Character Overview
Frank Drebin is a member of Police Squad, a special department of the police force, where he served for many years. In the original TV series, Drebin is a competent (although extremely strait-laced) police officer, who plays the straight man to the wacky comedy going on around him. In the subsequent films, Drebin is changed to a more comic figure; he is known for being a bumbling fool, causing lots of problems, often more than he solves, but being entirely oblivious to it all. At the same time, unlike people such as his friend who he works under, Captain Ed Hocken (Alan North/George Kennedy), Drebin is a very indiscreetly outspoken man, therefore tending to appear cold and insensitive towards people, not to mention cynical. He just as well lacks having pity and compassion towards struggling individuals when they need it, and having any of it when conversing with officials who confront him about his mistakes. While he works under police Captain Ed Hocken, in Police Squad, he works with Nordberg (Peter Lupus). In the Naked Gun series, he works with Nordberg (O.J. Simpson).
He and Ted Olson (scientist) are the only characters that appeared in both Police Squad! and the Naked Gun films and were portrayed by the same actor.
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Famous quotes containing the word character:
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
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