Leslie Nielsen: not funny
Is Leslie Nielsen funny?The creators of the CTV sitcom Robson Arms certainly think that the veteran Canadian actor, who turned 80 this past February, deserves his prominence as a comedy actor. Gary Harvey and Susin Nielsen (no relation) will add Leslie Nielsen to the cast of their show when it returns for a second season this fall. Asked whether he is funny, they say (via email): "Anyone who says 'no' to this question is an idiot!"
If so, the idiots include a critic for the online British magazine Film Focus, who saw Nielsen in Scary Movie IV and wrote: "One wonders if it's not now time for the old fella to retire." Or film critic MaryAnn Johanson of www.flickfilosopher.com, who says of Nielsen: "He never has been funny." Or Mark Bazer, a writer for the Boston Phoenix, who summed up this line of thinking several years ago when he wrote: "Leslie Nielsen is not funny."
Apparently some people think Leslie Nielsen isn't funny.
That’s from the Canadian magazine Macleans. I’m quoted a bunch more, too, about how not-funny Leslie Nielsen is.
And don’t call me Shirley.
(Technorati tags: Leslie Nielsen, comedy, critics)
comments
posted by Chris (Thu May 18 06, 7:48AM)
He did good work early on; Police Squad, the first Naked Gun movie, and Airplane!. But after that, a whole lot of nothing.
posted by MaryAnn Johanson (Thu May 18 06, 9:32AM)
But he wasn't "funny" in those movies -- he was a rock of obliviousness to all the funny stuff happening around him. Which is funny in a way, but really: he was like Margaret Dumont pretending that the insanity of the Marx Brothers wasn't swirling around her. As soon as Nielsen started becoming the butt of those jokes, started having to be the perpetrator of those jokes, it became clear that he's not funny... or at least that the material he was given to work with was not funny.