RIP Leslie Nielsen

On Sunday evening, surprising news of comedic icon Leslie Nielsen’s death cascaded through the online community. Well, I suppose it wasn’t so surprising. I mean he was 84 years old and had pneumonia. When taken in that context it was about as surprising as Liberace’s death by “emphysema.”

What I noticed in the wake of Mr. Nielsen’s death was: 1. Pretty much everyone I follow on Twitter had something to say about him (always positive) and 2. Every single 140 character tribute included some mention of one of two Leslie Nielsen flicks, The Naked Gun or Airplane!. (The shine of the “Don’t call me Shirley” gag dulls after roughly four million people quote it in unison. But it just kept on coming…)


Which got me thinking that it kinda blew just how few of Leslie Nielsen’s films were actually, well, good. Aside from the aforementioned pair of flicks and Police Squad! (his oeuvre seems to have more exclamations in it than Telemundo‘s daytime lineup), he starred in such travesties as Scary Movie 3, Scary Movie 4, Dracula: Dead and Loving It and voiced a show called Pumper Pups which, until you prove otherwise, I’m convinced is gay porn. That’s a lot of garbage that Leslie was unfortunately featured in, and in that sense, I liken his career to that of fellow Canadian (whose death by heart attack was equally “surprising”), John Candy, another phenomenon was doomed to flex his cosiderable comedic muscles in a string of subpar films.


So rest in peace, Leslie. I, like every other stain with too much time on their hands, loaded up my Netflix queue with tons of your work the instant I heard you passed. Except for the bad stuff.