Great Movie Scenes: Naked Gun 2 1/2 – the Blues Joint

I laughed myself stupid the first time I watched this hilarious depiction of the most clinically depressed blues bar on Earth, with the camera panning over wall art featuring pictures of the San Francisco Earthquake, the Hindenburg blowing up, the Titanic going down, and then a beaming Mike Dukakis, whose run for the White House was then probably the greatest catastrophe in living memory. As the assembled drunks lapse into coma, the lounge singer plods through a dirge that includes lyrics like wish I was dead / hope you do too, and a noose or a gun / will get the job done. Best of all, the waiter, after executing a typically ludicrous sight gag, breaks the fourth wall to assure the viewer that no, on second thought he won’t be jumping all over the chance to pull another even dumber one, after the downcast Frank Drebin, played with exquisite deadpan by Leslie Nielsen, rejects the oiled up body builder in favour of a Black Russian.