Airplane! Is The Funniest Movie Ever

I'm cutting you some slack, Jack.

She was great as the jive talkin' Mama.

A nice resurgence for Barbara after she retired The Beaver.

"Airplane" really kind of crossed a line. Movies weren't previously allowed to be that funny.

And don't call me Shirley.

Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

I’ve never been so scared in my life! But at least I have a husband.

Jim *never* vomits at home.

I remember seeing it in a movie theatre in London and everybody was falling out of their chairs laughing their heads off. It's still funny, too.

Do you like gladiator movies, Joey?

Airplane and the Naked Gun films are my go to movies when I need a quick laugh.

Captain Oveur : You ever been in a cockpit before?

Joey : No sir, I've never been up in a plane before.

Captain Oveur : You ever seen a grown man naked?

“The hospital?! What is it?”

“It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important right now.”

Steve McCroskey : Ease off, Rex. He hasn't flown for years; it's not his fault. It could happen to any pilot.

Johnny : It happened to Barbara Stanwyck.

You want me to have an abortion.

McCroskey: Two more minutes? They could be miles off course!

Kramer: That's impossible. They're on instruments.

White America's ideal wife and mother of suburban small town USA in the 1950s.

She'd would basically be the mother of MAGA!

^^FFS you obsessives can insert Trump into any goddamn thread that has nothing to do with him or politics.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

Now, how is Peter related to her? Grandson?

Steve McCroskey : Johnny, what can you make out of this?

[Hands him the weather briefing]

Johnny : This? Why, I can make a hat, or a brooch, or a pterodactyl...

[reading newspaper headlines]

Rex: "Passengers certain to die"!

McCroskey : "Airline negligent."

Johnny : There's a sale at Penney's!

I saw it when I was about 11, without my parents around. Who could forget this scene? My jaw dropped.

I take my coffee black... just like my men.

We have clearance, Clarence.

Roger, Roger!

What's our vector, Victor?

"I haven't felt this ill since we saw that Ronald Reagan movie."

Have you ever had a dog rub himself, up and down on your leg?

I say let ‘em crash!

Airplane! vs Zero Hour!

What happened with airplane 2? Why was it so awful?

I see a goof already in the first few minutes. The pilot gets a call from the Mayo Clinic and there are jars of Best Foods Mayonnaise lining the shelves behind him. The Mayo Clinic is in Minnesota and Best Foods Mayonnaise is Hellman’s Mayonnaise east of the Rockies. So they filmed it in LA and didn’t have the right mayonnaise to represent the region.

Were there ever any nude shots of Robert Hays in his prime?

R32, I saw him on a rerun of CANNON awhile back. He wasn’t naked, but was wearing a yellow speedo or yellow underwear. He was killed in the first five minutes of the episode.

R23, that kid's face after she turns him down is so damned funny! R16, I think the instruments joke is probably my favorite of the movie. And the blonde FA does a good fake saxophone.

Airplane made me a porn star...

I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.

I blew the whistle on Prince Andrew's inability to sweat...

“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.”

^ I never understood why he would quit any of that, it was the 70s , man

I love when Johnny unplugs the runway lights.

"Just kidding."

[quote]"Airplane" really kind of crossed a line. Movies weren't previously allowed to be that funny.

And never were again - Airplane II: The Sequel - being the perfect example.

Robert Hays in Airplane was one of my first clues I was gay. Just saying...

^ Robert Hays just confirmed what I already knew

There are a few movies of the 70's that are consistently funny and couldn't be done today, but "Airplane!" certainly has more laughs per minute then most classic comedies.

The sequel tried too hard. The original Airplane just rolled with it and is priceless entertainment.

I found an obscure British TV episode from the 60s and was thinking it could made into a similar type spoof movie, the way they did with the original movie Airplane! was based on. And, being made in the 60s, there was a gay aspect to the plot, so subtle, I didn't even notice at first....that could be revved up and brought out of the shadows...get the DL gurls twittering on release.

Airplane looks so effortlessly funny. It's so unapologetically goofy. Most of the jokes could easily be disqualified as dad-jokes or immature. But the jokes come with so much assertiveness. Leslie Nielsen plays it like this is the highest form of acting that can't be doubted. He really nailed these movies.

I remember, first watching, I thought when he said "it was a tough place...fights broke out every night" and you see two girls fighting each other like maniacs, throwing each other across the room, was SO funny.

Her grandchildren: Morgan Billingsley, Logan Billingsley, Taylor Billingsley - SO American, lol.

R32 No, but there are some of his son.

Nervous?

Yes.

First time?

No, I've been nervous lots of times.

The Zucker brothers turned into super right wing assholes over the years and ended up doing a film with super rightwing asshole Kelsey Grammer that was a total flop.

Once you go conservative, you lose your sense of humor.

Airplane is such a specific type of humor and part of it is that it's just a constant barrage of throw-away lines and gags where you might find yourself chuckling two minutes after it was said. Julie Hagerty is funny simply because of her pensive, nervous, high-pitched delivery - she was perfect. As far as Billingsly, besides actually talking jive, the line where she earnestly says "Oh stewardess, I speak jive" may be even funnier. There's just a lot of great elements and performances.

I also remember Airplane for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as Roger Murdock. And his impossibly long, muscled legs!

"He thinks he's Ethel Merman!"

I hadn't seen it in twenty years, so when I was babysitting my two nephews, I decided to put it on for them. I got to the "have you ever seen a grown man naked" part and decided I'd better turn it off. Especially since my youngest nephew thought that line was hilarious and kept repeating it. I thought, "that's all I need, for him to repeat that line to his parents"!

I bet I've seen Airplane a 100 times and I still find new stuff every time

^ This never happened.

Male PA Announcer: Look Betty, don't start up with your white zone shit again. There's just no stopping in a white zone.

Female PA Announcer: Oh really, Vernon? Why pretend, we both know perfectly well what this is about. You want me to have an abortion.

Male PA Announcer: It's really the only sensible thing to do. If its done safely, therapeutically, there's no danger involved.

Auntie Em! It's a twister! It's a twister!

The newer DVDs after Sept. 11, 2001 deleted the part in the beginning where passengers see their friend and wave "Hi, Jack!"

R29 Thank you! That comparison clip is hilarious. I have to watch Airplane! again...right now!

[quote]I also remember Airplane for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as Roger Murdock. And his impossibly long, muscled legs!

R54...and the sight of his jockstrap when he's pulled from the co-pilot's seat!

Interesting article about the death of Stephen Stucker.

It was hilarious- but the first time I saw people falling into the aisle laughing was the Odd Couple with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

All I know is Leslie Nielsen was one of my first Daddy crushes!

Stephen Stucker had the audience in hysterics when it was first released. It went from who's that gay guy to who's that gay guy that's really funny? Straight black men who thought the Barbara Billingsley. Jjve sequence was hysterical also howeled at Johnny.

"And Leon's getting larger!"

L9ve the scene where he ridicules the wife for her outfit.

One thing I never knew until yesterday, when I visited the “Airplane!” page on Wikipedia, is that the nun who lends her guitar to Randy the stewardess, and who serenades the jive dudes with “Respect,” is none other than soft-rock crooner Maureen McGovern.

My mother took my best friend and I to see Airplane in the theater around June 1980. My mother was laughing her head off but my friend and I did not find it particularly funny. We were 14 years old. I saw the movie again 9 years later on videotape and my same friend from 1980 and another friend also watched it and we LOVED it. I guess at 14 years old my friend and I were too young to appreciate the humor.

^ I guess that the stereotypes the movie plays with aren't as engrained at that age yet.

I was 15 when it came out, but IIRC I didn’t see it until years later, on video.

I probably would have enjoyed at the time; I was a huge Dr. Demento fan.

Did Abrahams-Zucker also do Kentucky Fried Movie? That was another movie with that sort of humor.

R71

Fish for dinner last night? Harry still smoking those cigars? Christ, it did a cow shit in here?

R19 Absolutely true story. I quoted that line back at my supervisor "looks like you picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue" after there were problems at work. I got fired shortly thereafter. I had been totally unaware he was a cokehead. Evidently, he had never seen Airplane...

Chump don’t want no help, Chump don’t get no help.

Jive dude: Sheeit!

Subtitle: “Golly!”

[quote] Did Abrahams-Zucker also do Kentucky Fried Movie?

The success if KFM was what persuaded the studio to greenlight Airplane

[quote] Jim *never* vomits at home.

There is a deeper layer to that joke. The actress in the film was the same lady who did a series of coffee commercials that the movie was parodying.

Not to drag down the thread, but from R63's link...if you have a few minutes, what Stephen Stucker's appearance on Phil Donahue on AIDS from 1985. It was fascinating and about 5 minutes in duration. So little was known back then! And we were "the homosexuals."

Took me years to realize Maureen McGovern was the singing, flying nun in this. They wanted Helen Reddy to reprise her role, but she declined.

I've always wonderful, if you're on a plane and the person next to you commits suicide, it seems strange to me that they'd assign someone else to the seat, particularly if it happens more than once.

Good luck. We're all counting on you.

I was too young to have seen Airplane in the theater, but my parents did and they told me people were nearly falling out of their chairs from laughing so hard.

@r58, "^ This never happened. "

That's what your father said about having sex with your mother, but here you are

[quote] "and ended up doing a film with super rightwing asshole Kelsey Grammer that was a total flop."

I've never seen "An American Carol", but the title alone is cringe inducing, R52.

R77 thanks so much for sharing that! I had no idea and it makes her voice-over jokes all the more funny! I also like the part where the captain whips off his sunglasses only to reveal another pair of sunglasses underneath.