Airplane!
Overview
Airplane! is a 1980 American satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 directed and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams
Jim Abrahams
Jim Abrahams is an American movie director and writer.Abrahams was born in Shorewood, Wisconsin, to a Jewish family, and attended Shorewood High School...

, and Jerry Zucker
Jerry Zucker (film director)
Jerry Zucker is an American movie director known for his role in directing comedy spoof films, and the hit film Ghost....

 and released by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

. It stars Robert Hays
Robert Hays
Robert Hays is an American actor and is arguably most well known for his role in the movie Airplane!-Life and career:...

 and Julie Hagerty
Julie Hagerty
Julie Hagerty is an American actress and former model.-Early life:Hagerty was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Harriet Yuellig, a model and singer, and Jerry Hagerty, a musician. Her brother Michael Hagerty was also an actor. Her parents later divorced. Hagerty attended Indian Hill High...

 and features Leslie Nielsen
Leslie Nielsen
Leslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters...

, Robert Stack
Robert Stack
Robert Stack was an American actor. In addition to acting in more than 40 films, he was the star of the 1959-1963 ABC television series The Untouchables and later served as the host of Unsolved Mysteries.-Early life:...

, Lloyd Bridges
Lloyd Bridges
Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr. was an American actor who starred in a number of television series and appeared in more than 150 feature films. Bridges is best known for his role of Mike Nelson in Sea Hunt, the most-popular syndicated American TV series in 1958...

, Peter Graves
Peter Graves (actor)
Peter Aurness , known professionally as Peter Graves, was an American film and television actor. He was best known for his starring role in the CBS television series Mission: Impossible from 1967 to 1973...

, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a retired American professional basketball player. He is the NBA's all-time leading scorer, with 38,387 points. During his career with the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers from 1969 to 1989, Abdul-Jabbar won six NBA championships and a record six regular season...

, and Lorna Patterson
Lorna Patterson
Lorna Patterson is an American film, stage and television actress.Patterson was born in Whittier, California, where she attended Rio Hondo College for a single semester. She is a founding member of the Musical Theatre Guild and has appeared in many stage musicals...

. The film is a spoof
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of the disaster film
Disaster film
A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject...

 genre, and a close parody of the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour!
Zero Hour!
Zero Hour! is a 1957 movie whose screenplay was written by Arthur Hailey, starring Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, and Sterling Hayden, and released by Paramount Pictures. Zero Hour! was an adaptation of Hailey's 1956 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation play Flight into Danger...

. The film is well-noted for its use of absurdist
Absurdist fiction
Absurdist fiction is a genre of literature, most often employed in novels, plays or poems, that focuses on the experiences of characters in a situation where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events...

 and fast-paced slapstick comedy, including a lot of visual and verbal puns and gags, as well as surrealist comedy.

Airplane! was a financial success, grossing over US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

83 million in North America alone, against a budget of just $3.5 million.
Quotations

Elaine: Ladies and gentleman, this is your stewardess speaking. We regret any inconvenience the sudden cabin movement might have caused. This is due to periodic air pockets we encountered. There's no reason to be alarmed and we hope you enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?

Kramer: All right, Striker, you listen, and listen close. Flying a plane is no different from riding a bicycle; it's just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes.

Talk Show Guest: They bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash!

What's slower than a speeding bullet, and able to hit tall buildings at a single bound?

Thank God it's Only a Motion Picture!

The craziest flight you'll ever take!

The Plane's going to Chicago. The Pilot's going to New York. The Passengers are going to Pieces!

 
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