Airplane!

Release Date: July 2, 1980
Studio: Paramount
Writers and Director: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
Screenwriter: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
Starring: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG
Official Website: none

Plot Summary: An airplane crew takes ill. Surely the only person capable of landing the plane is an ex-pilot afraid to fly. But don't call him Shirley.

This was the movie that started a trend: the slapstick, nonsensical spoof - Airplane parodies disaster movies of the 70s. Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker wrote and directed this landmark comedy treat in 1980 and more of the same came from their stables (1984’s Top Secret, which starred Val Kilmer, is one such film I remember well – but was somewhat disappointing compared to the standard of Airplane’s lunacy).

 The threesome’s style of humour is akin to today’s Farallely Brothers their over the top stories in Dumb and Dumber, Me, Myself, and Irene and There’s Something about Mary are the sweetly new raucous brand of comedy that doesn’t imitate their predecessors style. Their’s is an evolved (or devolved, depending on how you look at it) development.

 Abrahams and the Zuckers kept their label for making spoofs – they never went on to win an Academy Award (surprise, surprise) although both departed from their stock material when Jerry Zucker directed the Oscar winning supernatural thriller Ghost (1990), and Jim Abrahams and David Zucker co-directed the dark comedy Ruthless People (1986).

 A life long propensity for taking the mickey out of other people’s cinema began with this simple premise: On board a plane one night headed for a certain destination an outbreak of food poisoning wreaks havoc and a war airplane pilot (Robert Hays) is their only hope for landing the plane, as the pilot also gets infected. However, he is a drunk and obsessed with his ex-girlfriend (Julie Hagerty), who happens to be a stewardess on the flight.