Police Squad! and Wiliams were the only ones who returned and portrayed their original characters in "The Naked Gun" film series. Captain Ed Hocken was portrayed by George Kennedy in the film series, while O. J. Simpson played Officer Nordberg (slightly renamed from 'Norberg'). The show's opening sequence was a satire on traditional opening sequences of crime dramas at that time, and of the 1960s, particularly "M Squad" and various Quinn Martin shows such as "The Fugitive" and particularly "The New Breed" (which also starred Nielsen). Hank Simms, who had worked as an announcer for some of Quinn Martin's programs, announced the
Police Squad! corresponds to the number of garbage cans that Frank's car crashes into when it arrives at the crime scene. Secondly, during each episode's epilogue sequence, either Drebin or Hocken states that the guilty party brought to justice is being sent to Stateville Prison – and lists all the characters sent there from previous episodes, in reverse order, where applicable. Leslie Nielsen portrayed Sergeant Frank Drebin, Detective Lieutenant Police Squad. Jerry Zucker explained that the name Drebin was picked blindly from the phone book. Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker had met Nielsen when working on "Airplane!" (1980) and felt their kind of