Remember High School High? It’s the Best David Zucker Movie You Never Saw
The Naked Gun and David Zucker
Last year’s reboot of The Naked Gun franchise was rightfully a heavy concern for every fan of the series before its release. The original movies are comedy classics, and while there have been other successful broad comedy parodies (like Austin Powers, Scary Movie or Hot Shots!), the ZAZ (Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker) brand of humor feels like a very delicate thing that even David Zucker himself couldn’t seem to duplicate with later works.
2025’s The Naked Gun had some good recipes in place. Liam Neeson was a fan favorite for a reboot casting choice for a long time, thanks to his appearance on Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s show with Warwick Davis, Life’s Too Short. Then, he worked with Seth MacFarlane, who was attached to the helm the movie for a while before The Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer took on the duties. However, MacFarlane would stay on as a producer. Whether or not you like MacFarlane’s or Schaffer’s past works, you can tell they took their positions on the film seriously with, themselves, being huge fans of the original movies, and tried their hardest to honor the originals.
High School High
For the most part, 2025’s The Naked Gun seemed to have been successful. That is to say, it didn’t crash and burn. Most of the reactions were pretty positive. People were commenting on how much they laughed, also understanding that it emulated the originals while trying to be its own kind of movie. But I submit to you — whether or not the recent Naked Gun satisfied you or came up short for you, there’s actually a Naked Gun-esque movie from David Zucker that came out in 1996 that could scratch that very spoof itch. High School High with Jon Lovitz, while not as revolutionary as Airplane! or the original Naked Gun movies, is the Best David Zucker Movie You Never Saw!
What’s it about?
High School High is a teacher-savior satire. You know, those movies where an idealistic teacher is sent to a rough, inner-city school where the kids are dangerous, but the teacher eventually gets through to them and helps bring out their accomplishments. The sub-genre has been the subject of dramas like Lean On Me and Dangerous Minds, or action movies like The Principal, The Substitute and Only the Strong, or even other comedies like Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Dangerous Minds was the latest to have been released, just one year prior.
This may have been David Zucker’s last parody movie before returning to the sub-genre with Scary Movie 3. Even if he didn’t get his brother, Jerry, or Jim Abrahams back, Zucker did have Pat Proft and Robert LoCash (who are also alums of The Naked Gun franchise) join him in writing this movie. Zucker would only serve as a writer and producer, but Hart Bochner…that’s right…Ellis from Die Hard, would step in as director. Bochner was coming off of directing PCU and he was someone who understood his assignment well. His directing is nearly identical to Zucker’s with the way he sells the humor. His shot composition, his timing and the comedic performances he gets from the cast is almost seamless.
What makes it good?
You may have remembered the advertisements from the 90s and probably thought it looked fun but cheesy (like other attempted spoofs from the time — I’m looking at you, Fatal Instinct). I had even seen it at the theater back then and thought it had some good gags, but mostly run-of-the-mill. However, on a recent rewatch, it surprisingly held up better than I remember. Perhaps it’s because the new Naked Gun had me yearn for a similar-type of movie, but I was surprised at how much I found it to be a good spiritual successor this time around.
Jon Lovitz wasn’t particularly a box office draw after his run on SNL (however, his animated series, The Critic, is an excellent companion show to The Simpsons), but if you couldn’t have Leslie Nielsen in the main role, he’s a great substitute (no pun intended). Lovitz is different enough that you can avoid Frank Drebin comparisons, but there are definitely shades of Drebin in there. Lovitz is a little too silly to emulate Nielsen’s perfectly dry, dramatic delivery, but he made his character his own, even if I could pinpoint some jokes that I feel were written with Nielsen in mind. His romantic interest, played by Tia Carrere, is also a great choice, as she’s shown some good comedic chops in Wayne’s World and even in a little-known action comedy called Hollow Point (starring Karate Kid Part III‘s Thomas Ian Griffith). Here, she does a little more than the usual romantic interest as she’s involved in the plot and she even gets to shine on a lot more of the physical comedy than you may expect.
You have a great supporting cast with a young Mekhi Phifer flexing his comedic abilities and Guillermo Diaz, who broke out later with Half-Baked, gets to do a lot of fun stuff as a supposedly tough drug dealer getting put in a lot of wacky situations. And Nurse Ratched herself, Louise Fletcher, is a perfect foil to Lovitz’s character as she continually gets annoyed by his antics.
The humor is on point. It doesn’t reach the heights of Naked Gun, but damn if it doesn’t sport some jokes that feel like the tasty leftovers from those movies. The score from Ira Newborn even carries over the same style of music that Naked Gun featured, which made some of the action scenes feel very familiar. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was previously cut music from the past Zucker movies.
Where can you watch it?
I’ve seen High School High make the rotation on streaming services every now and then. Right now, it doesn’t seem to be streaming on any service in particular. Not even Tubi, but maybe something Tubi-adjacent. So, you may have to rent it. But honestly, I think it’s worth a rental. The movie needs more attention and if you’re yearning for some classic Zucker comedy that pokes fun at stereotypes (especially since that’s the angle that the new Scary Movie is taking), High School High is a good recommendation.
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