With EAA AirVenture in full swing this week, SURELY, there is no better time to take a look back at the greatest airplane movie of all time…Airplane!
I remember seeing Airplane at the Viking theater in downtown Appleton a few days after it opened in 1981.
Since it had a very small advertising budget, I knew very little about it going in, other than that it was made by the same folks who made the hilarious cult comedy Kentucky Fried Movie; Wisconsinites Jim Abrahams and brothers Jerry and David Zuckor.
It may be the only movie I’ve ever seen where I got “laughed out”. Despite dozens of great gags in the last 20 minutes I just couldn’t anymore. It wore me out.
At the time, I like many people, assumed it was just a spoof of the series of Airport disaster movies that were big box office between 1970 and 1979. And while those movies did serve as the inspiration for a number of gags in Airplane, it was a low budget 1950s movie called Zero Hour, starring Dana Andrews and Badger football legend Elroy “Crazy Legs“ Hirsch that served as the real template for Airplane.
About 15 years ago, I bought Zero Hour on DVD. Watching it for the first time as someone who had seen Airplane numerous times, I found it absolutely bracing how much of the plot, set pieces and dialogue was lifted and twisted right from that movie.
Check out this video by Mason Wood that does an amazing job of highlighting how much of Zero Hour’s DNA showed up on the screen in Airplane.
