‘Surely, you can’t be serious?”
“I am … and don’t call me Shirley.”
The 1980 comedy “Airplane!” set a new standard for screen comedy. Make it silly, make it brash and, most of all, keep the jokes coming at a fevered clip.
The film doesn’t seem so groundbreaking today. We’ve watched those gags countless times, and some of the jokes were groan-inducing.
It’s still a shame the “Airplane!” formula fell into such disrepair.
The movie gave rise, indirectly, to the “Date/Epic/Scary Movie” assembly line, which reduced the parody genre to its basest instincts.
That’s a nice way of saying most of those films weren’t very funny.
The “Naked Gun” trilogy did keep the funny flame alive, as did co-star Leslie Nielsen who reinvented his career with his deadpan turn as “Airplane’s” stoic doctor.
And then there’s “Airplane!” co-creator David Zucker, who is more famous today for his politics – he’s that rare conservative in Hollywood – than his films.
His “An American Carol” was one of 2008’s biggest letdowns.
But we’ll always have Robert Hays, Lloyd Bridges and the rest of the “Airplane!” gang to show us disaster movies should never be taken too seriously.
(Photo: Julie Hagerty, Robert Hays and the cast of the 1980 comedy “Airplane!” elevated silly shtick to a fine art.)
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
The genius of airplane wasn’t just the cheap laughs, and pretty much all of them were cheap.
The genius of airplane was HOW MANY of them there were, not jut in the movie, but in the same scene.
Pretty much the entire movie had one joke in the foreground, with another in the background, while setting up a 3 joke you don’t see for 5 more minutes.
It was like a bunch of drunk frat boys sitting in a dorm riffing out on jokes and insults and quips, while zucker sat there taking notes and made a movie about it.
One of the funniest movies of all time.
I’ve always loved “Airplane”, but after seeing cinematic atrocities like “Scary Movie” and “Meet the Spartans”, I have even more respect for what the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams did.
“An American Carol” was mostly disappointing, but I did like the bit with the zombie ACLU lawyers and the film within the film showing Christian homicide bombers.
Oddly enough, I stumbled across Airplane! just a few nights ago (on HD Net) while channel surfing. I intended to watch for just a few minutes — and, damn, if I didn’t watch until the very end of the closing credits. But Toto: Surely you know it was Lloyd Bridges, not Jeff!
I was just telling my wife (we watched Airplane together on HDNet) about how that was Jeff Bridges’ father in the film and how dapper he looked well into his golden years. Mrs. WWTW doesn’t know a ton about film, so I often feel it’s my duty to tell her the backstory of whatever movie we’re watching. And she loved “Crazy Heart” so I wanted her to connect Lloyd with Jeff. Then I go ahead and mix their names up in my post. That’s what I get for going it alone sans editor. Thanks for the heads up – it’s corrected.