Movie Moments: #22

  

The Naked Gun:  From the Files of Police Squad (1988)

Leslie Nielsen as Lt Frank Drebin

Priscilla Presly as Jane Spencer

Movie Quote:



[Frank seems to look up Jane's skirt as she climbs a ladder right in front of him]

Frank:   Nice beaver.

Jane:   Thank you. I just had it stuffed. [Hands him a stuffed beaver]

Movie Trivia:

The humour of the scene relies on the ambiguity of the word “beaver”, being both a rodent and the American slang term for the female genitalia.

It was this same play on words that inspired Kotex to use a beaver in its cheeky ads for a new brand of tampons, Kotex U. The ads feature a young woman sunbaking, having a manicure and chatting over coffee with a pet beaver, and uses the slogans “You've only got one so you may as well look after it” and "You've only got one. So for the ultimate care down there, make it U." The woman then hands a packet of Kotex tampons to the beaver as a gift.

The ads prompted a large number of complaints when first shown, mostly from women, as well as further complaints when the ads were allowed to continue being run.  The ads were the most complained about in that year.

The ambiguity has also resulted in an unintentionally memorbale moment from the 1957-1963 classic sitcom Leave it to Beaver, that being the nickname of the young boy in the show.