By all accounts, the 2025 reboot ofThe Naked Gunis a winner, withLiam Neesonearning plaudits for embodying the spirit of the lateLeslie Nielsen. However, Neeson may never top the four funniest minutes franchise icon Nielsen gave us. Sure, he has the down-pan delivery dead-pat — sorry, dead-pan, down-pat — and plays the part seriously, without acknowledging the absurdity of it all. This is a major reasonwhy the original worksas well as it does. But Nielsen had a gift for comedy, holding it in his hands, literally,and in a four-minute master class onLate Night with Conan O’Brien, he blew it up.
Leslie Nielsen Showed His Fart Machine to Conan O’Brien While Promoting ‘The Naked Gun 33 1/3’
Leslie Nielsen appeared onLate Night with Conan O’Brienon August 15, 2025, a mere three months after the passing of theLate Nighttorch fromDavid LettermantoConan O’Brien. At the time, O’Brien was still in the process of finding his voice and fine-tuning the show, which wasn’t helped by the network cautiouslyrenewing his contract for only months at a time. Nielsen was on the show to promote the upcomingThe Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, and O’Brien, with his sidekickAndy Richter, warmly greeted the affable star, who entered to a round of applause.
The host and actor share a little banter about their previous encounter on the set ofSaturday Night Live, with O’Brien joking that Nielsen chewed him out when he brought him coffee. O’Brien has a clear direction in which to steer the conversation, admiring Nielsen’s ability to play the comedy straight. He asks Nielsen about how the directors on these films ask him to act as though it’s deadly serious. Nielsen jumps in with this:
“The director, the thing is that we know we’re being funny, but you can’t let the audience know for one second that you’re trying to be funny. Not for one second, although I will do almost anything for a laugh.”
That’s when it hits: aresonating fart soundjust as Nielsen puts his foot up. The audience loses it, with Nielsen playing innocent, and when O’Brien asks, “What have you got there?” he replies, “Isn’t that a little personal?” That cracks up the audienceandO’Brien alike, and you can see the terrible toot has thrown him off course — perhaps horrible for him, but hilarious for those watching. Nielsen relents and shows O’Brien his fart machine, stating that he got it from a man namedJack Martinin Oklahoma City. He adds that the senior golf pro said to him, “Leslie, I’m gonna give you something to change your life.”
Nielsen Brought His Fart Machine Everywhere — Not Just to ‘Late Night With Conan O’Brien’
The audience cracks up again, and Nielsen’s eating it up, adding, “It did, too. I’ve had nothing but laughs [for] so long.” Wherever O’Brien planned on taking the interview is way off in the distance now, andhis attention turns to Nielsen’s fart machine. “You don’t carry this around everywhere? You’re a grown man, what are you doing?” O’Brien laughs, to which Nielsen replies, “Don’t be too sure about that!” Nielsen then proceeds to confirm that yes, he absolutely does take it everywhere with him, and plays out a few scenarios: “How do you do?” (phhfft); “Excuse me, very nice to meet you (rrripppp).”
The 10 Best ‘The Naked Gun’ Quotes, Ranked
“I’ve got nine more…”
From there, the conversation goes on about the fart machine. O’Brien asks questions such as: Has he used it in inappropriate places (“Well, you’re always taking a chance”); if he’s offended people by going over the line (“I’ll apologize, or I’ll show the people. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but then you just have to rely on your insensitivity."); and if women find it funny (“It’s the greatest way to find out whether a woman likes you or not”). It all flows effortlessly through Nielsen, in that deep, dramatic voice of his, and itkeeps O’Brien, Richter, and the audience captivated and in stitchesright through to the end.
But, you say, surely he didn’t really bring a far machine everywhere he went? Well, Shirley, he did.Nielsen was unrepentantin exhuming the dinner corpse, saying: “I’ve done it on almost every network, at the White House, in Japan, Denmark, Holland, Australia” (talk about your thunder down under). His wife,Barbaree Earl, in the sameNew York Timesinterview, added that he “lives for elevators.” Nielsenused the machineduring press interviews, on the set ofAirplane!, in an Arizona courthouse, and on a flight in first class, which got him andTed Dansonkicked off a flight when Nielsen used his butt tuba machine on every third person that walked by.Even on his gravestone, etched forever, is an ode to his beloved fart machine, simply reading “Let ‘er rip.“But his biggest rationale for using the fart machine is this:
“I’ve never found anything that gets people down to earth faster. People approach me as an authority figure, which isn’t in my makeup. Two cranks of this and people talk to me the way I want.”
It certainly worked on Conan O’Brien.
The Naked Gun
