Police Squad! (TV Series) The Butler Did It (A Bird in the Hand) (1982) User Reviews

Enjoyable episode

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 7 September 2011]

The daughter of a textile tycoon gets abducted. It's up to the ever inept Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen, the master of deadpan) to find her before it's too late to pay the ransom. Direrctor Georg Stanford Brown, working from a cheerfully inane script by Pat Proft, relates the amusing story at a snappy pace and milks the winningly wacky sense of anything-goes outrageous humor for plenty of solid belly laughs. The cast tackle the blithely silly material with commendable enthusiasm: Alan North as Drebin's stalwart partner Captain Ed Hocken, William Duell as incredibly sage informant Johnny, Peper Lupus as the bumbling Norberg, Lilibet Stern as the fetching Terri, Nicholas Costner as Terri's distraught wealthy Warner, K. Callan as Terri's worried mother Charlotte, and Byron Webster as suave butler Thames. Robert Goulet briefly pops up as an executed man who refuses both a blindfold and a cigarette while Tommy Lasorda makes a hilarious appearance as himself. Of course, there are also a slew of inspired nutty gags, such as Drebin participating in a basketball game while interviewing a witness, a mime delivering an important message, and an off the wall climactic shoot-out. Funny stuff.

"Let's go out to the Japanese garden."

[mark.waltz · 8/10 · 18 September 2020]

She may be young and restless, but socialite Lilibet Stern (then popular as Patty Williams on that daytime soap) is worth something to someone other than her father Nicolas Coster (Blair's father on "The Facts of Life") and mother K Callan, and her kidnapping has the potential of being the biggest society kidnapping since Patty Hearst. Leslie Nielsen offers comfort to the parents by having Norberg (Peter Lupus, who looks quite different than O.J. Simpson) keep an eye out for Stern's ear.

Lt. Frank Drebbin proves himself to be quite agile on the basketball court, one Ava, call highlights of the series. This is also one of the few times outside of "Tootsie" where a mime actually is funny. Once again the elevator gag returns, a very funny one concerning an opera diva. Scenes in the lab involving a bowling ball and a middle aged man also add laughs. It's obvious that the series had gained its confidence. Too bad that the network didn't feel the same.

Gotta love that title.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 19 February 2012]

The third episode of 'Police Squad!' isn't as falling down funny as the first two; the gags just don't come as fast and furious as usual. That said, it's still wacky and loose enough to serve as a solid alternative to blander contemporary sitcoms. Leslie Nielsen is still perfect at playing it totally straight as not terribly bright police detective Frank Drebin.

This time Drebin is on a kidnapping case; rich girl Terri Burton (Lilibet Stern) has been taken by a criminal who's holding her for ransom. It's up to Drebin and boss Ed Hocken (Alan North) to find and save Terri by the deadline.

Robert Goulet, who would join Nielsen as the villain in the second "Naked Gun" feature film, plays the standard ill-fated special guest star, kicking things off well. Some of the inspired gags include the identity of a killer running amok at the zoo, and the spin that the episode puts on shootouts when Drebin "covers" Hocken. Johnny the shoeshine guy (William Duell) shows off his smarts to Tommy LaSorda. Lab guy Ted Olson (Ed Williams) figures out that whoever is holding Terri has to be near the waterfront. One priceless line occurs when Drebin says that he and Hocken "drove around for two hours for no reason, and came up empty." Peter Lupus of 'Mission: Impossible' makes his debut as Norberg, the role eventually played by O.J. Simpson in the feature films. The freeze frame gag at the end is a riot as always. But the highlight of the episode has to be the ingenious staging of the delivery of the ransom demands, when Drebin, Hocken, and Norberg are required to play charades with a mime.

A decent, if not spectacular, episode.

Seven out of 10.