Daily Dabble: High on Nostalgia — Breakfast, Buds & The Naked Gun 2025

Daily Dabble: Bacon, Buds & Belly Laughs — The Naked Gun 2025

Some weekends are slow burns. Lazy mornings. Casual coffee. Maybe a load of laundry if I’m feeling wild.

And then there are the weekends that sneak up and hit you with the full Friends Reunion Special energy — decades of history, bad in-jokes, questionable decisions, and enough bacon grease to make a cardiologist weep.

This was one of those weekends.

Four best buds — brothers in all but blood — together for thirty years, heading out for breakfast and a movie like we’re seventeen again. Except this time we’re older, wiser, and allegedly more responsible… except for the fact that we absolutely planned to get baked before the movie.

The Pre-Game: A High-Stakes Warm-Up

We didn’t say it out loud — because, you know, public spaces — but we all knew the plan. Breakfast was step one. Step two was a quick trip to “the lot” (our decades-old code for “smoke somewhere discreet but with good vibes”). Step three: laugh our asses off at the brand-new Naked Gun sequel in a theater full of people who had no idea they were about to share two hours with four fully grown men giggling like teenagers.

The lot was quiet that morning. The sun had that hazy “Instagram filter without the effort” glow, and a light breeze was moving through the trees like it was giving us the thumbs-up. Out came the vape, then the joint — because, like breakfast meats, variety is important.

We didn’t get wrecked. We got cinema-ready baked — that perfect level where colors pop, sounds feel extra crisp, and your brain is primed for slapstick like a spring-loaded boxing glove in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Breakfast: Where Legends are Fed

Our booth was a time capsule. Same diner we’d been hitting for years. Same red vinyl seats that squeak in a way that makes you paranoid if you’re sliding in post-toke. The waitress — let’s call her Mandy — had that uncanny diner-server ability to make you feel both completely at home and slightly judged at the same time.

Orders flew fast:

• Me: Denver omelet, extra hash browns, sourdough toast (I’m a traditionalist).
• Bobby: The Lumberjack Special, because his metabolism is powered by chaos.
• Rick: Pancakes the size of LP records, plus sausage links he claims are “for protein” but we all know are just for dipping in syrup.
• Dave: Steak and eggs, because he’s been leaning into his “morning caveman” phase.

The food came out in record time — either Mandy liked us, or she just wanted us out before the lunch crowd. Steam rose from the plates like we were in some food-porn slow-mo montage. We dug in. Conversation jumped between movie quotes, “remember when” stories, and the occasional groan from overeating. Bobby started with: “Nice beaver!” — one of the immortal Naked Gun lines. Without missing a beat, Rick deadpanned, “Thanks, I just had it stuffed,” which made me choke-laugh into my coffee.

The Naked Gun Legacy

Here’s the thing — we didn’t just watch the original Naked Gun movies growing up. We loved them. Leslie Nielsen was funny as hell — the kind of guy who could walk into a scene, say something completely ridiculous, and still make you believe he meant every word. He embodied that carefree, slightly unhinged humor of the past — the kind where nothing was off-limits if it got a laugh.

Comedies back then weren’t worried about “playing nice” or being scared to rock the boat. They’d roast anyone, anything, anytime. No one was safe, and that was half the fun. Now? A lot of modern comedy feels like it’s been run through a corporate HR seminar before it hits the screen — sanitized, safe, and so desperate not to offend that it forgets to be funny.

The Naked Gun movies had no such problem. They were fearless, they were absurd, and they were original. And that’s why they’ve stuck with us for thirty years — not because they were perfect, but because they didn’t care if they were.

The Theater: Locked, Loaded, and Laugh-Ready

Walking into the theater was like stepping into a sacred space. The smell of popcorn hit us like a warm hug. We grabbed a bucket “for the group” that I knew deep down I would end up hoarding like a raccoon.

We found our seats dead center — the prime spot where you don’t have to crane your neck or feel like you’re watching the movie from another zip code. Settling in, I felt that pre-movie buzz — part weed, part nostalgia, part sheer anticipation.

The Movie: The Naked Gun (2025) — A Spoiler-Free Review

Alright, here’s the thing — they nailed it.

The new Naked Gun does exactly what it needed to do: honor the originals without trying too hard to be “cool” or “modern.” The slapstick is still gloriously dumb. The wordplay is still groan-worthy in the best way. And the deadpan delivery? Chef’s kiss.

Our new lead — stepping into the Frank Drebin shoes — doesn’t try to be Leslie Nielsen. Instead, he channels the same oblivious confidence, the same laser-focused seriousness in the face of utter nonsense. That’s the magic: not copying Nielsen, but carrying the torch.

Highlights (without spoilers):

• A courtroom scene that had us howling so hard the couple in front of us turned around twice.
• A visual gag involving a parade float that is destined for meme immortality.
• At least three moments where we all laughed before the punchline because we could see the gag winding up like a cartoon mallet.

It’s not perfect — there are a couple of pacing dips, and one or two “modern references” felt like they were wedged in by a nervous studio exec — but overall? It’s a worthy successor. The kind of comedy you just don’t see much anymore.

The Post-Movie Glow

Walking out, we were buzzing. Not just from the weed or the sugar-and-salt cocktail coursing through our veins, but from that rare feeling of seeing something that actually got it right. We kept quoting our favorite lines from the new movie, mixing them in with the old classics.

Dave: “I haven’t laughed that hard since you tried to grill burgers without turning the propane on.”

Me: “Hey — I was pre-heating the idea of the grill.”

We spilled back into the diner parking lot where we’d left our cars, still riding the high of it all. Thirty years of friendship, a killer breakfast, a solid bake, and a movie that delivered. That’s the kind of day you lock in the vault for when life gets rough.

Final Verdict

• Breakfast: 10/10 — perfect execution, ideal grease-to-protein ratio, and a waitress who called us “boys” like we were still 19.
• Weed Session: 9/10 — the joint burned a little uneven, but that just gave us more reason to linger.
• Movie: 8.5/10 — a few rough edges, but the laughs per minute were off the charts.

If the Naked Gun 2025 crew is listening: you’ve got our blessing. You made four middle-aged dudes feel like kids again, and that’s no small feat.

Epilogue: The Drive Home

On the way back, the radio threw us a curveball — Baker Street came on. We cranked it, windows down, sun on our faces, still laughing at the dumbest jokes of the day. For a moment, it felt like no time had passed at all.

And that’s the real magic of a day like this. Not the movie, not the breakfast, not even the perfectly rolled joint. It’s the people. The history. The comfort of knowing you’ve got friends who can go decades without missing a beat — who will still be there when the next sequel drops in 2050 and we’re all pretending we can still eat steak and eggs without regret.

Until then? I’ll take my weekends sunny, smoky, and served with a side of slapstick.