"The life of everyone on board depends upon just one thing: finding someone back there who can not only fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner."
--Leslie Nielson as Dr. Rumack
I recently read a book that was such a delight that it prompted a re-watch of not one but two of the funniest films I've ever seen. I bought the book in April. I was actually trying to save it for a bit. But I saw above the barcode a label that said, "Best If Read By: March 2035." It's the first book I've ever seen with a freshness/sell by/expiration date. Even though I had roughly a decade, I figured comedy is better when it's fresher.
The book is titled Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! (available at Barnes & Noble and other fine bookstores). In it, David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker--collectively known as ZAZ--recount what went into one of the most beloved and quoted comedies ever made. And I have to be honest, the stories about making it are almost as funny as the film itself.
The three of them had worked together at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the early 1970s forming a theatre troupe known as the Kentucky Fried Theater. It was successful enough that they decided to try their luck in Los Angeles.
KFT's stage show could best be described as "sketch comedy." For inspiration, they would set up an early model VCR and let it record whatever was on television overnight. The results were a lot of parodies of ads and movie trailers.
One night, they inadvertently recorded a B-movie from 1957 called Zero Hour! starring Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, the great Sterling Hayden, and former NFL star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch. In spite of the fact that the film was a drama, ZAZ found it to be unintentionally funny--even more so than the commercials on which they usually tended to focus.
The three started writing their own parody script for an airline disaster movie. They actually found Zero Hour! to be so funny, there were instances where they essentially quoted it verbatim. (To avoid royalty issues, not to mention charges of plagiarism, they even bought the rights to the original film, which had been co-written by Arthur Hailey.)
Having never made a movie before, ZAZ wrote another film of seemingly unrelated sketches, more akin to their stage show. The Kentucky Fried Movie debuted in 1977 and jumpstarted not just their careers, but also that of director John Landis. (For more, feel free to check out my "Film of the Week" sermon posted on 7 September, 2024.) While the film was both a commercial and critical success, they really wanted to direct their own movie.
They realized early on that the key to the humour was for the actors to play it as seriously as possible. As such, they cast actors who were mostly known for dramatic work--actors like Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and Leslie Nielsen. It seems hard to believe in hindsight, but none of these actors had ever really done comedy at that point and it wound up opening new doors for all of them. In one more nod to Zero Hour!, which cast "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airline pilot, ZAZ cast NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the co-pilot, Roger Murdock... who, of course, was actually Kareem in disguise.
The basic plot of the film involves former fighter pilot Ted Striker (played by Robert Hays) who boards a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago in an effort to win back the heart of his ex, Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty) who happens to be a flight attendant on the plane.
Things take a turn for the worse when acute food poisoning runs rampant among the crew and the passengers. Oh, and it's very important that a little girl (Jill Whelan) gets to Chicago because she's in need of a heart transplant and a donor has been found.
The film--the first to feature three credited directors--made back its production budget in two days and changed the face of film comedy. It was the first film that taught me to actually pay attention to the credits as there could be the occasional joke(s) thrown in for good measure. There might even be a little bit after the credits finish rolling.
(To this day, I've never seen the movie Gladiator. In fact, I'm not even really a fan of that genre of film. I often say it's because I'm afraid I'll get molested by Peter Graves.)
Featuring supporting performances and cameos from Lorna Patterson, Barbara Billingsley, Rossie Harris, Norman Alexander Gibbs, Al White, James Hong, David Leisure, Jonathan Banks, Gregory Itzin, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Charlotte Zucker, Ethel Merman, Maureen McGovern, Stephen Stucker, and, of course, Otto (who actually does have his own IMDb page) from 1980, please enjoy the classic Airplane!
Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you. (So there.)
Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
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