Airplane! (1980) • 45 Years Later — spoof comedy classic dispenses jokes in rapid-fire succession
After the crew becomes sick with food poisoning, a neurotic ex-fighter pilot must safely land a commercial airplane full of passengers.
If comedy films can be divided into major categories, the most obvious schism that comes to mind is between films of this genre that prioritise telling a cohesive story (usually accompanied by a few dashes of dramatic heft to keep viewers emotionally invested), and those which eschew such narrative focus, attempting almost anything in service of a laugh. Of the former category, inventive experiences like Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Eli Craig’s Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010) come to mind, which combine humorous jokes, surprisingly endearing character arcs, and clever subversions of the respective genres they are parodying.
In the case of the latter movies, you have Airplane!, which towers above even the better movies of this type (the first Scary Movie, for instance). What makes Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker’s film (which the ‘ZAZ’ trio co-wrote and directed) so iconic comes down to two simple factors: the ridiculously high ratio of jokes per minute, and the fact that practically every one of them is a success. There are constant sight gags, misunderstandings, conflicts, audio cues, and straightforward delivery of absurd dialogue. The endless barrage of jokes ensures that Airplane! is never boring, but they also go a step beyond that in helping to craft a genuine comedy classic.
The gags also can’t cause the narrative to feel too crowded, since there’s hardly a narrative in the first place. There are main characters — ex-fighter pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays), flight attendant Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty), and Dr Rumack (Leslie Nielsen) — and they certainly have a lot to do in this film, but their fears and desires are secondary to the near-endless stream of jokes and skits onboard. It recognises that the off-the-wall humour found on a turbulent plane full of passengers is often far more entertaining than uncovering what these three individuals are thinking at a given moment, but it cares about them just enough to not allow itself to curtail too much cynicism. Darker fates (and the strand of humour that inspires them) are reserved for minor characters, like the passengers who have the misfortune of being seated beside the self-pitying and endlessly talkative Ted.
The film even has something resembling dramatic conflict and a character arc in this neurotic and self-doubting protagonist, who is forever haunted by a wartime plane crash that killed his fellow soldiers. Survivor’s guilt has turned him into a shell of a man, causing Ted to develop a fear of flying and a serious drinking problem-leading to a hilarious moment when we learn that this affliction is not a dependency on alcohol, but an inability to direct beverages into his mouth, instead helplessly splashing his face with liquid. He’s also just been dumped by Elaine, with this disappointing news spurring him on to buy a plane ticket on the flight that she’s working on, in a desperate bid to try and win back her affection.
Ted is a hopeless individual, and his maudlin routine of complaining about his problems to anyone within earshot makes one empathise with the elderly woman who hangs herself after spending too long in his presence, or the Japanese man who commits seppuku (suicide by stabbing oneself in the stomach). There’s something oddly wooden about Hays’ delivery of Ted’s self-pitying monologues, though that also applies to many of these cast members. For Airplane!’s principal cast, ZAZ intentionally sought out actors who had built up a reputation for playing no-nonsense characters They wanted their delivery to be intentionally straightforward no matter how ridiculous the dialogue was, heightening the film’s absurdity.
It’s a bold move that pays off in spades, creating the sense that nothing in this world is exactly real and that this fictional universe can be poked fun at in every which way. Without this vocal delivery, Airplane! might have felt as though it was constantly chasing new jokes to outdo itself, but instead it ensures that each gag coheres around a central style. It helps extract more humour from each interaction and binds the film’s simple and absurdist jokes together.
This may seem like an odd word to use given how many moments of hilarity are packed into this narrative, but Airplane! is actually quite a patient film. Some of its most satisfying comedic moments arrive through repetition, with running gags that get funnier each successive time they’re employed. Some of these jokes’ starting points aren’t even comedic, like when Dr. Rumack, a passenger on this flight, who is tasked with diagnosing a mysterious and deadly illness that has afflicted the plane’s pilot and co-pilot (and a number of other passengers), says: “Good luck, we’re all counting on you.” That’s an explicitly serious line, and, with straightforward delivery from Nielsen, makes it impossible to guess that anything more will come from it.
But then the line is repeated once more, then another time, transforming it into a hilarious running gag and keeping viewers guessing as to what can possibly happen next. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on what’s in store, a line of dialogue, sight gag, or form of misunderstanding is repeated. It’s just as possible that yet another character will be added to the mix in an excellent, extended ensemble, where even the numerous child actors are a delight to watch. Besides, if there are any bad actors here, that’s hardly noticeable given the somewhat stilted line delivery, where hardly any interaction between these characters feels natural.
Time — especially multiple decades’ worth of it — is often a depreciating factor in comedies, where their edge dims over the years given how raunchy modern films have become since Airplane!’s release in 1980. Luckily, that’s not a problem at all here. In fact, the film’s PG rating is a total shock, given that a woman’s breasts are shown onscreen for a second or two amidst an already amusing moment of panic from the passengers on this disastrous flight. It also never feels as if the film is intentionally making its humour more safe or palatable to appeal to a wide audience. Despite this (or maybe because of its commitment to its vision), Airplane! was such a financial success that within two days of its release it had already earned its entire production budget.
The only barrier towards viewers’ immersion in this movie is that its lack of a compelling narrative, as well as the fact that its story mostly occurs in one setting, requires continued concentration given that Airplane!’ s only through-line is the large amount of jokes heaped onto the film. Luckily, its lean runtime of 87 minutes ensures that it never becomes bland or overbearing, instead suffusing each and every minute of its runtime with jokes that reward keen attention. This is the rare kind of film that can be watched again and again, where viewers won’t just continue to laugh at some of its iconic moments and one-liners, but will find new gags that they hadn’t noticed on previous viewings.
Ad-libbing is always a tricky tactic in film, where sometimes actors can find hidden nuggets of humour in their characters that no one else but them could have thought of, while for other films a tight, well-considered script most aptly serves to steer the direction of its comedic chops. Airplane! would seem to fall into the latter category, given that it’s the kind of movie that could easily feel overcrowded given all of the gags it contains. But in another sense it’s not all that surprising that many of its jokes were ad-libbed, since each of these actors and actresses’ delivery of the dialogue demonstrates that they were all on the same page with the trio of creatives helming the film on how to convey Airplane!’s tone
First Jive Dude (Norman Alexander Gibbs) and Second Jive Dude (Al White), for instance, speak almost entirely in a vernacular that ZAZ weren’t well acquainted with, so Gibbs and White improvised much of the dialogue. The characters speak in this vernacular and their dialogue is then subtitled in standard English, with some of the colloquialisms humorously altered along racial lines (the elongated “shieet” from one of these characters is continually translated to “golly”).
Mrs Hammen (Lee Bryant), a concerned wife who silently laments and questions the motive behind every little thing her husband experiences (whether that’s drinking two coffees or feeling a bit sick), is a parody of a Yuban coffee commercial that was in circulation on TV at the time of Airplane!’s release. Bryant actually played the woman in the commercial who utters these lines, which the filmmakers were not aware of when she auditioned for the part of Mrs Hammen. She’s also a key part of another very funny scene, where Mrs Hammen’s irate shouting causes her to be slapped by a stewardess, then assaulted in various ways by an entire line of people onboard to quell her anxious screaming. The scene was supposed to end after she’s slapped by the stewardess, but at Bryant’s suggestion this interaction was expanded considerably to include more gags. The fact that an actress could secure a role for a part that parodies a role in a commercial she played, unbeknownst to the filmmakers, then make the written material even more humorous through her apt suggestions, is as perfect a demonstration of the comedic kismet aboard Airplane!’ s production as can be found.
Ad-libs and suggestions like these contribute greatly to the film’s success, though in truth Airplane! would have been a raucous hit even without these inclusions. There’s so much comedy on offer in this movie for audiences to latch onto that it’s never a chore to sit through, especially on subsequent viewings. It’s unsurprising that ZAZ chose not to return to the film’s sequel, Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), which they opted out of given that they felt they’d exhausted their use of airport gags. Instead, viewers can happily sink back into Airplane!’s easy and rewarding humour again and again, which makes for a timeless comedy classic.
USA | 1980 | 87 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH
Cast & Crew
directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker & Jerry Zucker.
writers: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker & Jerry Zucker (based on ‘Zero Hour!’ by Arthur Hailey, Hall Bartlett & John Champion).
starring: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Lorna Patterson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Robert Stack & Stephen Stucker.
Originally published at https://www.framerated.co.uk on June 27, 2025. All images are used according to the Fair Use doctrine in US & UK law for review, commentary, and education.