YMMV / Airplane!

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • The "I say, let 'em crash!" guy was a parody of a now largely forgotten 60 Minutes segment called "Point/Counterpoint" in which a conservative (usually James J. Kilpatrick) and liberal (usually Shana Alexander or Nicholas von Hoffman) debate an issue of the day. The segment was replaced by A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney in the early 1980s, though some people might remember the segment from Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin's famous parody of it on Saturday Night Live, which was in turn referenced on The Office (US)
  • Back in those days, airports really did have Hare Krishnas and other soliciting/panhandling/preaching types all over the place. In later years, airports were given greater ability to control access, so nowadays you don't have to punch one in the face to get to your gate.
  • Many other traits of air travel have changed over the decades and may not be familiar to younger viewers, such as smoking sections on airplanes or allowing people to meet disembarking passengers right at their arrival gate.
  • In-flight meals more substantial than a packet of crackers/cookies/nuts and a cup of soda are getting increasingly rare except when a flight is expected to go more than 4-5 hours between stops...or when it's run by El Al or Mexican airliners (at times).
  • Post-9/11, the idea that a pilot would open the cockpit so a random passenger can meet the crew is almost hilarious in and of itself. However, children often still do get their "wings" (an airline logo pin in the shape of wings).
  • LAX really did have repeated outdoor announcements about the white zone being for loading and unloading. In fact, ZAZ got the actual couple who recorded the lines to perform the comedy announcements you hear in the movie.
  • Comfort animals for pilots? Yes, they do exist and help ease the heavy-concentration of airliner safety...though a vulture comforter has yet to be added.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: This was the first shot at a mainstream movie by the people who made The Kentucky Fried Movie. With its obsession with puns and its throwing of conventional plotline out the window, many believed it had box-office disaster written all over it. It became one of the highest-grossing films of 1980, and is still considered one of the greatest and funniest comedies ever.
• Awesome Music:
  • The Zuckers and Abrahams were actually disappointed when Airplane! ended up with a genuinely good score, rather than a cheesy one that would add to the parody. They probably shouldn't have hired Elmer Bernstein. Given the overall tone of the film, they're probably the only ones who feel like this. In fairness to Bernstein, he sought advice on how to score a comedy movie and was told that the music would be funnier if it sounded dead earnest (this is exactly how he went about scoring Animal House two years before).
  • Lorna Patterson's cover of "River of Jordan" is genuinely good; she was legitimately cast for her singing ability and her audition, as she put it, saw her crammed in the back seat of a car with the three directors.
  • When Rumack (Nielson) tells Striker the end of the "George Zipp" story. Whether or not one's a fan of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the moment is hilarious.
• Base-Breaking Character: Johnny the control tower employee is a rather divisive character, due to his comically hammy and eccentric personality being tonally dissonant with the rest of the movie, and his antics are similarly polarizing, especially his For the Funnyz moment with the runway lights. He seems to be a take on the "comic relief" character that otherwise dramatic movies keep shoehorning in (even today), where the other characters don't seem to notice how inappropriately the comedy character is behaving in an otherwise serious situation. This was a compromise on the part of the filmmakers - Executive Meddling wasn't sure the "dramatic actors playing wacky comedy straight" approach would work, so they mandated at least one out-and-out comedy character played by a comedian, and Stephen Stucker got the nod. Some viewers think he's one of the funniest things in the movie, while others find him annoying, distracting, and out of place.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The naked woman with her breasts bouncing (in a PG film!^note The PG-13 rating did not exist at the time) in front of the camera as the passengers are panicking. Nobody notices this and it is never spoken of again.
  • Johnny is a walking BLAM of a character. He rarely leaves McCloskey's side and seems to actually work there (as his opinion is asked and he's tasked with talking to reporters) but he seems to live on a different planet, yet no one reacts to his strangeness, even when he physically manhandles them.
    McCloskey: Bad news. The fog's getting thicker.
    Johnny: (leaping up and wrapping his arms around an overweight man from behind) And Leon's getting laaaaaaaarger!
• Crosses the Line Twice: Several gags, but particularly:
  • The "hysterical woman gets slapped" one, not to mention stewardess Randy's disastrous attempt to cheer up the Littlest Cancer Patient; both are played as Black Comedy.
  • Not to mention the overly long argument between the male and female PA announcers at the beginning, which degenerates into the male announcer pressuring the female announcer to have an abortion.
  • While in the Peace Corps, Ted briefly shows some African tribesmen how to play basketball; within seconds, they're dunking on him and perfectly nailing free throws.
  • The Running Gag with Captain Oveur asking a young boy creepily inappropriate questions like "You ever seen a grown man naked?" - which is the first such question he asks, while the others are just suggestive. It also catches the viewer by utter surprise, since the first thing he asks the boy is "You ever been in a cockpit before?"
  • The passengers next to Striker are Driven to Suicide by listening to his long, boring life story.
  • The kids dressed up and speaking like well-behaved adults. Cute and all, until the boy asks the girl if she would like some cream for her coffee, she responds with:
    Little Girl: No, thank you. I take it black. Like my men.
  • To elaborate on the "disastrous attempt by Randy" mentioned above: A small child on the verge of death and in need of an emergency transplant? Tragic. Said child's IV being knocked out by a singing, guitar-playing stewardess who remains cheerfully oblivious as the girl spasms and tries to get the tube back in? Hilarious. It gets even better when the girl's mother is so caught up in the song she doesn't even notice the missing tube. Then Randy knocks the tube out AGAIN. The mother notices it this time, and the scene ends with the mother doing CPR on the girl while Randy keeps joyously singing.
  • When a woman goes hysterical, she gets slapped across the face twice. First she gets slapped twice by Dr. Rumack, but then she gets slapped the face by a nun making it all the more hilarious.
    • Then they top it by revealing everyone on the plane lined up with a verity of weapons ready to "comfort her".
  • The implication that Mrs Oveur had sex with a horse? Disgusting. But the fact that the horse was lying in bed next to her like they were a regular couple, topped by her talking to it like it fully understood the situation made it hilarious.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Roger Murdock/Kareem Abdul-Jabber is considered one of the funniest parts of the movie due to the hilarious concept of an all star basketball player leading a double life as a co-pilot.
• Genius Bonus: Manny Mota was the all-time leader in pinch hits - but he never pinch hit for Pedro Borbón. It was most likely Stryker thinking about how cool those names sounded in his head. The real Pedro Borbón was thrilled by the shout out, according to his son.
• Genre Turning Point: Hiring non-comedic actors in a broad comedy. At the time, the entire joke with Leslie Nielsen's character was seeing a serious actor bringing every bit of his usual gravitas to such ridiculous material. Nielsen proceeded to make this kind of material his bread and butter (and with progressively less gravitas), so that viewers these days will likely just be surprised that he's not playing the lead role. So many other dramatic actors have done it since that it's impossible to cast anyone in this kind of movie without them being in on the joke.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The film opens with a Jaws parody, with the wing of a plane doubling as a shark fin. Years later, Robert Hays would cameo in a film where sharks actually attack a plane.
• Les Yay:
  • The old woman describing Elaine in such erotic detail.
  Old Woman: No wonder you're so upset. She's lovely! And a darling figure. Supple, pouting breasts. Firm thighs. It's a shame you don't get along.
  • One of the women worrying over her husband in the hospital— said husband happens to be played by Ethel Merman.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Surely you can't be serious." "I am serious. And don't call me Shirley."
  • "I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you."
  • "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking/drinking/amphetamines/sniffing glue."
  • "A [place]? What is it?" "It's a [description of the place], but that's not important."
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Several people connected with the film went to see it in theaters in black-majority neighborhoods to get a sense of how the jive scenes were being received, and were surprised to hear uproarious, enthusiastic laughter every time. Audiences were clearly enjoying the whole meta-joke about how utterly clueless white people tend to be about black culture.
• Misaimed Fandom: As with any popular work, Airplane! isn't free of being misunderstood for what was funny. Following parody movies that took after its manic style, including those by ZAZ themselves, seem to believe that the cartoony slapstick was the main reason why it was hilarious. They tend to forget that other aspects, such as random background gags, subversion of movie cliches, and total deadpan dedication to the insanity, were big parts of why it was so funny. As a result, the slapstick and literal humor is there, but falls flat due to more reaction shots and Lampshade Hanging.
• Older Than They Think: As revolutionary as this film was, it was not the first transportation-themed disaster movie parody, nor was it even the first one made by Paramount Pictures as The Big Bus had already come out four years previously in 1976. In fact, part of the reason Airplane! spent such a long time in Development Hell was that studios gave ZAZ an It's Been Done reception in pitch meetings after The Big Bus flopped.
• One-Scene Wonder: Ethel Merman, in her final film role, plays a soldier with shell shock so severe he is convinced he's Ethel Merman, even belting out a few bars of her iconic rendition of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" before being sedated by the staff. It's a quick gag but absolutely kills.
• Parody Displacement:
  • Even if audiences are aware that it's essentially a comedic remake of Zero Hour!, they're unlikely to have seen the earlier film, much less be aware that some of the hammiest bits of dialogue^note such as "Now you know what we need to find: someone who can not only land this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner!" were lifted from it almost verbatim.
  • Most people under a certain age only know about religious recruiters at airports from this film. The actual practice has long since faced bans or fallen out of favor.
  • Many of the films parodied, such as From Here to Eternity and Shane, are probably better known from this film.
  • This movie has also arguably become the subject of Parody Displacement itself among younger viewers thanks to Seth MacFarlane referencing it in both Family Guy and Ted.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • David Leisure (Empty Nest, Joe Isuzu) and Gregory Itzin (24) play Hare Krishnas.
  • Robert Hays voiced Iron Man in the 90s Marvel cartoons^note Iron Man: The Animated Series, obviously, in addition to guest spots on Spider-Man: The Animated Series and The Incredible Hulk, as well. Julie Hagerty would later voice Carol Pewderschmidt on Family Guy.
  • Jonathan Banks is one of the control room guys.
• Signature Line: "Surely you can't be serious." "I am serious. And don't call me Shirley."
• Special Effect Failure: As Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker note in the book Surely You Can't Be Serious, since they were parodying a B-movie from The '50s, they didn't really need to worry about perfecting the special effects beyond what you'd see in an old B-movie, creating lots of (possibly deliberate) moments of this.
  • During Oveur's phone call with the Mayo Clinic, it's hard to watch the jumping heart in the foreground without noticing the wire holding it up.
  • The wires holding up Ted when he does That Russian Squat Dance are also visible in HD.
  • In the scene where the man opens the vent to give his wife air resulting in hurricane-force winds, note the man with the fake beard behind them. The beard was supposed to come off in the wind (you can tell the guy is waiting for the beard to come off), but they couldn't get it to work - they left the scene in anyway.
  • When the man dancing with Elaine in the "Stayin' Alive" scene get stabbed in the back, you can see the pad in his back and the actor doing the stabbing pausing to aim for the target.
  • When Ted is dancing with Elaine in the "Stayin' Alive" scene, he tosses her up in the air, and she takes a long time to come down. When she does, however, she doesn't come down from above, but visibly jumps into his arms from the side/offscreen, though the sheer obviousness of it makes it possible that the Failure was deliberate.
  • Another one from the same scene: When Ted backflips into the crowd, it's an Obvious Stunt Double. How obvious? Robert Hays can actually be seen skulking in the crowd, waiting for his cue to reappear.
  • When Neubauer is attacked by Kramer's dog, we obviously see the dog is only licking him, and is wagging his tail; he's just playing.
  • The shit hitting the fan wasn't as spectacular as its idiom suggests.
• Sweetness Aversion: The "River of Jordan" scene uses this to set up the punchline with the IV.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs:
  • Monty Python plus Mel Brooks on speed.
  • To get the film made, Zucker and company told film executives it was Animal House on a plane. It wasn't.
• Tough Act to Follow: While the Zucker-Abrahms-Zucker team had marginal success together and as solo filmmakers, making comedy films with variations on the same themes as this one, only The Naked Gun movies came close to matching its success in terms of popularity while the others have become cult classics or completely forgotten at worst (it didn't help that David Zucker eventually tried to combine Rapid-Fire Comedy, parody and Author Tract with An American Carol, to little success). In a broader sense, it's still held as the best example of a feature-length parody film to date and is often brought up to unfavorably compare newer ones to it.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Of the late 1970s early 1980s. While a lot of the jokes still stand due to the Rapid-Fire Comedy, there are references to now-obscure sports figures and pre-9/11 flying. For example, the "smoking ticket" joke (requesting a ticket in the smoking section of the plane, but getting a ticket that emits smoke) became outdated in 1998 when smoking was prohibited on all US domestic flights. For another, there's the Hare Krishna and other solicitors at the airport. Most young people today have never heard of them, but they were really aggressive in getting your attention at airports back in the day — most audiences of the time would have viewed Rex Kramer's response to them as entirely appropriate — but a Supreme Court ruling in 1992 allowing airports to ban solicitors such as Hare Krishnas and increased security measures after 9/11 has likewise made the joke outdated. For foreign audiences, the joke is even more obscure, since either the Hare Krishna are unknown in their countries or solicitors were always banned from airports, even before 9/11, especially in countries like Mexico, when non-authorized solicitors had being always being banned from most major airports, partly due to reasons related with public image.
  • The film was released in 1980, but at the turn of the decade, the film's aesthetics and jokes reference the culture of the late '70s. Notably, the Take That! at Disco, which drew applause during the film’s original run, became dated as Disco’s reputation substantially improved around the turn of the millennium.
• Woolseyism: For obvious reasons, the foreign dubs did some changes in some of the dialogues:
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, both the Jive dudes and the Jive Lady's speech were changed from Ebonics to thick, over-the-top Cuban accents, which are normally used in comedy for imitating black accents. Oddly enough, the Jive Lady speaks mixing Cuban Spanish with a very thick and exaggerated Mexico City accent.
  • Likewise, from the same dub, the "I am a serious. And don't call me Shirley" line was replaced with "I am serious. And don't call me a doctor" instead, which also makes Dr. Rumack to sound more ruder than the original English version.

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