Leslie Nielsen, who played Dr. Romanek in Airplane and Lt. Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun, passed away at the age of 84.
For us members of Generation X, Nielsen created two of the greatest roles in comedy history. I still love Frank Drebin. For my friends and I, to this day, can quote Nielsen verbatim, not too shabby for us Gen Xers.
Airplane! is now thirty years old and The Naked Gun is twenty-two years old, they are still just as funny as the first time I saw them way back when. When I mentioned the death of Leslie Nielsen in class, my eighth graders, who were born in 1997, stated that they have seen both movies and proclaimed them to be "funny".
In 2010, its nice to see that 13 year olds have a great appreciation of the classic comedies that I saw when I was younger.
If you know a great Nielsen line, post it, so we all can remember his genius.
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I remember when Police Squad! was on ABC at either 9:30 or 10:30 p.m. I knew it was good even at 11-years-old, but my parents wouldn't let me stay up to watch it most times. Leslie Nielsen was awesome in the role. The Norberg gag was better in Police Squad! - where he was so tall that you only saw his torso and not his face -- rather than O.J. in the movies.
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