Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Lisa Laman | Film | August 6, 2025
The Naked Gun (2025) spoilers below
Rome wasn’t built in a day. “Fergalicious” wasn’t written in an instant. Director Akiva Schaffer’s comedic filmmaking instincts were similarly not honed instantaneously. The filmmaker behind The Naked Gun, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, and various I Think You Should Leave episodes honed his riotous craft as a member of The Lonely Island,
Specifically, Schaffer directed many of the group’s most famous SNL Digital Shorts for Saturday Night Live from 2005 to 2011. In these bite-sized nuggets of comedy, one can see Schaffer growing more comfortable and confident behind the camera. To boot, some of these segments clearly foreshadow Schaffer’s comedic sensibilities that would make movies like The Naked Gun so inspired. If you’re looking for a direct SNL Digital Short precursor to that 2025 Liam Neeson star vehicle, though, there’s no better candidate than a little 2007 masterpiece called Dear Sister.
The Comedic Genius of Dear Sister
In a sentence, Dear Sister is a silly skewering of the season two finale of The O.C., in which Marissa shoots Trey as he’s attempting to kill Ryan. The moment the gun goes off, Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” begins playing as the camera cuts to medium and close-up shots of the characters dramatically reacting to these developments. It’s the pinnacle of the over-the-top melodrama that The O.C. was famous for delivering.
It was also ripe for parody in the hands of The Lonely Island. Schaffer and company took the gist of this sequence as a springboard for 220 seconds of hysterical lunacy. Here, Bill Hader plays a man penning a letter for his sister. Suddenly, his friend (Andy Samberg) shoots and kills Hader’s character. This betrayal inspires “Hide and Seek” to start playing, and that needle drop returns when a seemingly dead Hader shoots Samberg. Dear Sister then keeps seemingly ending … except new characters constantly enter the room and receive bullets in their chest. Shia LaBeouf, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, and Fred Armisen play these further victims. With each gunshot death, “Hide and Seek” blares to accentuate the situation’s gravity.
Above all else, “Dear Sister” is a masterclass in parody. The “Hide and Seek” tune, camerawork, and various facial expressions directly come from that O.C. sequence. Unlike Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, though, Schaffer isn’t relying just on name-dropping something people already know to carry the day. He’s using it as a springboard for original, new gags. Unforgettably funny beats like the two cops stumbling onto the “bloodbath” or the overlapping “Hide and Seek” needle drops as more people fire bullets simultaneously wouldn’t exist if “Dear Sister” were just a frame-by-frame recreation of that O.C. scene.
That sense of building something new out of pop culture’s past is especially apparent in The Naked Gun. While existing in the same world as the Leslie Nielsen movies, the gags (which also came from fellow screenwriters Dan Gregor and Doug Mand) are largely new creations. If you’ve never seen a Naked Gun movie before, you could totally enjoy the hysterical jokes, just like how pre-existing knowledge of that O.C. finale isn’t required for Dear Sister enjoyment.
Similarly, an extended Naked Gun sequence lampooning Mission: Impossible- Fallout’s hospital-set cold open doesn’t just recreate that 2018 scene with Liam Neeson’s Frank Drebin Jr. It keeps going with Fallout’s reveal that the hospital backdrop is a façade to constantly unveil further levels of background deception. It’s a sequence that would make FilmCow’s A Depressed Whale short proud in its unveiling of new reveals. More importantly, it’s deeply funny whether or not you’ve already seen Fallout. Schaffer’s gift for using pop culture’s past to create new rib-tickling punchlines is apparent in The Naked Gun. He originated that gift, though, in the days of Dear Sister.
It’s All About Pacing and Escalation
Timing is everything in comedy. Schaffer’s visual instincts in Dear Sister are a great reminder of that. Gags like Kristen Wiig getting shot while reading her dead brother’s letter, for instance, thrive on precise timing. Interrupting her looking over the letter mid-sentence with a sudden gunshot and “MMMM WHAT YOU SAYYY” is a recipe for comedic glory.
Meanwhile, Dear Sister’s final scene centered on two cops is spectacularly unexpected. Just when you think you’ve got the comedic and visual rhythms of this segment down, the non-stop melodramatic reaction shots of the officers hilariously upend expectations. Schaffer’s got great instincts for when and where in a sequence to take things to new levels of ludicrousness.
It’s a trait informing one of The Naked Gun’s best sequences, in which Drebin Jr. and Beth (Pamela Anderson) go to a snowy cabin for a romantic retreat. Instantaneously, the comedic intent of this sequence is apparent: it’s parodying the visual look and acting style of 80s music videos. Then Drebin Jr. and Beth turn a snowman to life and begin having sex with it, and suddenly the whole thing goes down an uproarious, unexpected corner.
Much like with the two cops in Dear Sister, this Naked Gun snowman set piece suddenly goes into unforeseen territory when the snowman begins violently chasing his creators around the house. Sudden detours into point-of-view camerawork and darker lighting tell viewers that all bets are off. Any jokes or events can happen now. Schaffer’s instincts for when and how his comedic filmmaking should suddenly subvert audience expectations are remarkable. Again, you just have to go back to the days of Dear Sister to see the comedic directing seeds that would sprout into the beautiful plant that is this Naked Gun snowman sequence.
The Joys of Seriously Stupid Comedy
One of the other great legacies of Dear Sister is its willingness not to wink at the camera. Not once in this short does some character say “how many bullets do you have in that chamber?!?” or some other meta-quip that Ryan Reynolds or Chris Pratt would go gaga for. Instead, the humor comes from juxtaposing how gravely serious these doofuses take such an outlandish scenario. Armisen, for instance, looks genuinely pained and betrayed in his facial expressions. What a hysterical contrast to the needle drop and plotline.
The Naked Gun is similarly devoid of snarky irony. The whole point of the film is to have Liam Neeson lend his action movie/dark drama gravitas towards messy bowel movements or an affinity for “Fergalicious.” There’s so much humor in playing things with a straight face or just letting bizarre visual gags speak for themselves. Too many modern movies like Heart Eyes, though, lack the confidence necessary to just let absurdist jokes simmer. They simply “must” puncture the air with a self-aware quip. There’s no room for that in Dear Sister or The Naked Gun.
Whether it’s Danny Huston plucking a shotgun out of Pamela Anderson’s hair in The Naked Gun or characters inexplicably coming back to life to shoot Kristen Wiig in Dear Sister, Akiva Schaffer masterfully commits to jokes without winking to the camera or undercutting on-screen silliness. It’s a talent ensuring this new Naked Gun’s status as one of the best legacy sequels. So much of its rib-tickling artistry traces back to the scrappy, low-budget days of Dear Sister. Even back then, Akiva Schaffer made it apparent that “he only meant well” when it came to exquisitely realizing preposterous comedy.
