July 2, 1980: "Airplane!" Premieres
Left to right: Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen,
Lorna Patterson and Robert Hays
July 2, 1980: Airplane! premieres. It may be the funniest movie ever made.
Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker (collectively known as Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, or ZAZ) wrote Airplane! while they were performing with the Kentucky Fried Theatre, a theatre group they founded in 1971. To obtain material for comedy routines, they routinely recorded late-night television, and reviewed the tapes later primarily to pull the commercials, a process Abrahams compared to "seining for fish."
During one such taping process, they unintentionally recorded the 1957 film Zero Hour!, and, while scanning the commercials, found it to be a "perfectly classically structured film" according to Jerry Zucker. Abrahams later described Zero Hour! as "the serious version of Airplane!"
It was the first film script they wrote, completed around 1975, and was originally called The Late Show. The script originally stayed close to the dialog and plot of Zero Hour!, as ZAZ thought they did not have a sufficient understanding of film at the time to structure a proper script. ZAZ's script borrowed so much from Zero Hour! that they believed they needed to negotiate the rights to create the remake of the film and ensure they remain within the allowance for parody within copyright law.
They were able to obtain the rights from Warner Bros. and Paramount for about $2,500 at the time. The original script contained spoofs of television commercials, but people who proofread it advised them to shorten the commercials, and they eventually removed them. When their script was finished, they were unable to sell it.
While failing to sell their script, the trio met director John Landis, who encouraged them to write a film based on their theatre sketches. They managed to put The Kentucky Fried Movie into production in the late 1970s, and released it in 1977. David Zucker said, "It was the first time we had ever been on a movie set. We learned a lot. We learned that if you really wanted a movie to come out the way you wanted it to, you had to direct. So, on the next movie, Airplane!, we insisted on directing."
Eventually the Airplane! script found its way to Paramount through Michael Eisner. Eisner learned of the script via Susan Baerwald, another scriptwriter with United Artists, and had Jeffrey Katzenberg track down and meet with ZAZ to discuss details. Avco Embassy Pictures also expressed interest in producing the film, but ZAZ decided to go with Paramount. Paramount insisted the film be shot in color rather than black-and-white as ZAZ wanted, and to be set aboard a jet airliner rather than a propeller plane, to better identify with modern filmgoers.
In exchange, Paramount acquiesced to ZAZ's desire to cast serious actors for the film rather than comedy performers. Jerry Zucker stood beside the camera during shooting, while David Zucker and Abrahams watched the video feed to see how the film would look; they conferred after each take.
David Zucker explained that "the trick was to cast actors like Robert Stack, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, and Lloyd Bridges. These were people who, up to that time, had never done comedy. We thought they were much funnier than the comedians of that time were." He felt Stack was the most important actor to be cast, since he was the "linchpin" of the film's plot.
Stack initially played his role in a way that was different from what the directors had in mind. They showed him a tape of impressionist John Byner impersonating Robert Stack. According to the producers, Stack was "doing an impression of John Byner doing an impression of Stack." Stack was not initially interested in the part, but ZAZ persuaded him. Bridges' children, including his sons Jeff and Beau, by then actors themselves, advised him to take the part.
For the role of Dr. Rumack, ZAZ initially suggested Dom DeLuise, Christopher Lee, and Jack Webb, all of whom turned it down, before they considered Nielsen, who was "just a fish in water" in his role, according to Jerry Zucker. Nielsen's career to this point had consisted mostly of serious leading roles, but he wanted to work in comedy, and was looking for a film to help in the transition. He was considered a "closet comedian" on set, pranking his fellow actors between shots, but immediately adopted his somber, serious persona when performing as Rumack. Lee would later acknowledge that turning down the role, to star in the 1979 film 1941 with John Belushi, was a huge mistake.
It's one of the most quotable movies of all time:
* Roger Murdock (co-pilot, played by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar): We have clearance, Clarence.
Captain Clarence Oveur (Graves): Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?
Tower voice: Tower's radio clearance, over!
Oveur: That's Clarence Oveur. Over.
* Rumack (Nielsen): You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.
Elaine Dickinson (a stewardess, played by Lorna Patterson): A hospital? What is it?
Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.
* Rumack: Captain, how soon can you land?
Captain Oveur (Graves): I can't tell.
Rumack: You can tell me. I'm a doctor.
* Rumack: Can you fly this plane, and land it?
Ted Striker (Robert Hays): Surely, you can't be serious.
Rumack: I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
Ted: I flew single-engine fighters in the Air Force, but this plane has four engines. It's an entirely different kind of flying, altogether.
Rumack and Randy, at the same time: It's an entirely different kind of flying.
* Steve McCroskey (Bridges, handing Johnny a sheet of paper with information on it): Johnny, what can you make out of this?
Johnny (Steven Stucker): This? Why, I can make a hat, or a brooch, or a pterodactyl.
* In the original movie, the flight director said, "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking." As McCroskey, Bridges repeated this. Later in the movie, it was "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking," and he drank out of a flask. Later still, he popped a pill, and said, "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines." Finally, as the plane was coming in, he said, "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!" And it's this that finally gets to him, and sends him crashing through the window, literally over the edge.
Not all of the movie holds up. Some of the jokes are period-specific. The war flashbacks are to World War II, when they should be to Vietnam. And there's racial references and a scene of a woman getting slapped that would not be allowed today.
A sequel was released in 1982, titles Airplane II: The Sequel. This involved a bomb on a flight to the Moon, and had William Shatner replacing Robert Stack as the flight controller.
UPDATE: Jim Abrahams died in 2024. Both Zucker brothers were still alive at the time.
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July 2, 1980 was a Wednesday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-0 at Fenway Park. Rudy May pitched a 6-hit shutout. Graig Nettles hit a home run. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Apparently, the Red Sox were for loading and unloading only. Carl Yastrzemski did not play.
* The New York Mets beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-1 at Shea Stadium, close enough to La Guardia Airport for the sound of planes taking off and landing to be an issue.
* The Montreal Expos beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Steve Rogers outpitched Steve Carlton. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3 with a walk. Pete Rose went 2-for-4.
* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 14-0 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Phil Niekro knuckleballed his way to a 5-hit shutout. The Braves scored 7 runs in the 3rd inning. The Astros must have had fish for dinner.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-2 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Eddie Murray went 0-for-4, but drew a walk.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-5 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. A single by Ken Oberkfell and a double by Tony Scott gave the Cards the winning runs in the top of the 11th. Willie Stargell only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and drew a walk.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-6 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the California Angels, 1-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ross Baumgarten pitched a 1-hit shutout, allowing only a walk to Tom Donohue in the 6th inning and a single to Rod Carew in the 7th. Looks like the Angels picked the wrong week to quit hitting.
* The Oakland Athletics beat Milwaukee Brewers, 5-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. The A's got RBI singles from Jeff Newman and Wayne Gross in the top of the 10th inning. Rickey Henderson did not play. Nor did Paul Molitor. Robin Yount went 1-for-5.
* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-3 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. John Wathan singled Rusty Torres home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. George Brett did not play.
* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres, 10-7 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Johnny Bench did not play.
* And the Texas Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners, 6-3 at the Kingdome in Seattle.
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