Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/27/airplane-is-more-than-a-spoof-its-a-comedic-remake-of-a-1957-film.html
…
14 Likes
TIL! Airplane! was my intro to the whole genre and did, and still does, have my laughing until my sides hurt. It’s just so stupid it’s brilliant.
28 Likes
I think this is part of why Airplane! holds up so well. Yes, it’s incredibly funny and inspired and for many of us the new thing called cable allowed us to watch it again and again. But there’s also a serious story at its heart.
12 Likes
This is also why (well, one reason why) the sequel just doesn’t compare. The Zuckers were out making Police Squad, and the guy hired to write the film didn’t seem to know what made the first so good. The guy also wrote Grease 2!
10 Likes
Is 14 years later still considered a reboing?
33 Likes
Its a Classictm Boing.
Should a reboing be called a “Bounce” 
23 Likes
I’m all for that.
I’ll also note that Airplane (and Police Squad) relaunched Leslie Neilson’s career and made him a comedy legend with that trademark deadpan delivery.
12 Likes
Leslie did an interview just as the Naked Gun movies were taking off, and he was asked about his transition from serious leading man to comedy, and he said it was all in the delivery. He gave an example, saying a simple line, as if from a drama. Then said it again as if it was a comedy, and it was so funny, but so little in his inflection changed. I need to find it again and study it. It was masterful.
Perfect casting on the Zuckers and Joel Thurm’s part.
12 Likes
The abortion storyline in the original really stands out today. Airplane! only lightly touched on it with the airport announcers… probably because you are supposed to like Jack Striker, unlike Dean Martin’s captain who I thought was a total POS.
“Hey babe, it was a fling, you need to get rid of the baby because this could hurt my career and I’ve obviously got no interest in you or the kid.”
10 Likes
Only in New Orleans.
8 Likes
This is why those '70s Airport movies made my fear of flying worse - too much drama. 
The ability to laugh about a scary situation definitely helps. That’s why Airplane! is one of my faves to this day. I wonder if a filmmaker would try a spoof of The Poseidon Adventure…
14 Likes
Oh, if you can, please do!
10 Likes
Arthur Hailey mined the same basic storyline for years as a book, radio play, television movie and theatrical release. These various productions had the same storyline of the pilot succumbing to food poisoning and an ex-WWII or private pilot saving the day. They were variously titled Zero Hour, Flight Into Danger or Runway Zero-Eight. I remember reading the novelized version in school.
12 Likes
Every time I watch UHF I wonder if Kevin McCarthy had a similar goal of transitioning to comedy later in his career. His delivery was very different, usually being much broader, but I’m sorry he wasn’t as successful.
6 Likes
…or a “Boi-oi-oing!!!”
8 Likes
Does a Simpsons episode count?
(Relevant portion hopefully cued up at 10m55s)
6 Likes
Dean Martin wasn’t in Zero Hour! I think you’re thinking of Airport? That’s the one where Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin) is a pilot and married to Mel Bakersfeld’s (Burt Lancaster) sister and having and affair with Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset). Gwen tells him that she’s pregnant and he casually tells her she can have a procedure in Sweden. By the end of the movie, he’s full on ready to choose pregnant Gwen over his wife Sarah (Barbara Hale).
I don’t remember any extramarital affair in Zero Hour! Stryker’s marriage is on the rocks and his wife is leaving him and taking their kid, Joey.
Airport and Zero Hour! are both guilty pleasures of mine! Love me some Dana Andrews and Burt Lancaster.
@PsiPhiGrrrl, I love The Poseidon Adventure now, but it seriously freaked me out when I saw it in a theater when I was nine. I totally know what you mean!
6 Likes
Police Squad also got it’s start doing the same formula with a Lee Marvin cop show:
13 Likes
not to mention the thought of running out of coffee!! 
5 Likes
I recall in high school, where my sister developed a taste for “Love Boat” reruns.
Nielsen would make an appearance, looking basically like Frank Drebin, and then fail to say anything funny for 60 minutes.
Surreal. Only by context.
7 Likes
