Lacking an overarching plot to the concept, Paramount Pictures president Michael Eisner instead secured them a six-episode television series, despite ZAZ wanting to make it into a film.

[5] Alan North played Captain Ed Hocken, and Peter Lupus co-starred as Officer Norberg.

The only actors who reprised their roles in the films are Leslie Nielsen, Ed Williams as scientist Ted Olson, and Ronald "Tiny Ron" Taylor as the very tall Al. Joyce Brothers played herself in the fourth episode and in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!.

Robert Goulet, one of the "special guest stars" killed during the title sequence, plays the villain Quentin Hapsburg in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear.

[10][11] The sequence introduces Nielsen and North during a shootout,[12] and Abraham Lincoln impersonator Rex Hamilton, who dramatically returns gunfire to John Wilkes Booth, as his only appearance.

[13] Another recurring gag in the opening credits sequence is the "special guest star", a celebrity who is introduced but immediately murdered.

[18] Following Belushi's unexpected death in March 1982, the scene was replaced with footage of Florence Henderson before the episode was broadcast the following July.

[22] Robert Wuhl was invited to join the writing staff after he had auditioned for the lead role in Airplane!.

In Wuhl's audio commentary for the DVD, he mentioned that it was a nice opportunity, but that he did not really feel a connection with the show, especially because of its short run.

Two of the show's six episodes were directed by filmmaker Joe Dante, who recalled in 2008, I knew the Zuckers from second unit on Rock 'n' Roll High School and Kentucky Fried Movie and had turned down Airplane!

The network kept changing the time slot so no one could find it, and people casually switching it on thought it really was an old TV show!

Like they did in their features, the boys used real TV episodes as their template, mostly a ’50s Lee Marvin series called M Squad.

In an interview for the DVD release of the series, Nielsen said ABC entertainment president Tony Thomopoulos asserted Police Squad!

[25] Nielsen also thought the premise was more effective in the successful Naked Gun films because the much larger screen size in a cinema increases the efficacy of the visual gags.

In its annual "Cheers and Jeers" issue, TV Guide magazine called the explanation for the cancellation "the most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series".

[26] In 1985, Paramount Home Video first released all six episodes of the show on VHS, Betamax, and LaserDisc formats as two separate volumes: Police Squad!

The DVD extras include production notes from network executives, a "freeze-frame" that was filmed but never used, bloopers, casting tests, and an interview with Nielsen.

[38] A series of British advertisements for Red Rock Cider were made in the same style, with the opening titles changed to other names such as "Fraud Squad" or "Fried Squid", and featuring Leslie Nielsen.

"[41] Upon the home video release in 1985, Washington Post critic Tom Shales commented "People can rent them and laugh, and then cry that ABC was so cruel.