Scene of the Week: The Spoof Master

Roger Ebert once called Leslie Nielsen the “Olivier of Spoofs” and he was not wrong.

After three decades in Hollywood, 1980’s Airplane! would change the trajectory of Leslie Nielsen’s career forever. Nielsen’s performance as Dr. Rumack in Airplane! would lead him to his most famous role as Lt. Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun movies and then thanks to some classic Hollywood typecasting, Nielsen found himself in every sort of spoof you could think of. Nielsen played a priest, Dracula, a secret agent, a fugitive on the run and even the President of the United States.

This week’s Scene of the Week pays tribute to the Spoof Master himself with a look back at Nielsen as President Harris in Scary Movie 3. After presiding over the Mother Teresa Community Award ceremony, President Harris starts to believe he may be surrounded by aliens that have taken over human bodies. This leads to some White House fisticuffs as President Harris and Secret Service Agent Johnson (Ja Rule) fight their way out of the White House and nobody is safe from the President’s paranoid wrath…