text: Having long disdained network television programming, I remember the first time I caught an episode of "Police Squad!". It was totally by accident. It was during the show's initial network run on ABC in early 1982. I am a chronic channel surfer and was flipping the dial one evening when suddenly appeared "Police Squad!"'s opening credit sequence on my TV screen. I immediately recognized it as a sendup of the opening credits of "M-Squad" starring Lee Marvin, one of my all-time favorite cop shows. I stopped surfing. Then of course came headquarters getting shot up, followed by the immortal Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln. By now I was saying to myself "What the heck is THIS??". Then came "special guest star" Georg Stanford Brown getting flattened by a plummeting safe. I was hooked from that moment. The episode was "Ring of Fear/A Dangerous Assignment", with its comic references to "On The Waterfront", and "Muhammed Ali", but most memorable of course were all the sight gags and non sequiturs. Leslie Nielsen and Alan North in their loose parody of Lee Marvin and Paul Newlan of "M Squad" were an absolute riot. "Finally", I said to myself, "A network television program truly worth watching!!!". Wouldn't you know it would be canceled just a few weeks later. Leave it to the networks -- I should have known. Anyway, I just bought the DVD collection of all six episodes and they are just as funny today as they were 27 years ago. The "Naked Gun" movies were terrific as well, but I really missed Alan North (he was so good as Ed Hocken), Peter Lupus as Nordberg (what were they thinking casting OJ in that part?), and especially William Duell's "Johnny" the shoeshine guy. Great stuff.