Contains spoilers for “The Naked Gun” (2025)
“The Naked Gun” reboot is dotted over with a series of references to the original film trilogy and even the comedy series that started it, “Police Squad!” But there’s one small visual cue that probably slipped by you, thanks to the chaotic visual atmosphere the movie possesses. When Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) heads to a jazz club to meet the wicked Richard Cane (Danny Huston), there is a stuffed beaver in the lobby. That beaver is nearly identical to the one Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley) shows Frank Drebin Sr. (Leslie Nielsen) in “Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!”. They have a classic exchange in which he compliments said beaver while she’s standing on a ladder. While the audience presumes something more ribald is going on, since Frank is looking up at Jane and could easily see up her skirt, instead she hands him an actual beaver, concluding the exchange with, “Thanks, I just had it stuffed.” He helps her take the beaver down from the shelf and puts it aside.
That stuffed beaver is so iconic in the “Naked Gun” world that the film’s popcorn bucket is in fact beaver-shaped. But that fluffy companion isn’t the only callback the film makes to previous films in the franchise.
There are lots of references to the original trilogy in The Naked Gun
Besides the obvious fact that 2025’s “The Naked Gun” continues the movie’s timeline by containing Frank Drebin’s son — and, in a way, a reincarnated and now owl-shaped Frank Drebin himself — there are plenty of references to the original trilogy, both in metatextual and blatantly referential ways. Frank Jr. has picked up a lot of his father’s habits, from carrying a gritty internal monologue to his terrible driving skills to his effortless ability to embarrass himself in public. Beth (Pamela Anderson), Frank Jr.’s lady love, is a lot like his mom, Jane — glamorous and pretty, but also goofy and clumsy.
More blatant references include a post-credits callback to “Police Squad!” and its episode-ending freeze frames, Frank asking for sparkling water at the club and literally being handed a drink of water with a sparkler in it (just like his father receiving a bodybuilder when he asks the bartender for the “strongest thing they have” in “Naked Gun 2 1/2”), and Frank Jr. remarking upon the cigar Cane offers him upon their first meeting, similar to his father’s deadpan response to Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban) when he offers Frank a Cuban. Even Weird Al popping up for a fourth appearance in the series in the post-credit scene provides a solid reference back to every original “Naked Gun” movie, firmly intermarrying the original trilogy with its progeny.
