Airplane! (1980)

It's been a while since the spoofs of Zucker, Abrams and Zucker graced us with something awesome. Most people will undoubtedly be familiar with the 'Naked Gun'-trilogy and rightly so. It is what Leslie Nielsen is probably most famous for. But his first turn at comedy stems from this little gem from 1980.

'Airplane!' is more than at a passing glance, a spoof/parody of disasterfilms concerning airplanes.

You would never have guessed, would you?

You see, during the Seventies, disasterfilms were all the rage. There were those about boats, skyscrapers, earthquakes, planes and so forth. Now there are very enjoyable ones out there, but after a while, it does tend to get rather silly that most films deal with the same subject matter, which also means that the genre is ready to be made fun of, hopefully in a hilarious way. This is what 'Airplane!' does so wonderfully.

The story is as follows: former pilot Ted Stryker is afraid of flying due to trauma suffered in an air raid he botched. His girlfriend Elaine is a stewardess. She is planning on leaving him and he still loves her, so he goes onto the same flight to try and win her back. That is when the proverbial excrement hits the proverbial air dispenser and Ted will have to face his fears and win the girl back.

It's surprising the amount of stuff this film throws at you. Not only are many of the items and happenstances from this film at least partially recognizable, but how they make fun of it all in such a great fashion is truly a mystery. This literally is one gag after another and even better: there are scant few that don't land. Maybe this is because this type of comedy is right up my alley, but this is one of those films where I can't stop laughing from start to finish. You have fun visual gags, wordplay, puns, wacky shenanigans and actors who are so wonderful at keeping a straight face during all the madness, it's a joy to watch. That is probably why it all works so well, because everyone is doing their very best to make sure that all this silliness comes across as something serious. We all know that's most of the fun in any comedy.

This is also the first time Leslie Nielsen went for comedy and he didn't look back after this. Quite the change for someone who was always known for leading hero-type characters. But his doctor Rumack is so gorgeously woodenfaced, you can see where he went for Frank Drebin in 'The Naked Gun'.

I could name a few excellent jokes and gags, but I don't want to spoil it. I'll just say this is a must watch. Comedy is a tricky genre and not every type of comedy works for everyone, but if this doesn't at least get one smirk out of you, you're probably dead.

Oh, and this film has the most random shot of naked boobs ever.