After Leslie Nielsen's death in 2010, ESPN published an obituary for "Enrico Pallazzo," writing, "A true Renaissance man, Enrico Pallazzo umpired the game after performing the national anthem... Pallazzo was the first - and only - umpire to eject another umpire from a major league game. He also is believed to be the first - and only - umpire to use an upright vacuum cleaner to tidy up home plate."
The baseball blooper reel shows a ballplayer's head coming off when he crashes into a fence. This scene is a tribute to a quote from San Diego Padres announcer Jerry Coleman: "Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall, and it rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres."
Several years later, Queen Elizabeth II attended a Oakland A's versus Baltimore Orioles game in Baltimore, Maryland, and met both teams in their respective dugouts. Reggie Jackson, then an Oakland A's coach, was the first person in the receiving line in the Oakland dugout. Some news channels showed gag footage from this movie of the Queen's impersonator throwing out the first pitch. Leslie Nielsen met the real Queen Elizabeth II in 2005.
According to David Zucker in the DVD commentary, the studio insisted on casting an Oscar winner in one of the major roles. This led to the casting of George Kennedy, who had been actively campaigning for the role of Ed Hocken for several months, saying that he was furious at having missed his chance to spoof himself in ¿Y dónde está el piloto? (1980).
This movie is a big-screen continuation of the cult cop spoof series Police Squad! (1982). The title was changed to avoid confusion with the Police Academy film franchise, which were also co-created by Pat Proft. David Zucker remembers that they were given a list of about twenty potential titles, and they chose "The Naked Gun" because it "promised so much more than it could possibly deliver." Perhaps unintentionally, it also mirrors another TV series-to-movie adaptation: Súper agente 86 contra la bomba que desnuda (1980), which followed up the television series El superagente 86 (1965).
Joe West: "Cowboy" Joe West, a veteran MLB umpire and country singer, appears as an umpire at the baseball game. He even wears his real number on his sleeve: #22.
David Zucker: In the opening credits as a man fixing a picture up onto the wall of his house when the police squad car drives into the hallway. Zucker turns around and jumps into the room next door.