The Naked Gun Movies Credit Extras In The Coolest Manner Possible

Seeing a bunch of underpaid theater employees waiting by the entrance to clean up the Diet Coke you accidentally knocked over is one signal that the movie's just about done, but you know things are wrapping up once names start appearing on a black screen. It's the universal indicator to gather your belongings and, in the words of Ferris Bueller, go home. Not everyone follows this line of action because end credits typically come with some sort of incentive for you to stay while they show you everyone who worked on the movie. I typically hang back if the film happens to have a noteworthy score or soundtrack that I simply just want to hear again. There's also the matter of a movie making you feel so much that leaving once it's done feels nearly impossible.

The contemporary excuse for watching the credits has come down to post-credits scenes that are either a quick joke or a set-up for another movie. Audiences have been conditioned over the past two decades, especially, to sit in their seats through 10 minutes of names like pets waiting for a treat that may or may not even be there. In some ways, these tidbits have made movies feel like homework because no one wants to leave and discover later on that an important scene for the next one was hiding after the movie ended. Some of the best reasons to stay for the end credits mostly have to do with aspects that act as a closing celebration of what you just saw, and the people who came made it happen.

We rarely make widely distributed studio comedies anymore, so it's natural that the blooper reels have become a rare special occasion. Watching actors slip up their lines or fall down during a stunt sequence is a beloved cinematic pastime whose return could potentially heal our fractured country. You're only really staying to honor the names if you've either worked on the film or know someone who did. If there were ever a movie that gave audiences the best incentive to stay put and read all those credits, it's the "Naked Gun" trilogy.

Adding a whole bunch of jokes hidden within the credits is nothing new, but all three spoof movies take full advantage of that concept. Think of how many average moviegoers now know what the responsibilities of a grip are because they learned it from "The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear," or what various species went extinct during the filming of "The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult." For all of the textual gags hidden within these names, one of their coolest contributions is crediting extras and other one-line wonders in a manner no one else really does.

Extras are credited by their one line

Being an extra on a film set sounds really fun until you turn up for long days, a whole lot of takes, and very little pay to show for it. Extras typically don't get any lines to say, as they're typically background players positioned in a way to make a scene feel alive and occupied. The next time you watch a crowd scene in a movie, just think of all those people having to stand on their marks for god knows how long it took that scene to finish. You never know which future star you may spot. To make matters even worse, most aren't even credited due to the sheer number of them producers have to wrangle. It would probably take up a few more minutes just to list every name. Somewhere in that in-between, however, are folks who don't even really have roles, so much as a single line.

You'll see these special extras listed in the credits in most movies as something generic like Biker #2 or Girl with Hat on. Chances are, no one will know who that is unless they're credited as something very specific. The end credits of the "Naked Gun" movies, on the other hand, take this a step further by listing their one line next to their name. Not only does this idea result in a good laugh, but it also makes them an easily identifiable presence in the film. In the first movie, Ron Tank is credited as the man who said, "Mayor, will there be any additional security officers added to the police force during the Queen's visit?" in the press conference scene. Susan Breslau was really cooking when they said, "Hey, look out!" A favorite of mine is Jeff Wright in "The Naked Gun 2 ½" as "Frank, we got that Sure-Grip suck machine." Those end credits even feature not one, but two "Yeah!" performances from Claude Jay Mc Lin and Alex Zimmerman.

Not every extra present on the set of a "Naked Gun" movie will get one of those specialized credits, but what they do get is still pretty great, too. The non-speaking roles usually receive their own batch of credits within credits under the category of "People Who Didn't Have Any Lines, But We Like 'Em." There's even a special section for "People Who Were Cut Out of the Movie, But It's Not Their Fault." These are small, yet meaningful gestures on their part.

The Naked Gun end credits are loaded with wall-to-wall jokes

The end credits of all three "Naked Gun" movies add up to 15 minutes. I know because I studied each of them closely to catch as many blink-and-you-miss-it gags as I could. There are way too many to list here, but the best ones are absolutely worth noting. I got a good laugh from the first film, where Nicolas Worth as "Thug #1" is immediately followed by Ronald G. Joseph as "Thug #27." There's Doris Hess as "Nurse #2" despite no one else playing the nurse who preceded her.

The sheer amount of gags these movies stick in the cracks of legitimate credits is more than enough reason to keep your eyes glued to the screen so you don't miss anything. "The Naked Gun 33 ⅓" might have the best string of jokes, such as "Mr. (Ira) Newborn's Really Sexy Cousin – Amanda," "Kiss and Make Up – Burt & Loni," and "Mr. Hoover's Wardrobe by – Sexual." They're the longest stretch of credits in the entire series, a fact that even the film calls itself out on with a "Geez, these credits are long" gag about ⅔ of the way through.

All of this aligns with the "Naked Gun" movies being hilarious parodies of cop movies whose ultra-silly mile-a-minute jokes still hold up, barring a repulsive punchline in the "The Final Insult" that evokes "Ace Ventura" levels of transphobia. Nevertheless, I keep noticing more and more gags taking place in plain sight that I've somehow missed this whole time, and I've seen these movies more times than I can count. The act of joke credits can be found in other spoof movies like "Hot Shots" and "Wrongfully Accused," the latter of which lays out an entire dinner menu. Akiva Schaffer's promising "Naked Gun" reboot, with Liam Neeson as a bumbling descendant of Leslie Nielsen's Det. Frank Drebin has the perfect opportunity to follow suit with this trend. Given how all of the marketing material gives the indication of how attuned this crew is to honoring the spirit of the original films, it would surprise me if they didn't.

The first 33 1/3 "Naked Gun" movies are currently streaming on Paramount+.

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