Key Takeaways:
- The 1980s TV show Police Squad! lasted just six episodes but went on to inspire The Naked Gun movie franchise.
- Comedian John Belushi was set to appear in a cameo for Police Squad! just before his tragic death in 1982.
- Belushi’s cameo was cut in the wake of his sudden death and has never seen the light of day.
There are a few things you can reliably count on from a Naked Gun film: absurdist humor, deadpan delivery, and plenty of unexpected celebrity cameos.
In the original The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, for example, Leslie Nielsen’s Detective Frank Drebin addresses a large crowd at an airport, only to discover that they’re not there for him at all, but rather, because “Weird Al Yankovic is on the plane.” No surprise, then, that the newest installment in the franchise, the Liam Neeson–led The Naked Gun (2025), continues the celebrity cameo trend. (We won’t spoil who shows up.)
But stars making fun of themselves in the world of Frank Drebin actually started before any Naked Gun movie ever hit theaters. The now-iconic film franchise began in the early 1980s as a short-lived TV series called Police Squad!, which flopped at the time, but laid the foundation for the big-screen hits that followed.
Few people saw the TV series—a gloriously madcap comedy blitz featuring appearances by stars like Star Trek’s William Shatner, The Brady Bunch’s Florence Henderson, and TV host Dick Clark—during its initial six-episode run in 1982.
There was one cameo, however—from a Saturday Night Live legend, no less—that has never seen the light of day. Even some of the people who worked on the show don’t know whatever happened to the missing footage of comedian John Belushi’s eerie cameo on Police Squad!.
How Police Squad! Set the Stage for The Naked Gun’s Celebrity Cameos
Built off of the success of the 1980 movie Airplane!, each episode of Police Squad! began by introducing its core cast: Nielsen’s Frank Drebin, followed by Alan North and Mission: Impossible’s Peter Lupus in the roles of Captain Ed Hocken and Detective Norberg, respectively. (Their roles were later filled by Academy Award winner George Kennedy and sports-memorabilia-theft-enthusiast O.J. Simpson in the film franchise).
Then, a running gag introduced “Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln,” with a shot of Lincoln engaged in a shootout from his box at the Ford’s Theatre. Finally, each episode introduced a “special guest star,” like Shatner and Henderson, only to have them immediately killed in the opening introduction, never to be seen in the episode again.
Police Squad! was also a launchpad for rising behind-the-scenes talent, like actor-comedian Robert Wuhl, who wrote two episodes of the series before going on to star in Batman and create the influential HBO comedy, Arli$$.
One of Wuhl’s Police Squad! episodes, the series finale, “Testimony of Evil (Dead Men Don’t Laugh),” was originally meant to feature Belushi as the “special guest star” who died in the beginning. But after Belushi’s tragic, sudden death, the Police Squad! team cut the scene and quickly shot a replacement with actor William Conrad, best known today as the voice of The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show.
So, whatever happened to the lost Belushi scene? In an exclusive interview with Biography.com, Wuhl revealed how Belushi’s death forced a last-minute rewrite, and why that footage remains one of comedy’s saddest what-ifs.
The Lost John Belushi Cameo, Revealed
Wuhl found his way into the world of Police Squad! after making a good impression on series creators David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, while auditioning for Airplane! While Wuhl didn’t land a role in the 1980 comedy classic, the trio later invited the actor to join the Police Squad! writing staff.
Wuhl was paired with the writer Tino Insana, a veteran of the improv comedy troupe Second City and a close friend of Belushi. Insana facilitated Belushi’s cameo on Police Squad!—but Wuhl says he never actually saw the scene being filmed.
“I know, theoretically, what happened,” Wuhl tells Biography.com. “It was an anvil, or something like that, dropping through the top of the frame to the bottom of the frame.” Vulture reports the audience would have reportedly seen Belushi tied to blocks of concrete, with his (fictional) dead body floating underwater, akin to the cement shoes-style of mafia execution.
Police Squad! debuted on ABC on March 4, 1982. That night, Belushi was in his bungalow at Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont, greeting visitors like Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, who were concerned about the comedy star’s drug relapse during the filming of 1981’s Neighbors.
The very next day, Belushi was found dead by his personal trainer, the result of “acute cocaine and heroin intoxication.”
A Last-Minute Rewrite and a Canceled Show
The Police Squad! team scrambled to cut the now-morbid footage from its upcoming episode, calling in Conrad to quickly shoot a scene as a stabbed man being hurled from a car to replace the Belushi scene.
Ultimately, the producers didn’t have to be so hasty. ABC canceled Police Squad! after just four episodes and didn’t air the final two, including the Belushi-turned-Conrad installment, until that July.
“You have to remember ABC at this time was [the] number one [network], and the shows that they had were Happy Days, Mork & Mindy, and Laverne & Shirley,” Wuhl says. “And when we went on the air, it wasn’t what an ABC show looked like. The same week we premiered, so did a show called Joanie Loves Chachi,” the Happy Days spinoff.
Joanie Loves Chachi was an instant hit. Police Squad! wasn’t. “It was the head of ABC at that time, a guy named Tony Thomopoulos, who said something interesting that sounds absurd, but there’s truth to it,” says Wuhl. “He said the problem with Police Squad! is you have to watch it.”
Thomopoulos meant that most sitcoms back then relied on laugh tracks and didn’t require viewers’ full attention. “You could go get a cup of coffee,” Wuhl says, and viewers would hear the laugh track and know when to come back. With Police Squad!, however, “you’ve got sight gags,” he says. “There’s no laugh track, so you actually have to watch it, and that’s not what the television watching audiences did back then.”
The Legacy of Police Squad! and an Enduring Mystery
When Police Squad! was swiftly canceled, “it was s****y,” Wuhl says. But six years later, the series would receive a second life when The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! hit theaters in December 1988. The film’s success spawned two sequels, eventually leading to the original Police Squad!’s DVD release in 2006, giving a new generation of comedy fans the chance to, as Thomopoulos would say, actually watch the show.
But while the Police Squad! DVD packed plenty of special features for comedy nerds to enjoy, the Belushi scene wasn’t included. Now, more than 40 years after it was shot, some believe that footage was “lost or destroyed,” per Vulture.
Wuhl has another theory: “I think [producer] Robert Weiss has it,” he says. “Or the guys [Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker]—they might have it.”
Whatever the fate of the footage, “it’s a great piece of, you know, one of those legends,” he says.
Michale Natale is a News Editor for the Hearst Enthusiast Group. As a writer and researcher, he has produced written and audio-visual content for more than fifteen years, spanning historical periods from the dawn of early man to the Golden Age of Hollywood. His stories for the Enthusiast Group have involved coordinating with organizations like the National Parks Service and the Secret Service, and travelling to notable historical sites and archaeological digs, from excavations of America’ earliest colonies to the former homes of Edgar Allan Poe.
