Moving Pictures: Surely You Can’t Be Serious — Airplane! Is 45 Years Old

Everyone has that one comfort movie that they can watch over and over again; for me, that film is Airplane!. Since I was but a wee child, my mother and I would drop everything when we saw that it was on television. And upon learning that the 2nd of July marks 45 years since the film debuted in cinemas, I wanted to take a moment to reminisce about this comedic masterpiece.

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, Airplane! is a comedy-disaster movie that follows a former fighter pilot, Ted Striker, who struggles not only with a fear of flying, but a drinking problem. Wait, no, not that sort of drinking problem. No, every time Ted tries to take a drink, it completely misses his mouth and just drenches his entire face. Is it a stupid joke? Yes. Is it still funny every time, though? Also yes.

Now, Ted’s girlfriend, Elaine, a flight attendant, has just broken up with him, and as she is boarding her flight, Ted also gets onto the flight. Anything to get his wartime girlfriend to come back to him. Naturally, everything goes horribly wrong; the pilot and co-pilot are struck by food poisoning from the fish served on the flight, so Ted and Elaine have to save the day. All while a bunch of other passengers who’ve had fish are also suffering.

Admittedly, it’s a relief for those who’ve had to sit next to Ted on the flight. He’s had several fellow passengers, but each time he’s talked about his relationship with Elaine and the war… well, they were bored to death. Quite literally. While Ted doesn’t want to fly the plane, he doesn’t have much of a choice. After all, the only other option is the autopilot — an inflatable dummy pilot named Otto, that shouldn’t be as hilarious as it is — and so he will need to work together with alongside the airport’s tower to safely land the plane. After all, Otto can fly, but he can’t land, silly.

Everything ends happily, and every character has some sort of memorable line. Everything that takes place is unexpected, and while it’s such a ridiculously goofy film, it’s one that I can’t really go into too much depth about. After all, who wants to just read a bunch of quotes and references? So, let’s talk about how Airplane! stood out when compared to other comedies at the time.

When I was looking up more about the making of the film, I found out that the Zucker Brothers and David Abrahams wanted to cast more serious actors instead of only comedians. In fact, this was Leslie Nielsen’s first foray into actual comedy, and his deadpan humour as a doctor on the plane is brilliant. He plays everything completely straight, and as you can tell, I absolutely love the “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley” line that has made iconic quotes lists over the past few decades.

The role of Ted Striker went to Robert Hays, who, at the time, had only appeared on television and was a co-star on the sitcom, Angie. While the role was initially written for David Letterman, he ultimately opted not to take the role. Other cast members include the likes of Peter Graves, whom, if anyone had also been raised on the Mission: Impossible TV series, will also recognise. In some cases, they hadn’t even cast actors. In fact, for the curb-side terminal announcements, they actually brought in the actual couple who filmed the announcements at Los Angeles International Airport.

Hell, they brought in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the plane’s co-pilot, Roger Murdock, and upon a child noticing his resemblance, it’s revealed that Roger Murdock is actually Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It’s one of my favourite parts of the film, outside of all of it, because they weren’t above breaking the fourth wall in such a way. Outside of that, a lot of the film consisted of mostly visual gags and dark jokes, which some of them flew over my head when I was younger, but as an adult? Oh man, it’s even funnier.

But above all, even the relationship between Elaine and Ted is one that’s compelling. They had only just recently broken up, mostly because of Ted’s drinking problem and his inability to let go of the past. Their relationship isn’t actually that ridiculous, and it’s hard not to root for either of them, as it’s clear that there are still feelings there. In fact, Elaine was more surprised than anything that Ted still went on the plane to fight for her to come back.

Even to this day, I still think that Airplane! holds up as a great comedy. And while my mother is a fan of the sequel as well, I think that having them go to space may have just been a little bit too ridiculous — People were going to the moon for holidays, guys. It… it was a weird time.

But if you haven’t watched Airplane! I think 45 years later it’s still good, so what are you doing? Go watch it, I promise it’s worth it.