I watched “Airplane!” an embarrassing number of times as a teenager. I had seen it so many times that I convinced myself it was one of my favorite movies that I would never put on any “Best Of” list ever and that I would be sick of it were I to watch it again.
It’s been several years and I finally watched it again. I can say that it is notoriously stupid and goofy but oh so hilarious. If there was ever a movie you would feel sillier, more childish and immature for loving after watching it, it would be this one.
It is so completely goofy and random and gets a way with murder. There isn’t a moment of “Airplane!” that can be taken seriously. Sight gag after sight gag goes by unchallenged, the movie finds ways to be racist and sexist in more ways than one, it liberally parodies iconic films without any reason for doing so, it is crude, sexual, violent and offensive to an extreme, and its now famous dialogue is not so much clever as it is convenient set ups based on literal translations of common movie cliches and expressions.
In that way, the film shares less in common with the random, ridiculous comedies of its day like Monty Python or Mel Brooks films, but more in common with the movies that all use BIG RED TEXT in their titles today, “films” like “Scary Movie,” “Epic Movie,” “Superhero Movie” or “Meet the Spartans.”
They are endless parodies of timely items with no reason for being, and until Leslie Nielsen died, some of the films shared in their casts and crews. We’d like to think that “Airplane!” and its zaniness is timeless, but movies like “Saturday Night Fever” and “From Here to Eternity,” both of which “Airplane!” devotes ridiculous segments to, are not what they used to be. Even some of the airport/airplane annoyances of the ’70s are less prevalent, or replaced with new annoyances, today.
But the difference between “Airplane!” and those repulsive, awful, insultingly unintelligent movies I compared it to is an element of surprise. No matter how silly “Airplane!” gets even from its initial scenes with the “Red Zone, White Zone shit again,” it never loses its integrity as a parody of a very strict and serious disaster movie like “Airport.” Those other films escalate in ways that are beyond any rules or even words. They just happen.
They also feel predictable, where “Airplane!” never is. Oh, we know things are about to go bonkers, but no one could’ve told you that Clarence Overr would ask Jimmy if he’d ever been to a Turkish prison. No one could’ve guessed that a pair of boobs would run across the screen as the plane begins to plummet. No one would imagine that the air traffic controller would stand at his desk smoking a cigarette with an identical photograph beside him, or that his commanding officer would remove a pair of sunglasses only to reveal a smaller pair of sunglasses.
I think there is a nuance and craft to stretching every line to its full comedic potential. It’s why when Lloyd Bridges’ character asks, “What do you make of this,” that making a hat, a brioche and pterodactyl gets such a laugh. This is childish, stupid humor to the Nth degree, but it still doesn’t parade fart jokes or raunchy monologues the way some of today’s modern comedies do.
People complain that they don’t make movie comedies like they used to, and they’re right. What’s the most memorable line you know from “The Hangover?” But they make movies like “Airplane!” all the time. They’re just complete garbage in comparison.