Airplane!; Anything But the Fish
Surely you can't be serious. I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.
Airplane! (1980)
Director: Jim Abrahams; David Zucker; Jerry Zucker
Had I seen this before: Yes
Did I recognize the “famous quote” in the ad: You bet I did
The motion picture Airplane! and I are exactly the same age, which is to say: a little creaky, a little flabby, constantly referring to old movies that no one remembers anymore, and out of step with modern tastes. But also: some of our clothes have come back into style, we are still showing occasional flashes of wit, we have a strong appreciation for Lloyd Bridges and Leslie Nielsen, and are indefatigably amused with ourselves.
I had always thought of Airplane! as being a parody of 70s disaster movies, with an obvious emphasis on Airport ‘77, the same way Hot Shots! would later take on several late-80s/early-90s films with Top Gun at the center. Imagine my surprise when my quick perusal of IMDb trivia standard intensive research methods led me to discover that it is in many sections a line-for-line remake of a 1957 film called Zero Hour!, which includes quotes like “Our survival hinges on one thing—finding someone who can not only fly this plane, but didn’t have fish for dinner.” But, you know, serious. It’s all there in the original movie—the food poisoning, the fog, the hysterical woman being slapped by multiple people, the professional athlete playing one of the captains, a kid named Joey being enthusiastically greeted in the cockpit, the guy who realizes he picked the wrong week to quit smoking. They shifted the protagonist’s name from Ted Stryker to Ted Striker and changed Ellen to Elaine, but frankly that is not sneaky enough for 95% of us to have been watching Airplane! for four decades without getting the most obvious joke, which is, to me, maybe the most hilarious thing about this movie.
Not that there aren’t countless extremely funny bits as you dodge some of the more poorly-aged or just slightly meandering scenes (in a movie with a runtime of 88 minutes, the sheer amount of screen time devoted to two Girl Scouts brawling in a bar is lightly confounding). Although every passing year makes this type of comedy a bit less accessible through the collective memory loss of specific references (contemporary films, basketball stars, coffee commercials, organized airport evangelism), there is plenty of timeless humor zipping tirelessly throughout. The quote pulled for the Regal ad is a prime example. Words are played upon and sights are gagged in every direction. The density of joke delivery in this movie can only be described as an onslaught. Zags where you are expecting a zig. “Can you face some unpleasant facts?” it somberly asks of one character. “No,” she assures us. The world of Airplane! is an absurd and dangerous one—a cute family dog may viciously attack for no reason, a sweet singalong will repeatedly unhook the oxygen tube from a sick little girl, people and jetliners crash through windows left and right. If you ever feel that your life is in chaos, Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers are here to assure you: it could absolutely be worse.
The primary legacy of Airplane! is one of deep, deep cinematic silliness, kicking off a decades-long run of absurdist film parodies of varying success. It introduced a young Julie Hagerty, who has since brought me great delight, and pointed both 54-year-old Leslie Nielsen and 67-year-old Lloyd Bridges toward comedy, which I would argue was a gift to us all. It also left us with one perfect, goofy line that my 14-year-old’s brain interpreted as a reference to the Regal Ad despite her knowing better, proving that this Pepsi promo has caused permanent, irreversible damage to my family.
The Regal Ad
The outfit: Yeah…I’m pretty stumped on this one. This lady is just wearing a denim jacket and regular modern clothes. The two actors involved in this exchange in the movie are wearing suits and ties. The most generous read I can give it is that the blue jacket is mimicking a pilot’s uniform? I truly have no idea. I think they just did not give this woman a theme. F
The line: At last we have a line that one could reasonably expect a general audience to recognize—this was the first point in the ad where it occurred to me what they were going for. It’s also the first of two lines included that the American Film Institute agrees is worth celebrating (and don’t think I’m not eyeing that list up and down for future examination, by the way). It’s a funny, self-contained joke that would work in countless contexts. In this context? Let’s see! A+
The context: The woman is responding “Surely you can’t be serious” to the man who has just made the very obvious point that the movie theater lobby is nicer than his apartment, which presumably does not have 25-foot ceilings. If I was mad about the original comment, which I was, I am utterly baffled by this doubling down. What do you mean surely he can’t be serious that this enormous commercial building is nicer than his apartment? What does YOUR apartment look like? Why are you doing this to me?? F
Wait, unless…unless she, like me, is saying “surely you can’t think what you are saying makes any kind of sense, you are already ruining this ad with a quote that doesn’t fit the situation”? In which case, A
Best Vegetable Lasagna from Cookie and Kate
In an attempt to determine why so many passengers and crew are falling gravely ill, the in-flight dinner choices are discussed: “Well,” recalls the flight attendant, “we had a choice of steak or fish.” “Yes, yes” offers the doctor, “I remember, I had the lasagna.” Better safe than sorry, I say.
Up next: “So I got that going for me, which is nice.”