Airplane!Some comedies are funny because the humor emerges from dry wit, moments where characters behave with gravity under ridiculous circumstances. Some comedies are funny because they are silly, employing slapstick and prompting chuckles from patent goofiness. Airplane! is both of these and more, shelling out salvos of rapid fire comedy at every turn, a kitchen sink approach to humor. It is widely considered as a launching point for the modern parody film, and is itself a spoof of disaster movies, including the Airport film series, and Zero Hour!, from which Airplane! derives most of its plot (and punctuation) whole cloth.
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Airplane! is, plot-wise, a movie about a former fighter pilot from the war (presumably Vietnam) named Ted Striker (Robert Hays), whose post-traumatic stress disorder has contributed to his shattered self-esteem and "drinking problem", which have pushed away the love of his life, an attractive flight attendant named Elaine (Julie Hagerty). Determined to win her back, Ted boards her flight to Chicago, one which boasts a collection of colorful characters, and is also doomed to suffer a crippling bout of food poisoning which will leave the jet without a pilot. As Ted recalls his relationships with Elaine through flashbacks--at excruciating, suicide-inducing length to a few fellow passengers--he finds he is forced to confront his fears from the war and take up the mantle of pilot once again to save the lives of everyone aboard Trans American Flight 209, including Elaine. If the plot sounds familiar, even if you haven't seen Zero Hour!, it is because it is intentionally a contrived narrative, the same kind which have been fed to audiences through countless disaster movies in one way or another for years. They tend to be thrilling enough yarns, but as Airplane! elucidates, they also make for an easy narrative to subvert into comedy gold. Much of the charm and wit of Airplane! comes from its inclusiveness in inviting the audience to relate to the silliness and familiarity of the story, and other pop culture references and films which it pokes fun at. Familiar tropes and cliches are upended and lampshaded by Airplane!, such as the prevalence of guest appearances by celebrities in throwaway roles in movies like these, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as co-pilot, Roger Murdock. Scenes which would be predictable in a serious drama or action movie become ridiculous by changing the context of a conversation or the setting, like a bar room brawl between a couple of violent girl scouts. Ted and Elaine's flashbacks to their love affair are often cliched scenes from easily identifiable movie classics, as if the trio of writer and directors of Airplane!--Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker--acknowledge that Ted and Elaine are but romantic ciphers, their romance as banal and vacuous as they are, so why not put a silly hat on it?
For a movie rich with talented comic actors, some of the most surprising and effective turns come from actors widely recognized as "serious actors", turning their own gravitas around for humorous effect. This includes Peter Graves, who plays pilot Clarence Oveur, and among other eccentricities has a fascination with asking a young boy visiting the cockpit uncomfortable questions. Others include dramatic actor, Robert Stack, who plays Ted's former war commanding officer, Capt. Rex Kramer, and Lloyd Bridges, who plays Steve McCroskey, the man responsible for ensuring the safe landing of the plane in Chicago. Both actors had made a reputation of playing roles of seriousness and gravity, and these traits are exploited in Airplane! to make the altogether two-dimensional characters they play sharply funny by their overly serious demeanor--including McCroskey's rapid fall off of several proverbial wagons. But arguably, the actor who steals the show in this is Leslie Nielsen, who plays Dr. Rumack, and is afforded one of cinema's most endearingly funny and memorable comic replies to Ted, who asks him: "Surely, you can't be serious?" Moments like these are frequent and keep the yuks running hot. Many of the best lines which are presented as a turn of phrase or manner of speech are ridiculous when they are suddenly interpreted literally. Airplane! boasts many references to contemporary films like Saturday Night Fever, and real life scenarios, such as being accosted in airports by hippies; yet, as a kid, I wasn't familiar with these references, but still found the silliness entertaining, and lines from the movie infinitely quotable. (In all fairness, seeing Airplane! edited for television meant that I would still have fresh--and more risque--jokes waiting when I was older.) It would be years before I was aware of just what Airplane! was actually spoofing in all its corny glory, but that would only add another element of richness on further viewings. Although not the first of its kind, Airplane! was such a profitable success, that its inception must have seemed like a font of untapped gold for studios, and movies of its kind would become more prolific going forward. It is ironic that the formula-parodying style of Airplane! would itself serve as a template of sorts for future spoofs to follow, including the likes of The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and Hot Shots!, both of which were also born from the same pedigree of David Zucker and Jim Abrahams, respectively. Even decades later, when many of the topical jokes and movie references may have fallen by the wayside for viewers, the jokes in Airplane! remain funny all the same, so much so that some audience members may be convinced the lines and moments in this film were wholly original. Airplane! is the kind of movie where you can quote a few lines from it among friends or strangers both, and get a feel for what kind of company you're in.
Recommended for: Fans of a combination of low-brow and clever humor both, and a foundation for dozens of parodies in and of films to follow for decades to come, with countless moments that will come up as you joke about them with friends for years to follow. Just what ever you do, don't eat the fish!
For a movie rich with talented comic actors, some of the most surprising and effective turns come from actors widely recognized as "serious actors", turning their own gravitas around for humorous effect. This includes Peter Graves, who plays pilot Clarence Oveur, and among other eccentricities has a fascination with asking a young boy visiting the cockpit uncomfortable questions. Others include dramatic actor, Robert Stack, who plays Ted's former war commanding officer, Capt. Rex Kramer, and Lloyd Bridges, who plays Steve McCroskey, the man responsible for ensuring the safe landing of the plane in Chicago. Both actors had made a reputation of playing roles of seriousness and gravity, and these traits are exploited in Airplane! to make the altogether two-dimensional characters they play sharply funny by their overly serious demeanor--including McCroskey's rapid fall off of several proverbial wagons. But arguably, the actor who steals the show in this is Leslie Nielsen, who plays Dr. Rumack, and is afforded one of cinema's most endearingly funny and memorable comic replies to Ted, who asks him: "Surely, you can't be serious?" Moments like these are frequent and keep the yuks running hot. Many of the best lines which are presented as a turn of phrase or manner of speech are ridiculous when they are suddenly interpreted literally. Airplane! boasts many references to contemporary films like Saturday Night Fever, and real life scenarios, such as being accosted in airports by hippies; yet, as a kid, I wasn't familiar with these references, but still found the silliness entertaining, and lines from the movie infinitely quotable. (In all fairness, seeing Airplane! edited for television meant that I would still have fresh--and more risque--jokes waiting when I was older.) It would be years before I was aware of just what Airplane! was actually spoofing in all its corny glory, but that would only add another element of richness on further viewings. Although not the first of its kind, Airplane! was such a profitable success, that its inception must have seemed like a font of untapped gold for studios, and movies of its kind would become more prolific going forward. It is ironic that the formula-parodying style of Airplane! would itself serve as a template of sorts for future spoofs to follow, including the likes of The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and Hot Shots!, both of which were also born from the same pedigree of David Zucker and Jim Abrahams, respectively. Even decades later, when many of the topical jokes and movie references may have fallen by the wayside for viewers, the jokes in Airplane! remain funny all the same, so much so that some audience members may be convinced the lines and moments in this film were wholly original. Airplane! is the kind of movie where you can quote a few lines from it among friends or strangers both, and get a feel for what kind of company you're in.
Recommended for: Fans of a combination of low-brow and clever humor both, and a foundation for dozens of parodies in and of films to follow for decades to come, with countless moments that will come up as you joke about them with friends for years to follow. Just what ever you do, don't eat the fish!