Before the comedy writing/producing/directing teams of the Wayans Brothers, Coen Brothers, and Farrelly Brothers, there were the Zucker Brothers and their friend Jim Abrahams. Here are 10 reasons to love the high-flying hit with lowest-common-denominator laughs.
The Movie Airplane!
1. Brothers David and Jerry Zucker and childhood friend Jim Abrahams formed a performing group in college called “Kentucky Fried Theatre,” which led to their first comedy film Kentucky Fried Movie in 1977. Their second project, Airplane! established the trio as the comedy team to beat.
2. The working title of Airplane! was “Kentucky Fried Airplane.”
3. In 1981, the film won an award from the Writers Guild of America for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium.
4. Airplane! was voted one of the 10 funniest movies ever made by the American Film Institute.
5. Before the team moved on to individual projects, David Zucker (Scary Movie 3, Scary Movie 4 as director), Jerry Zucker (Ghost as director, My Best Friend’s Wedding as producer), and Abrahams (Hot Shots!, Hot Shots! Part Deux as director), they pooled their efforts for Airplane!, their comedic masterpiece that still gets laughs nearly 30 years later.
6. The 25 year anniversary DVD (released in 2005 as the “Don’t Call Me Shirley edition”) includes deleted scenes, interviews, comments, and trivia woven together in one “Long Haul Version” of the movie.
The Actors in Airplane!
7. Although Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty play the romantic leads, famous dramatic actors Peter Graves, Leslie Nielson, Robert Stack, and Lloyd Bridges, formerly known for their serious roles only, provide some of the biggest laughs.
8. Child actor Michelle Stacy, who was a familiar face in the 1970s on The Waltons and in Peter Pan Peanut Butter commercials and voiced the character Penny in The Rescuers, plays a precocious young girl who drinks coffee in one of the movie’s funniest spoofs. With a string of successful roles preceding this film, Airplane! seems to be her final on-screen appearance.
9. A variety of well-known 1970s television stars (e.g., Barbara Billingsley, Jimmie Walker), singers (e.g., Maureen McGovern, Ethel Merman), and athlete Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pop up throughout the movie in surprising roles.
10. Abrahams (religious zealot #6), the Zucker Brothers (ground crewman 1 and ground crewman 2), and their mothers Louise Yaffe (passenger) and Charlotte Zucker (make-up lady) make brief appearances in the film.
Airplane! is a must-see classic movie-spoof comedy that earned a PG rating in 1980, but would surely (not Shirley) qualify for a PG-13 rating today for brief nudity and sexual references. For a review of the movie Airplane!, read Airplane on DVD.
