FIRST TIME WATCHING: Airplane! (1980) REACTION (Movie Commentary)

"Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home" was a familiar commercial at the time.

Leslie Nielsen used to do his "I just wanted to tell you good luck... We're all counting on you..." every time he flew somewhere.. He'd stick his head in the cockpit and deliver his line to actual airline pilots.

The way that lady in line is holding the gun to take care of panicked passenger is just plain Oscar-worthy.

The couple arguing about the white and red zones were a real couple, and they did the actual announcements at LA Airport. The two black guys wrote their own lines, and also Barbara Bilingsley's lines.

The lady that could speak jive was Barbara Billingsly. She played the mother on the TV show Leave it to Beaver, in the 1950s

"Oh stewardess... I speak jive." 😂😂 kills me every time Also the nun singing RESPECT was something else 😭

The Kareem Abdul-Jabar role is a joke on the fact that the movie this one is primarily spoofing, Zero Hour, had a football player who was trying to transition to acting playing the co-pilot.

"We have clearance, Clarence." "Roger, Roger." "What´s our Vector Victor?" Love that little part.

My favorite moments are the small throwaway lines that often get lost. The soldier throwing his girlfriend his watch ("That's okay; it doesn't work."), Elaine confessing "no" she's not strong enough to hear bad news and the pilot being asked if he wanted him (the copilot) to check the weather and the pilot answering "No, why don't you do that.". They're these teeny little throwaways that never fail to crack me up.

The two actors speaking jive didn't really have a script, having made up their lines on the spot.

The airplane knocking down the radio station tower at the end announcing that "Disco lives forever!".... By 1980 everyone was totally fed up with Disco music.

Shirley you can’t be serious I am serious and don’t call me Shirley😂😂😂😂

9:37 that was a spoof of a popular TV Coffee commercial in the late 70's. That woman was the same actress from those commercials.

16:15 - To clarify, the black actors created the Jive language which won them the audition for their parts. It's literally gibberish so it's not meant to be understood. The white actress (Barbara Billingsley) was specifically chosen to make a cameo as the lady who talks to them as she was a popular actress in the show, Leave it to Beaver (1957), which was about the stereotypical Caucasian American family. The idea was to add extra humor by having the whitest lady speak a funky language with no one seeing it coming. Billingsley admitted she was apprehensive doing the cameo but felt at ease when the black actors taught her the language and she had a blast shooting the scene. 16:50 - The joke is the wife is cheating on her husband with someone who is....well hung. 22:05 - Yes you're correct, the Scary Movie franchise is a descendent of Airplane. Unfortunately the genre has since become less-than-watchable (Scary Movie 5 - Really?) The golden years of this genre was between 1980 to about the mid-1990's. The last great parody flicks were Robin Hood: Men In Tights (1993), National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), Hot Shots 1 & 2, and The Naked Gun trilogy.

You have to watch "The Naked Gun"-trilogy with Leslie Nielsen !

Until this movie Leslie Nielson, Peter Graves,and Robert Stack hadn't done any comedy.

1980 was the perfect time for this movie to come out. The Disaster Film Genre had hit its peak, and once it picked up again, it dealt more with bigger things, like alien invasions, global warming, and natural disasters. Spoofs had begun to pick up steam, thanks to Mel Brooks. Nowadays, spoofs have been ruined beyond repair thanks to Meet the Spartans, Date Movie, and other disasters like those. However, Airplane! is so perfectly acted and written that the movie has outlived most of the movies they were mocking, and you can enjoy this without watching The Towering Inferno, Saturday Night Fever, From Here to Eternity, Airport, and many others.

The "chief" at Air Traffic Control is the legendary Lloyd Bridges, might know him as the father of Jeff and Beau Bridges. Lot of legendary actors in this film, Robert Stack, Nielsen, etc

It's an entirely different kind of comedy. Altogether.

A few facts.. 1) The lady putting on her make up during the turbulence was the mother of the Zucher Brothers. 2) Barbara Billinsly was known as the mother in Leave it to Mother, she spoke Jive to the two men who spoke it. They actually taught her and she really respected them for helping her out. 3) This was Leslie Neilson (the doctor) in his first comedic role, before that he was known as a very serious actor. 4