Trivia / Airplane!

• Acting in the Dark: To an extent. Although all involved were aware that the film was supposed to be a comedy, many of the actors admitted that they were unsure of the exact tone ZAZ were going for and basically had to be shepherded into giving the line readings they wanted. A few of the actors, however, were on board from the beginning and knew exactly what ZAZ wanted, including Robert Hays, Robert Stack, and (of course) Leslie Nielsen.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • The Mustang used in the scene where Rex is being brought to the airport was owned by Robert Hays. He got paid $35 a day for its use and they used it for two days.
  • Most of the jive talk between the two black passengers was improvised by the actors, Al White and Norman Alexander Gibbs, as the Jewish filmmakers weren't sufficiently "conversant" in black street language. In a bonus vignette for the "Don't Call Me Shirley" edition of the DVD, White and Gibbs explain how they came up with the dialect for the ZAZ team and are subtitled in jive while speaking regular English.
  • The sound of Captain Oveur's uncontrollable flatulence was provided on-set by Leslie Nielsen, using a fart machine he always kept on hand to prank people.^note He'd gotten in trouble handing out fart machines to the rest of the cast — who took to them like fish to water, resulting in a veritable cacophony of fart noises — before ZAZ started banning them on-set. The other actors would remark that Nielsen could "play that thing like a maestro".
• Actor-Shared Background: Robert Hays was in real life a licensed pilot, having completed his training in 1974, although it was an entirely different kind of flying, altogether.
  • All together: "It was an entirely different kind of flying."
• Approval of God: Arthur Hailey, who wrote the original CBC TV drama film Flight into Danger (1956), later adapted into Zero Hour! (1957), and was a credited co-writer on Zero Hour! itself. He also wrote the novel that launched the Airport disaster film franchise, ^note With ZAZ borrowing the PA announcers' argument about abortion from it and later admitted that he "laughed like everyone else" at Airplane!.
• Blooper:
  • As Ted meets Elaine in the airport corridor, you can see a crewman letting out cable off to the left. The Zuckers acknowledge this in the DVD Commentary.
  • After the "The white phone" line, you can hear a crew member (the script supervisor) behind the camera laugh. This is also mentioned in the DVD Commentary.
  • There's also one in the dance scene, also mentioned in the DVD Commentary: when Striker does a backflip into the crowd, you can see his actor, Robert Hays, off to the side, very obviously waiting for his cue to jump back in to replace his stunt double. His head is fairly visible off to the right.
• Career Resurrection: Before this film, Leslie Nielsen had a long career in Hollywood playing mostly bit parts on film or TV guest shots, with the occasional leading role in a low-budget project. Before 1980, he was probably best remembered for his leading role in Forbidden Planet. After 1980, he was best known for his role as Dr. Rumack in this film, where his deadpan performance made him one of the funniest things in the film. He would go on to play similar roles in an assortment of other, mostly similar comedies, notably Frank Drebin in Police Squad! and The Naked Gun film trilogy as well the lead roles in Spy Hard and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
• Cast the Expert:
  • For the argument between announcers concerning the white and red zones at the airport, the producers hired the actual announcers for Los Angeles International Airport. Incidentally, they were a real married couple.^note For those curious, at the real airport, the white zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only, and there's no stopping in the red zone (except for transit buses).
  • Lee Bryant was best known at the time for acting in Yuban coffee commercials.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Marcy Goldman was originally considered for the role of Mrs. Hammond but was eventually cast as Mrs. Geline instead.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Robert Hays juggling during the Magumbo Bar dance sequence.
  • The producers gave Norman Alexander Gibbs and Al White freedom to write their own Jive dialogue and also Barbara Billingsley's lines, because they were not familiar enough with Jive to do it themselves. White even went to a library and read books on African-American vernacular English in order to up it further, all in his own volition. He also coached Billingsley on how to say her lines.
  • Randy's performance of "River of Jordan" showcases Lorna Patterson's excellent singing voice. Patterson would later focus her career on doing musical theatre.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Latin American Spanish dub, and, while being a voice actor by his own right, Rex Kramer was voiced by Mexican TV actor Alberto Pedret, who was also the voice of El Santo in his own films.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Finnish, it's "Hey, We're Flying!" This led to a whole series of imported American comedies being titled "Hey, We're [insert verb here]!"
  • In Polish it's "Is there a pilot with us?"
  • France went with the similar "Is there a pilot in the plane?"
  • In Brazilian Portuguese, "Fasten Your Seatbealts, the Pilot has Disappeared!"
  • Czech Republic had the similar "Fasten your seatbelts, please!"
  • In Italian, it's "The Craziest Airplane In The World".
  • German has "The incredible voyage in a crazy Airplane".
  • Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan and the Philippines all had the title "Flying High!"
  • In Spanish, the film was released as "So where is the pilot?" in Latin America and "Land [as well] as you can" in Spain. From then on, almost every movie that had Leslie Nielsen in its cast was released as "So where is X?" and "X as you can".
  • In Swedish: "Look, we are flying!"
  • In Israel, it was "Have A Nice Flight".
• Creator Backlash:
  • Peter Yarrow wrote "River of Jordan" for the wedding of a friend. He was a little bummed out to see it used in a comedy. In the Surely You Can't Be Serious book, Yarrow says that he's fine with it now, and that his main concern was that Ted Kennedy had once told him that it was his favorite song, and he was afraid that Kennedy would somehow be mad at him over it.
  • When interviewed for the DVD Commentary, Peter Graves said he felt really uncomfortable with some of his more risque lines, especially involving little Joey. He initially rejected the role, but was pressured by his friends, wife, and daughters to accept. Fortunately, later in life, Graves had relaxed enough about it to jokingly hit on the (now-adult, of course) actor who played little Joey in cast reunions.
• Deleted Role: The opening scenes originally included an filmed "Polish joke" about Air Poland having pilots who were "flying blind", with the flight crew being Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and José Feliciano (plus a seeing-eye dog). The first two were lookalikes, but Feliciano appeared As Himself. After deciding the joke was too tasteless, the bit was cut, leaving Feliciano out of the film.^note The real Ray Charles would later appear in a similar gag in Spy Hard.
• Distanced from Current Events: A joke about Mamie Eisenhower was dubbed over when she died during production.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • Leslie Nielsen slapped Lee Bryant for real during the Get A Hold Of Yourself Man scene, and threw in a second slap without warning for good measure. Her confused reaction in this scene is entirely real.
  • According to Ross Harris (Joey), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was "not acting" when he erupted and grabbed Joey following his relentless criticisms about Kareem's basketball performance. Harris said Kareem grabbed him very hard and Joey's fearful expression was quite real.
• Executive Veto:
  • The studio wouldn't let the producers use a propeller plane as the airliner, so the producers gave the jet a propeller plane sound instead.
  • The producers also wanted to shoot the movie in black and white, like Zero Hour! (1957). The studio flat out told them that it would be a color film or a film by another studio.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: The first draft was written in 1974.
• Follow the Leader:
  • While not the first movie to be a feature-length parody (Hi, Mel Brooks!), its success practically birthed the entire "parody movie" genre, with films like Young Doctors in Love and, much later, Scary Movie borrowing heavily from this film's brand of Rapid-Fire Comedy and heavy reliance on contemporaneous pop culture.
  • The film itself was inspired by MAD's section about "scenes we'd like to see in movies".
• Friendship on the Set: A bunch of the actors became close with the ZAZ team over the years, especially Robert Hays, Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges; David Zucker gave the eulogy at Nielsen's funeral and Jim Abrahams did likewise for Bridges. Barbara Billingsley and Al White had a long friendship that began with the jive translation scene.
• Genre-Killer: Killed off the whole disaster movie genre for a decade or so by making audiences unable to take them seriously anymore. It also killed the aerial subgenre retroactively, as the airliner-in-peril/stewardess-lands-the-plane trope of the previous Airport series was destroyed, and all the drama with it.
• Harpo Does Something Funny:
  • As told on the DVD commentary, Stephen Stucker (who played Johnny) was given the straight lines of the characters around him and allowed to write his own lines.
  • Most of the jive talk between the two black passengers was improvised by Al White and Norman Alexander Gibbs, as the creators weren't sufficiently "conversant" in black street language.
• He Also Did: Crossing over into Hilarious in Hindsight territory, Craig Berenson, who played Paul Carey (the guy who's sent out to get Rex Kramer), went on to become a producer. His most successful film? Snakes on a Plane.
• Hey, It's That Place!: The From Here to Eternity skit was shot on the same beach where Taylor discovers the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes (1968).
• I Am Not Spock:
  • Peter Graves was dismayed to meet people who believed he was a pedophile.
  • In a 2008 interview on Today, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told the story of being on a European flight and asked to sit in an empty seat in the cockpit during takeoff so the crew could say they flew with Roger Murdock.
• Life Imitates Art: The cockpit voice recorder of Southwest Airlines Flight 1248 picked up one of the flight crew joking "I picked a bad day to stop sniffin' glue!" while waiting to approach Chicago-Midway Airport during a snowstorm. The plane ran off the end of the runway and into a city street, killing one person on the ground and injuring nine others.
• Money, Dear Boy: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's salary paid for an expensive rug he wished to purchase.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: When Dr. Rumack is removing eggs from the woman's mouth and cracks one open to release a bird, the bird nearly hits a passenger in the face as it flies off.
• No Stunt Double: Robert Stack, at age 61, did his own stunts during the fight scene in the airport ticket area.
• One-Take Wonder: The plane crashing through the terminal was so expensive to design and set up that, by necessity, they could only do one take (with multiple cameras set up). It was also the very last thing shot for the film.
• Playing Against Type: Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Peter Graves (all serious dramatic actors), doing comedy. In the case of Nielsen, this role redefined his career and would become his default shtick for the rest of his life. Bridges also briefly became a comedic actor (later being cast in ZAZ's Hot Shots! films) before his death in 1998. While Stack's most prominent work after this movie was becoming the host of Unsolved Mysteries, he also continued to dabble in comedy, including voicing a similar character in Beavis And Butthead Do America.
• Playing with Character Type:
  • It's surprising to think of it now, but Leslie Nielsen's role in the film was based entirely upon his established persona of studly, stoic heroes, but this time played for laughs rather than drama. The gambit was so successful that the term Leslie Nielsen Syndrome came into existence.
  • Barbara Billingsley, better known as all-American white 50s housewife June Cleaver was brought back from retirement to play the old lady that speaks Jive. (She was not the first choice — that was Harriet Nelson of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, who turned it down for fear of how risque the material was, a decision she would later admit to regretting. In retrospect, the choice of Billingsley has aged much better as Leave it to Beaver has stuck far more in the popular imagination than Ozzie and Harriet did.)
  • Lee Bryant's part included a spoof of her catchphrase in Yuban coffee commercials: "Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home."
  • The producers approached a few actors of the Airport movies to play spoofs of their original characters. They all turned down the offer due to pressures by Airport's studio, Universal, who (rightfully) expected this film would damage the franchise (though The Concorde...Airport '79 had done quite a bit of damage to it already).
• Real-Life Relative:
  • The newspaper boy who "Chews off own foot" was producer Howard W. Koch's grandson, who was asked for the picture without being told what it was going to be used for; he didn't find out until seeing the movie. Incidentally, according to the special effects guy, Koch, a long-time producer and president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was the designer of the shit that hit the fan.
  • Mrs Jaffe, the woman who introduces Elaine to Dr Rumack, is played by Jim Abrahams' real-life mother, Louise Abrahams Yaffe.
  • And the woman trying to apply makeup in the film is David and Jerry Zucker's mother, Charlotte.
• Romance on the Set: Jim Abrahams met his wife on the film. She’s the blonde extra walking by Robert Hayes at the airport.
• Saved from Development Hell: The script was first written in 1974. The Kentucky Fried Movie was made in-part to give ZAZ a film credit to help them sell the Airplane! script.
• Screwed by the Lawyers:
  • The producers of the Airport films constantly pestered Paramount over alleged infringement issues. One big fight was over the singing nun and the bedridden young girl awaiting a transplant, which were directly parodying a subplot in Airport 1975. Not only that, there was going to be Parody Assistance, since Helen Reddy, who'd played the nun in Airport 1975, had been lined up to play the nun here. Because of the legal pressure, Reddy backed out and Maureen McGovern took over, which at least retained a Casting Gag element since McGovern had done the theme songs for The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno (and played a singer in the latter). Eventually a compromise was worked out, but one stipulation was that the nun couldn't actually sing to the girl, which is why Randy sings "River of Jordan". Also, because of the compromise, Airplane! could only be used as the title in North America.
  • There was a skirmish with the studio legal department over adding "So there" at the end of the copyright disclaimer as a Credits Gag in the closing credits, but since the film was already in wide release at that point, nothing came of it.
  • The Directos Guild of America initially wouldn't let all of the ZAZ team share a director's credit, maintaining that Guild rules prohibited more than one credited director. To get around this, they worked up a hilarious backup plan centered around Loophole Abuse: Jerry Zucker (who was the one who stood by the camera, called for takes and worked with the actors, while David Zucker and Jim Abrahams focused more on the visual aspect) legally changed his name to Abrahams N. Zuckers, and they could now say that he was the film's sole director. It got far enough that "Abrahams N. Zuckers" was listed on the film's clapperboards as director. Eventually the DGA agreed to let all three share the credit (they won by a single vote in the board meeting), and Jerry was relieved to be able to revert back to his real name.
• So My Kids Can Watch:
  • Neither Barbara Billingsley (initially) nor Peter Graves were thrilled about appearing in this film, but were convinced by their friends and family.
  • Subverted with Lloyd Bridges, whose (adult) sons, Beau and Jeff, urged him to accept his part.
• Star-Making Role: For Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty.
• Surprisingly Lenient Censor:
  • In an interview on Later with Bob Costas, Robert Stack was amazed A) that ZAZ got away with the 'Shit hits the fan' joke and B) that it made him laugh a lot.
  • More amazing than that is a gratuitous closeup of a topless woman who jumps right in front of the camera during the "Does anyone know how to fly a plane?" mass panic sequence. In a PG-rated movie. One can only presume the censors were laughing too hard to catch that one.
• Trend Killer: This film was not only a Genre-Killer for the Disaster Movie — it also killed the aerial subgenre retroactively, as the airliner-in-peril/stewardess-lands-the-plane trope of the previous Airport series was destroyed, and all the drama with it.
• Throw It In!:
  • Stewardess Randy was supposed to tell the disembarking passengers things like "Watch your step!" and "Be careful!" as they stepped onto the emergency exit slide. However, in an early take, actress Lorna Patterson unexpectedly got all the passengers to crack up by offering each of them a cheery, "Thank you for flying TransAmerican! Have a nice day!" The script was changed accordingly.
  • Most of Stephen Stucker's lines were ad-libbed.
  • The Hysterical Woman was originally going to be slapped once by a male passenger, but actress Lee Bryant came up with the idea of being slapped several times by "people you wouldn't expect, like the doctor or the nun." The producers accepted her suggestion and expanded it to include the shot of approaching passengers with sequentially more severe weapons.
    • Leslie Nielsen went further off-script and slapped Bryant for real, not once but twice. Maureen McGovern, who played the nun, was terribly concerned with hurting Bryant and could only do her comically small slap next.
  • During the scene with the girl running to keep up with the plane as it taxis off with her boyfriend, the towers she keeps colliding with weren't supposed to fall over, but they went with it because it was funnier.
  • In the scene when the man turning on the air for his ill wife causes a gale to blow through the cabin, there's a shot of a bearded passenger. The fake beard was supposed to be blown off, but the glue unexpectedly held, so the actor started pulling faces in order to dislodge it.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In an extreme example, the Zuckers first had the idea of parodying any late night TV thriller, complete with fake commercials. They recorded a random late movie, and would parody whatever movie came on. It was pure chance that this movie was Zero Hour! (1957).
    • Proofreaders advised the crew to shorten the commercials and they were eventually removed completely. The idea of having a shorter Airplane! as the Fistful of Yen-style centerpiece of a Kentucky Fried Movie sequel was also kicked around.
  • The Zuckers wanted to use a propeller plane and film in black and white to be even closer to Zero Hour!, but the studio vetoed both.
  • Dr. Rumack was an ordeal to cast. Jack Lord, Dom De Luise, Jack Webb and Vincent Price all turned down the role, as did Christopher Lee, who later said he made a big mistake turning it down in favor of 1941 (1979). Had Lee taken the role, Leslie Nielsen (who was approached very late in the casting process after ZAZ remembered his melodramatic turn as the captain in The Poseidon Adventure) may well have remained a dramatic actor for the rest of his life.
  • David Letterman auditioned for the role of Ted. Jerry Zucker brought the audition tape on Late Night once as a prank. (As a side note, he also auditioned for the "Film @ 11:00" guy for The Kentucky Fried Movie.)
  • A Screen-to-Stage Adaptation, with "Weird Al" Yankovic (a huge fan of the movie) writing the songs, was planned, but quickly became Vaporware when he found out that nobody had approached the Zucker brothers for the rights and that they thought it was a terrible idea.
  • Bill Murray and Chevy Chase were suggested for Ted Striker by the studio but rejected by the producers due to their insistence on having a "serious" cast. Fred Willard and Robert Wuhl were also considered. The studio actually pushed for Barry Manilow, of all people, but ZAZ had zero interest (and a sympathetic Paramount development exec ran a Batman Gambit to discourage Manilow by calling him and emphasizing how inexperienced the directorial team was).
  • Shelley Long and Sigourney Weaver auditioned for Elaine Dickinson.
  • Johnny's line of suggesting "Mister Rogers" as "best man on this. Someone who knows that plane inside and out and won't crack under pressure," was actually dubbed in. Stephen Stucker actually originally suggested, "Mamie Eisenhower," who died during production.
  • The creators sought George Kennedy for the role of McCroskey, but he and Universal felt that appearing in the spoof would damage the Airport franchise in which he starred (which happened even without him). He'd later team up with ZAZ to act in The Naked Gun.
  • Joe Dante was originally offered the director's chair.
  • Ken Finkleman said in an interview that he was in talks for a third Airplane! film, but nothing ever came up of it again.
  • Bruce Jenner was offered the role of Roger but turned it down in favor of Can't Stop the Music.
  • Fellow '50s sitcom mom Harriet Nelson was the first choice for the Jive Lady, but she nervously turned it down because of how naughty the script was. When she later appeared on Angie, which co-starred Robert Hays, he confronted her about this and she admitted regretting not taking the part.
  • The line "You ever seen a grown man naked?" was originally "You ever seen a grown man's cock?", which directly played off the previous question "You ever been in a cockpit before?" but was replaced for being too risqué.
  • Pete Rose was the originally the sports star who was supposed to play the co-pilot (he was even written specifically into the screenplay), but filming coincided with baseball season, so Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took the role instead.
  • The original shooting script contains a deleted gag: A guy at LAX calling out to his friend, "Hi, Jack!", whereupon he is promptly dog-piled by police officers.
• Working Title: The Late Show, back when it was intended to be a spoof of late night TV, then later on Kentucky Fried Airplane.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Contrary to what you might think, it was a very tightly scripted film, but a few things were added during production. Johnny unplugging the runway lights came about when the stock footage of runways used for the climax unexpectedly included a shot of the lights suddenly going out.
• Written by Cast Member:
  • ZAZ attempted to script out the Jive scenes themselves, but fully acknowledged that they had no idea what they were doing. After they were cast, Norman Alexander Gibbs and Al White rewrote the dialogue after pointing out to ZAZ that Jive isn't an entire form of speech but rather slang words and phrases that get peppered to regular language. After getting the gist of what ZAZ wanted them to say, the two actors researched the history of Black language, compiled Jive words and phrases, and essentially created a new English dialect from scratch for the film.
  • As mentioned above, Stephen Stucker concocted all of Johnny's lines. He'd been part of ZAZ's Kentucky Fried Theater troupe, where he was a scene-stealer with his oddball comedic sensibility and improv skills, so they knew that anything Stucker came up with would be better than anything they could possibly write for the character.

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