer” barely two or three years later for “The Naked Gun”. How did nobody notice that?!

I grew up watching Get Smart and Police Squad in the 80s, but I LOVED Sledge Hammer!

People with nothing to hide don't answer questions like that in interviews.

I'd never heard of Sledge Hammer before. I'll have to check it out now!

I like it when they take a serious scene from another source and add a joke to it. I think in Airplane, it's changed enough that it works as parody and isn't just plagiarism. It's also very effective. There are actual jokes there, it's not just a reference joke, so it's still funny even if you don't get the reference. I heard they bought the rights to Zero Hour so they didn't have to worry about legal issues, so there is some awareness there that they knew they might be crossing a line here. That being said, airplane/airport disaster movies was a genre back then, and all those movies were similar enough that if you didn't know about Zero Hour, but had seen the other movies in the genre, you'd just think Airplane was just a parody of the genre in general. The name is a play on Airport '78 or something, so again, some awareness there as they avoided calling out their reuse of the Zero Hour script by not using a movie title that's a parody of Zero Hour. So definitely pushing the line, while trying not to go completely over the line, being aware of how close they are to straight up plagiarism. Or at least trying to not get in trouble. I do think it's going too far when it comes to recycling gags. I prefer it when they take a serious scene and make it funny. I think it worked better when they played it deadpan. Although I did enjoy the Naked Gun movies, I've always thought Nielsen peaked with airplane and slowly declined throughout his career. If you watch all his movies and shows in order in reverse, from his last to Airplane, everything is funnier than the last.

David Zucker does the same thing that Jimmy Page does when people ask him if he stole some song. He avoids the question and never acknowlesges it.

Whether ZAZ ever watched _Sledge Hammer!_ or not, it's fair to say that the _Naked Gun_ trilogy does feel like _Police Squad!_ and _Sledge Hammer!_ were put into a blender (albeit with fewer exclamation points).

Also remember Inspector Gadget (the 80s cartoon series) - did they steal jokes (from 'Get Smart and other spy related movies and shows?)....look into that too....

I think the fact that he goes out of his way to deflect questions on inspiration and influence kind of seals it.

I mean, those of us who liked this kind of comedy saw them all. We loved Get Smart and Naked Gun because they were all the same kind of gags. I never really thought of it as ripping off stuff so much as it's just the kind of absurdist comedy that made me laugh. Especially Sledge Hammer. Thanks for showing off that show, I used to love it so much back when it was originally airing. Dirty Harry parody (Dirty Harody?) was exactly the kind of thing I'd laugh at when I was younger.

ZAZ bought the rights to “Zero Hour!” so that was fair, but there’s no mention whether they also did the same with “M Squad” since they were matching the story, dialogue and even the delivery of the lines.

All I’m saying is, David Zucker’s mom must be very proud of him.

Oooh, I'd love for you to cover Sledge Hammer! someday. Seems like it fits this channel perfectly.

Difficult topic to have a divinities answer for. It’s like comparing Dr Strangelove to Fail Safe. They both share the same story but tonally are very different

Its pretty clear by his behaviour on those interviews that he hides the fact they got influenced and borrowed from shows like Sledgehammer and Get Smart. The fact he avoids that fact and tries to hide it when rest of the people involved say it more openly is what makes it tither on the edge of being plagiarism. Given the fact that we see references and very direct copying of jokes in that context very commonly since it's probably not seen as that much of a deal but mentioning in interviews those less knows shows they borrowed from is least they should do especially Zucker.

Airplane! has nothing to do with plagiarism. They bought the rights to Zero Hour, Airplane is literally a remake/send up, with Mystery Science Theatre style piss-taking jokes mixed into the script itself. The Naked Gun jokes being copied is more problematic and I didn't know anything about that

Just found your channel. You have a new fan. Great work.

both seasons of sledge hammer are on youtube btw

'The jokes write themselves.' Well, you certainly didn't fucking write them, Zuck.

Managed to watch the new Hats Off Entertainment video within 10 minutes of its release...rookie numbers, I gotta do better.

I thought these movies were spoofing with jokes. You could include Mafia and Dracula: Dead and Loving It to the list. I laughed at how he avoided the question of who influenced him.

The plotline with the undercover cop in prison sharing a cell with a dangerous criminal may have also been used in Sledge Hammer, but it's actually a spoof of the movie White Heat (1949). I'm pretty sure that both Sledge Hammer and Naked Gun got their inspiration from that earlier movie.

Very good video! I think it's a bit of a mixed bag that can go either way in many regards. In the Zucker's defense: Yes there are only so many jokes out there and when there are very typical cop show tropes I can imagine two people coming up with the same idea to lampoon it.. I.e. Cop goes undercover in prison, eating food at inappropriate times, kicking a door but the foot goes through it. This is also just true for regular comedy bits like eating a fancy meal and and the bumbling character causes their food to fly across the table. Against the Zucker's there are way too many ultra specific jokes that the odds of it being a coincidence. I.e. Sledge Hammer and Frank's Fake prison names rhyming and the Get Smart race swap prison joke. Especially the student driver bit. Basically a lot of the criticism is well founded, but I think some is people over analyzing just basic comedy tropes that appear in everything. Regardless Zucker should be way more honest here instead of pretending that they came up with everything.

Plagiarism, plagiarism everywhere!!!

Nude Bomb! I have not heard that name spoken since the days of watching the film. Almost feels like a hidden museum treasure of comedy, with the original actor playing Maxwell Smart and even Dana Elcar, "Pete Thorton from MacGyver", playing his boss. I love that movie so much!

I am not familiar with Sledge Hammer! but I've seen the DVD cover before. Going to check it out. I liked the Deer Hunter joke.

A lot of early film comedy bits originated, or at least spread, via vaudeville. I recall the bit where George M. Cohen says to Bob Hope "I know all your jokes because I told them first." To which Hope replies, "Yeah, but I told them right." There's a joke in Frozen where the common phrase "finish each other's sentences" is completed as "finish each other's sandwiches." That's a joke from Arrested Development about ten years earlier. I've never heard anyone complain about that one. To me, a movie stealing jokes is different than a standup because the movie already exists, the money has already been made, and the whole experience was what was paid for and not just a quip or two.

I love the whole dimwitted cop comedy idea of like a Get Smart or Naked Gun\Police Squad, that's why I'm surprised to just hearing about Sledge Hammer. I'm gonna have to look into this

I had completely forgotten about Sledgehammer. I used to love that show! That and Car 54 Where Are You? Of course I loved Police Squad, and Leslie Nielsen in general. One of my favorite gags of his was when he walked into a crime scene and asked one of the detectives, "Have you found any evidence?" And the guy holds up a handful of slime and says, "Yes, but nothing solid." I don't remember what that was from, but you've probably seen it. Great video you've got here!

The bit with the Doberman pincher was also used in the Richard Pryor movie Bustin’ Loose.

This week's internet is brought to you by the letter PLAGIARISM

One thing we do know about David Zucker's comedy influences is he loves the Marx Brothers. He produced the almost cult classic 1992 homage Brain Donors.

Given John Landis' reputation, it's best to keep him away from any kind of aircraft.

Funny as i was just on a rewatch of Naked Gun on HBO, perfect timing.

Looks like the Zuckers didn’t have any original ideas. They just took directly from others. Airplane was a carbon copy with jokes added

Is it 'KZfaqrs talk about Plagiarism' week or something?

I had never heard of Get Smart until I started watching this. I shall be looking for it right now!

watched Sledgehammer and Get Smart back in the day - funny stuff…. now I kinda wanna see you make a video comparing After Hours shots to Three O’clock High!

I remember watching Sledge Hammer about a year ago and noticing jokes not only from naked gun but also from SIMPSONS. Yes some early Simpson jokes are actually lifted from sledge hammer. Also Danny elfman did the themes for both sledge hammer and Simpsons- coincidence??? Prob had some of the same writers too .

There are a few other things to factor, some of these jokes are also found in old Bob Hope, Three Stooges, Marx Brothers, Hellzapoppin’ Silent Comedy. Any gag from Get Smart, Blake Edward’s, or Sledge Hammer, you might find similar versions of it that came before. And as for parodying something, two different people could come up with the same joke if the source material is the same. The tin cup in prison gag, I’m sure are both parodying some old prison movie. The knife in the shoe is more closely referring to the Bond film From Russia With Love, than Get Smart’s phone in shoe, but that too was a parody of Bond films. The sprinkler going off isn’t a gag, it’s just what happens when there’s a fire. And accidentally starting a fire has been done as a gag dozens of times. Getting hit in the face by a door, can anyone truly claim to “created” that gag? And there’s putting a new twist on an old cliche’ like how many times is there a variant of two people look a like, one good one evil, a third person holding a gun asking which one is the real one? I don’t know if Zucker is a joke there, but a lot of the examples you showed as being similar jokes and not stolen jokes. And I would argue that 50% of good humor is not just what the joke is but how well it is delivered. And the Naked Gun version of these jokes were just better executed. The Naked Gun films often repeated jokes from police squads.

One thing they might have done first, a post credit scene in which (spoiler alert) the man Ted brought to the airport was still waiting for him. That was 6 years before Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Police academy lifted the blackend megaphone speaker gag from the first episode of dad's army

"Anyone who thinks they're original has a poor knowledge of history." (Coco Chanel)

"Repurposing jokes" is something that barely ever gets called out among Hollywood writers because it's been the norm for decades. Watch the Honeymooners and you'll see so many skits copied to this day.

I think the swiss army shoe (and perhaps the shoe phone) is a parody of Colonel Klebb's shoe in From Russia with Love. The fight with pushing the hospital bed around is from Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. The driving instructor gag was also in Johnny English Strikes Again

Dracula: Dead and Loving It stole a gag from Transylvania Twist. It's the one where they plunge the stake into a vampire and are hit with a caroonishly large gush of blood.

The line between homage and theft can get a bit blurry. The jokes taken from Sledge Hammer, though, that’s straight up plagiarism.

It's an interesting watching this video so soon after watching HBomberGuy's video on plagiarism. I think the unspoken rules in comedy are different than, say, the works of Illuminaughty (as presented in HBomberGuy's video) Comedians steal jokes all the time. Some of the most beloved comedians have had very credible accusations of joke theft leveled at them. Robin Williams, Denis Leary etc. Besides, I think it's ridiculous to try to claim you "invented" the gag where a cop's foot gets caught kicking a door open, for example. Anyway, that was a very thought provoking and well edited video. Nice job.

You know, your video reminds me of an article I read in Spy magazine years ago

Sledge Hammer is one of the greatest and underrated shows of all time.

Airplane! gets a pass because satire can get away with copying lines verbatim if the delivery and intent is different. It's like a comedian doing impersonations.

I did not realize he did Baseketball, but that makes total sense, because whenever the topic of jokes in movies being stolen comes up, it reminds me of a joke in Baseketball that I know was stolen verbatim from an earlier movie called Brain Donors. The line was "You're excited? Feel these nipples!" The Zucker Brothers produced Brain Donors, but they didn't write it, and I wouldn't be surprised if they lifted a joke feom that script and didn't bother giving its writer credit.

Being asked what makes him laugh and then him listing all his favorite movies he's done is wild. Hahaha

As someone once said, “It doesn’t matter who did it first, what matters is who did it best.”

He definitely stole them, but I think he has such an ego built up that these days he truly doesn't remember and in his mind, it was all his genius that crafted the jokes and not literally ripping them off of tv shows.

The evidence of plagiarism is quite clear. Once they ran out of good material to steal, the quality of their work declined.

"mostly new jokes" hits very different now

Angie tribeca needs it's own forgotten failure s video