http://www.avclub.com/article/surely-you-cant-be-serious-oral-history-airplane-218043

This is definitely an interesting and fun read. Airplane! is definitely one of my all-time favorite movies. I never knew that it was a parody of a specific movie.

Without reading the link, wasn't it a parody of Airport! ?

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Without reading the link, wasn't it a parody of Airport! ?

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It was a parody of Zero Hour. I always thought it was just a parody of the Airport series. The article explains that it was so close to the plot of Zero Hour they actually optioned the rights to Zero Hour for a remake.

Well...first the Earth's crust cooled...and the then dinosaurs came...

thx

I don't know what to make of this.

Airplane! is a great example (maybe the best) of putting serious people in absurd situations for comedy. This movie is full of actors known for serious roles saying serious lines in ridiculous situations.
This youtube clip of Zero Hour! vs. Airplane! is great. They quote the movie verbatim sometimes, but turn the situation a bit for comedy.
Taking so much from Zero Hour! actually leads to longest running gag in the movie. They used the propeller noise from Zero Hour! as the background noise throughout Airplane!, but Airplane! is set on a jet.

Ahhh, the days when a PG-rated movie could still throw in a shot of a woman's t*ts......

Leslie Nielsen getting the last slap in there gets me every time

That was a good read.
Good thing it's a slow day at the office.

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I don't know what to make of this.

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maybe a broach, or a hat? How about a pterodactyl?!

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Airplane! is a great example (maybe the best) of putting serious people in absurd situations for comedy. This movie is full of actors known for serious roles saying serious lines in ridiculous situations.
This youtube clip of Zero Hour! vs. Airplane! is great. They quote the movie verbatim sometimes, but turn the situation a bit for comedy.
Taking so much from Zero Hour! actually leads to longest running gag in the movie. They used the propeller noise from Zero Hour! as the background noise throughout Airplane!, but Airplane! is set on a jet.

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That link is awesome!

A plane! What is it?

You can tell me I'm a doctor.

You can't take a guess for another 2 hours?

Seeing how close Airplane! follows Zero Hour! isn't as big a surprise if you've seen the "A Fistful of Yen" bit in their previous film "Kentucky Fried Movie." They lifted dialogue almost word-for-word from Enter the Dragon and it was hilarious.

I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.

A hospital, what is it?
A big building with patients, but that's not important right now.

The cockpit, what is it?
It's the little room in the front of the plane where the pilots sit, but that's not important right now.

What did we have for dinner?
We had a choice of steak or fish.
Yes, yes, I remember. I had the lasagna.

Excuse me stewardess I speak jive.

Interesting. I'd always heard it was a parody of disaster movies in general. Never even heard of Zero Hour.

Tell me Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

"There's a sale at Penny's!!!"

Watching this movie over and over and over again on cable at a 10 year old, it was many years later when I finally understood the meaning behind the "do you like movies about gladiators" line.

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Watching this movie over and over and over again on cable at a 10 year old, it was many years later when I finally understood the meaning behind the "do you like movies about gladiators" line.

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It's interesting that Peter Graves was really uncomfortable with that dialogue, but it goes to show just how serious some of the actors were.

"And that, as much as anything else, led to my drinking problem."

I'm gonna admit I've never seen Airplane! and I know I need to... But can someone explain the Gladiator movie thing? I see it all the time on here, and I know it's about a pedophile creeping on a kid but I don't really understand the context.

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I'm gonna admit I've never seen Airplane! and I know I need to... But can someone explain the Gladiator movie thing? I see it all the time on here, and I know it's about a pedophile creeping on a kid but I don't really understand the context.

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It's some of the most brilliant comedic writing you'll see in a classic movie. You really have to see it to understand how the creeper pedo stuff works into it. Most of it is seemingly random, but it works together so well.

Yeah I just need to watch it. I'd like to see it at a place like the Alamo. May check and see if they have any plans to do it sometime.

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But can someone explain the Gladiator movie thing? I see it all the time on here, and I know it's about a pedophile creeping on a kid but I don't really understand the context.

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I may be completely wrong about this, but it's a reference to the movie "Spartacus" and the underlying homosexual subtext that was partially cut out of the film before release.

It's also joked about in "Clueless" when Cher talks about the boy she likes (who's actually gay) really being into historical films "like Spara-tacus."

the context is exactly as you said.
you should watch it.

i cant imagine you were able to grow up without ever seeing one of the thousands of times it was playing on HBO and TBS from like 1980-95. like GEHB said, it was one of the favorite movies of my childhood - i didnt know who any of those actors were, or that they were usually "dramatic" actors. i just knew they were all freakin hilarious in this movie.

it is filled with the kind of layered jokes constantly coming at you and from every character that you can watch it 50 times and still be laughing at stuff you've missed before. you can watch it and see the seeds of so many great (and terrible) movies through the 80s/90s/2000s.

I've seen it easily more than 100 times, and I still find new things. What makes it even better is that I've seen a lot of the work those dramatic actors did before Airplane! and it makes it even funnier knowing how out of type it was for them.

Cockpit Scene

You hit it right on the money. The scene that's being referenced is in the video above. Still great.

Lol wow. Even as edgy as movies have gotten, I'm not sure that would fly today.

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Yeah I just need to watch it. I'd like to see it at a place like the Alamo. May check and see if they have any plans to do it sometime.

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Just rent it, you ****ing hipster.

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Yeah I just need to watch it. I'd like to see it at a place like the Alamo. May check and see if they have any plans to do it sometime.

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Just rent it, you ****ing hipster.

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"Rent?" Is that short for torrent?