It was 1980. Word of mouth about a low budget movie, quickly spread across the country, making “Airplane” the fourth highest grossing flim of the year. There were no big stars on the marquee.
Airplane ,was a parody of the 1957 flim, Zero Hour starring Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell. with much of the orginial dialogue intact. From there they went left. The result, is corny, sometime offensive and funny.
My first introuduction to writers, directors Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker (ZAZ) was via the wildy funny and often offensive “Kentucky Fried Movie”(1977) that was popular in college towns.
The genius in both films was casting. In Airplane, actors, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Leslie Neilsen and Lloyd Bridges were best known for their dramatic roles and David Zucker dropped them in a middle of a parody and it worked .” We thought they were much funnier than the comedians of that time were’
Which brings me to June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley) “The Jive Lady” No one saw that coming.
Leave it to Beaver is one of the longest running television show. It was on six seasons from 1957 to 1963. The show has been in Syndication for nearly 60 years.
No one saw “Mission Impossibles” Peter Graves who just could be…….
Leslie Nielsen’s career took off after Airplane, he went on to star in the Naked Gun films and later on Television in Police Squad.
Airplane has won several awards through the years and is considered one the Greatest Comedies of all time. In 2010, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”
CityFella
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