40 years ago, 'Top Secret!' showed how silly you can get

The ZAZ formula was nearly perfected in this 1984 spy spoof, one of many times that Val Kilmer played a version of Elvis

Paramount Pictures

There’s a certain tension at the heart of Top Secret!, the 1984 film by the director trio known as ZAZ (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker), who also made the Airplane and Naked Gun films. 

The film parodies a few specific things: the types of movies that Elvis Presley used to star in, with a touch of Casablanca, James Bond, and other World War II and Cold War-era spy films, with nods to a few other popular movies of the time of its release (like The Blue Lagoon).

But at the same time, Top Secret! uses the gag-a-minute template familiar from the directors’ other work in an entirely universal way that mines humor from wordplay, sight gags, and physical comedy. It all worked on me as a kid who didn’t know the first thing about any of the movies it mocked. 

In other words, two people dressed as a cow getting set upon by a bull is funny whether you know the geopolitical context or not.