Five Facts About Airplane
The 1980 picture is filled to the brim with witty humour and hilarious gags that anybody would struggle to keep a straight face at. Here are 5 facts you may not know about this cult comedy classic...
Top 5 Facts About Airplane
“I am serious - and don’t call me Shirley!” It’s fair to say that Airplane is one of the best comedy movies ever made.
The 1980 picture is filled to the brim with witty humour and hilarious gags that anybody would struggle to keep a straight face at.
Here are 5 facts you may not know about this cult comedy classic...
Hidden remake
Airplane! directors Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker put together the plot of the movie after watching the 1957 flick Zero Hour!.
The trio used to watch TV commercials together to brainstorm ideas for their 1977 film The Kentucky Fried Movie, and stumbled across Zero Hour!.
After watching it through, the group found that the basic plot –
which saw a retired pilot forced to land a plane after everyone on board had fallen ill from poisoning - could make for a fun spoof picture.
A-lister auditions
During the casting process, many of Hollywood’s finest were considered to star in the movie.
Paramount Studios were keen to see Dom DeLuise take on the part of Doctor Rumack (Leslie Nielsen) while Bill Murray,
Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner and David Letterman were in the running for Ted Striker before Robert Hays landed the part.
As for Elaine, Alien star Sigourney Weaver had auditioned for the role, but struggled to say the line “sit on your face and wriggle”, and so lost out on the part to Julie Hagerty.
Real pilot
Ted Striker - the former Air Force pilot turned jetliner hero - turned out to be a expert aviator in real life!
Robert Hays, who played the character, landed his pilot’s license after learning to fly in the 1970’s, which impressed his World War II fighter pilot father.
He recalled: “I got my license and wanted to surprise my dad ... it was something I always wanted to do.”
Fart prank madness
Leslie Nielsen was quite the prankster on Airplane!.
The actor caused mayhem after he started selling small fart machines to his co-stars, which caused the set to briefly be swamped by an onslaught of guffs.
Even after filming wrapped, Leslie carried around a fart machine to interviews wanting to catch the hosts off-guard.
