History Trivia / Airplane

** Most of the jive talk between the two black passengers was improvised by the actors, Al White and Norman Alexander Gibbs, as the white, 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 Neilsen, 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".[[/note]]

* CreatorBacklash: [[Music/PeterPaulAndMary 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 UsefulNotes/TedKennedy had once told him that it was his favorite song, and he was afraid that Kennedy would somehow be mad at him over it.

* OldShame: When interviewed for the DVDCommentary, 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 [[SoMyKidsCanWatch 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.

* CelebrityVoiceActor: 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 [[SameLanguageDub voice]] of Wrestilng/ElSanto in his own films.

* PlayingAgainstType: Creator/LeslieNielsen, Creator/LloydBridges, Creator/RobertStack and Creator/PeterGraves (all serious dramatic actors), doing comedy. In the case of Nielsen, this role [[LeslieNielsenSyndrome redefined his career]] and would become his default shtick for the rest of his life. Bridges also briefly became a comedic actor before his death in 1998. While Stack's most prominent work after this movie was becoming the host of ''Series/UnsolvedMysteries'', he also continued to dabble in comedy, including voicing a similar character in ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtheadDoAmerica''.

** Barbara Billingsley, better known as all-American white 50s housewife [[Series/LeaveItToBeaver 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.)

* ApprovalOfGod: Arthur Hailey, who wrote the original Creator/{{CBC}} TV drama film ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_into_Danger Flight into Danger]]'' (1956), later adapted into ''[[Film/ZeroHour1957 Zero Hour!]]'' (1957), was a credited co-writer on ''Zero Hour!'' itself. He also wrote the novel that launched the ''Film/{{Airport}}'' [[DisasterMovie disaster film]] franchise, [[note]]With ZAZ borrowing the PA announcers' argument about abortion from it[[/note]] and later admitted that he "laughed like everyone else" at ''Airplane!''.

** Dr. Rumack was an ordeal to cast. Creator/JackLord, Creator/DomDeLuise, Creator/JackWebb and Creator/VincentPrice all turned down the role, as did Creator/ChristopherLee, who later said he made a big mistake turning it down in favour of ''Film/NineteenFortyOne1979''. 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 ''Film/ThePoseidonAdventure'') may well have remained a dramatic actor for the rest of his life.

** [[Creator/CaitlynJenner Bruce Jenner]] was offered the role of Roger but turned it down in favour of ''Film/CantStopTheMusic''.

** The film itself was inspired by ''{{Magazine/MAD}}'''s section about "scenes we'd like to see on movies".

* DeletedRole: The opening scenes originally included an filmed "Polish joke" about Air Poland having blind pilots, with the flight crew being Music/StevieWonder, Music/RayCharles and Music/JoseFeliciano (plus a seeing-eye dog). The first two were lookalikes, but Feliciano appeared AsHimself. After deciding the joke was too tasteless, the bit was cut, leaving Feliciano out of the film.[[note]]The real Music/RayCharles would later appear in a similar gag in ''Film/SpyHard''.[[/note]]

* ApprovalOfGod: Arthur Hailey, who wrote the original Creator/{{CBC}} live TV drama that was adapted into ''[[Film/ZeroHour1957 Zero Hour!]]'', was a credited co-writer on ''Zero Hour!'' itself, and wrote the novel that launched the ''Film/{{Airport}}'' franchise[[note]]With ZAZ borrowing the PA announcers' argument about abortion from it[[/note]] later admitted that he "laughed like everyone else" at ''Airplane!''.

* DeletedRole: The opening scenes originally included an filmed "Polish joke" about Air Poland having blind pilots, with the flight crew being Music/StevieWonder, Music/RayCharles and Music/JoseFeliciano. The first two were lookalikes, but Feliciano appeared AsHimself. After deciding the joke was too tasteless, the bit was cut, leaving Feliciano out of the film.[[note]]The real Music/RayCharles would later appear in a similar gag in ''Film/SpyHard''.[[/note]]

* CreatorBacklash: 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.

** The filmmakers originally wanted Pete Rose to play Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's part, but filming coincided with baseball season.

* ScrewedByTheLawyers: Apparently there was a skirmish with the studio legal department over adding "So there" at the end of the copyright disclaimer as a CreditsGag in the closing credits, though it ultimately stayed.

* WorkingTitle: ''The Late Show'', back when it was intended to be a spoof of late night TV, then ''Kentucky Fried Airplane''.

* WorkingTitle: ''The Late Show'', back when it was intended to be a spoof of late night TV.

* SavedFromDevelopmentHell: The script was first written in 1974.

* WrittenByCastMember: 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.

** Creator/ChristopherLee was offered the role of Dr. Rumack, and later said he made a big mistake turning it down in favour of ''Film/NineteenFortyOne1979''. Had he taken the role, Leslie Nielsen may well have remained a dramatic actor for the rest of his life. Creator/JackLord, Creator/DomDeLuise and Creator/JackWebb were also offered the role.

** Creator/BillMurray and Creator/ChevyChase were suggested for Ted Striker by the studio but rejected by the producers due to their insistence on having a "serious" cast. Music/BarryManilow, Creator/FredWillard and Creator/RobertWuhl were also considered.

* 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.

* TropeNamer: This work named the following tropes:
** LeslieNielsenSyndrome: This was the film that launched Nielsen's comedy career. Interestingly, this was to be intentional. The filmmakers deliberately cast serious actors instead of comedians, and thus most of the humor was delivered completely deadpan...and it works!

** 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.