It's a trawl through the comic depths for this parody of Jack Webb's popular 1950s TV series, in which stony-faced cops took themselves so seriously that it was already a hoot without this interference. Dan Aykroyd is the deadpan and oh-so-decent nephew of Webb's Sergeant Joe Friday (who even shares his uncle's rank and name), lumbered with an amorally dishevelled partner in Tom Hanks, as he battles porn king Dabney Coleman and Satanist Christopher Plummer. A virgin sacrifice is the least of it, and, as far as laughs are concerned, the most of it, despite the talents of Aykroyd and Hanks and the valiant efforts of director Tom Mankiewicz, who made his name as a scriptwriter on three Bond movies in the early 1970s.

LAPD Sgt. Joe Friday -- the equally straight-laced nephew of the famous police sergeant of the same name -- is paired up with a young, freewheeling detective named Pep Streebeck. After investigating some strange robberies at the local zoo and the theft of a stockpile of pornographic magazines, they uncover cult activity in the heart of the city and are hot on the case to figure out who's behind it all.