Judging from the trailers, the upcoming Naked Gun reboot is seemingly going to be chock-full of references to the original movie trilogy, up to and including a brief, photographic cameo from late accused murderer/prank show auteur O.J. Simpson.
But will the new movie include an appearance from the one living celebrity who’s been in every other installment of the Naked Gun series and wasn’t married to Elvis?
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As you may remember, early in 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, Frank returns from his jurisdictionally-questionable trip to Beirut and discovers a crowd of reporters and fans waiting for him at the airport. But after addressing the spectators, Frank is informed that they’re actually there to greet his fellow passenger: “Weird Al” Yankovic.
The cameo came about because Yankovic was a huge fan of Police Squad!. “I still consider that my favorite TV series of all time, because there wasn’t anything else like that on TV,” the “Eat It” singer once revealed in an interview.
After working with the canceled show’s producer, Robert K. Weiss, on music videos such as “Like a Surgeon,” Al begged for a role in any potential big screen follow-ups. “I said, ‘Hey, if these guys ever do a movie based on the TV show, you just have to get me involved somehow, I don’t care if I’m in the crowd scene, or whatever – please see what you can do,’” Yankovic recalled. “And as it turned out, they wrote me into the script.”
While the scene may have been very brief, it was a big deal for Al’s dating life at the time. He reportedly used to take dates to see The Naked Gun, not telling them he was in it. He would even wear the same Hawaiian shirt he sported in the film.
When it came time to make The Naked Gun 2½, the filmmakers once again hired Weird Al. This time he played a random thug holding cops at gunpoint in the station, until Frank inadvertently takes him out by simply opening a door. The scene required “over 20” takes, and only after his leg turned “a nice shade of purple” did the stunt coordinator ask if he’d like to “wear some padding.”
Then, in The Naked Gun 33⅓, Weird Al once again played the part of “Weird Al” during the climactic scene at the Oscars. Sadly, the real “Weird Al” Yankovic has yet to be honored by the Academy. We’re pretty sure he never dated Vanna White, either (despite having written a whole song about her).
So will the new Naked Gun keep this tradition alive?
Nothing has been officially confirmed, but Al himself has apparently been pretty active in trying to land a role. During a 2024 interview with Spin, Yankovic acknowledged that he reached out to the film’s director, Akiva Schaffer, as soon as he heard about the project. “Thirty minutes after The Naked Gun 4 got greenlit and I read it on Deadline, I emailed Akiva and said: ‘You know it’s not really a Naked Gun movie unless there’s a ‘Weird Al’ cameo,’” the UHF star explained. “And he went: ‘Yeah, okay. Okay. Okay.’ So, well, we’ll see.”
Schaffer and his Lonely Island bandmates are obviously big fans of Al’s, as evidenced by the time they all appeared on Carpool Karaoke together, mercifully without James Corden.
And Schaffer cameoed in the biopic parody Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, playing the role of Alice Cooper.
Given all of this, it would be pretty shocking if Al doesn’t show up at some point in the new movie. At the very least, they could show a photo of him, like with O.J.
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