Looks like we picked the wrong week to quit celebrating milestones.
Hard to believe it's been 35 years since "Airplane!" took flight (on July 2, 1980) and taught us all to speak jive, order the chicken instead of the fish, and avoid calling each other "Shirley." Three and a half decades later, the airline disaster parody remains one of the funniest films ever made, one that generations of viewers have watched over and over -- though probably never as an in-flight movie.
Still, as many times as you've seen it, there's much you may not know about how it was made. In honor of "Airplane!" turning 35, here are a few facts every fan must know about the comedy classic.
1. Strip away all the jokes, and "Airplane!" is essentially a remake of a little-known 1957 air disaster movie called "Zero Hour!" The writing/directing team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker lifted the plot,...
Hard to believe it's been 35 years since "Airplane!" took flight (on July 2, 1980) and taught us all to speak jive, order the chicken instead of the fish, and avoid calling each other "Shirley." Three and a half decades later, the airline disaster parody remains one of the funniest films ever made, one that generations of viewers have watched over and over -- though probably never as an in-flight movie.
Still, as many times as you've seen it, there's much you may not know about how it was made. In honor of "Airplane!" turning 35, here are a few facts every fan must know about the comedy classic.
1. Strip away all the jokes, and "Airplane!" is essentially a remake of a little-known 1957 air disaster movie called "Zero Hour!" The writing/directing team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker lifted the plot,...
- 7/2/2015
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Airplane!, and the free DVD you're going to get in next Saturday's Guardian, here are 30 facts on Shirley the mother of all movie spoofs ...
1 Airplane! is a remake of a 1957 TV movie called Zero Hour!
2 The "food-poisoning on a plane" plot and many of the lines were lifted straight from the original.
3 They bought the rights to Zero Hour! so that's Ok.
4 Zero Hour! was written by Arthur Hailey, who went on to write the hugely successful Airport book/movie franchise which Airplane! spoofs so mercilessly.
5 Thus Hailey is credited as a writer of a movie that basically takes the piss out of his own work.
6 Airplane! was the fourth highest-grossing movie of 1980 in the Us, and the highest-grossing comedy in history until Ghostbusters.
7 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played co-pilot Roger Murdock, is the highest-scoring NBA basketball player of all time, with 38,387 points.
8 The film's...
1 Airplane! is a remake of a 1957 TV movie called Zero Hour!
2 The "food-poisoning on a plane" plot and many of the lines were lifted straight from the original.
3 They bought the rights to Zero Hour! so that's Ok.
4 Zero Hour! was written by Arthur Hailey, who went on to write the hugely successful Airport book/movie franchise which Airplane! spoofs so mercilessly.
5 Thus Hailey is credited as a writer of a movie that basically takes the piss out of his own work.
6 Airplane! was the fourth highest-grossing movie of 1980 in the Us, and the highest-grossing comedy in history until Ghostbusters.
7 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played co-pilot Roger Murdock, is the highest-scoring NBA basketball player of all time, with 38,387 points.
8 The film's...
- 9/24/2010
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
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