RIP Leslie Nielsen. As I heard about the passing of the beloved comic actor, I found myself thinking about Airplane. It was Nielsen’s first comedic role and what made that movie so special. When Airplane came out, it was like nothing people had seen before (well, mostly), it wasn’t clever or visually interesting. It was a bunch of dumb jokes barely hanging on a plot that was stolen from an earlier movie and pulling it bits from otherrecentmovies. But, it caught on and became much more popular and influential then anyone expected.

Surely, this little stupid movie can’t be that influential?
Yes it is and stop calling me Shirley, so I can tell you why.

ZAZ (Zucker, Abrahms, Zucker) were a group of improv comics who had put together a movie previously that was named after their group. Kentucky Fried Movie was put together out of sketches the group had previously written and performed and was directed by John Landis. It did reasonably well (considering the low budget it was made with), but the group wasn’t happy with the finished result. While recording commercials in the middle of the night, the accidentally caught the 50s thriller Zero Hour and fell in love with it. It was decided that this would be their next movie. And the trio also decided that they had to direct it themselves.

The trio took the basic plot (food poisoning takes out the flight deck and half the passengers) and used that as the plot skeleton to hang jokes off of. They hired a bunch of dramatic actors (Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Peter Graves) to handle most of the plot and had their two main characters (Robert Hays and Julie Haggerty) to handle the comedic bits of the plot. Then they threw every wild character in there to give the laughs around the basic plot. Everyone from Barbara Billingsley (Leave it to Beaver) as a jive talking grandma to Kareem Abdul Jabbar moonlighting as a co-pilot to Stephen Stucker as the air traffic controller.

What made Airplane so special is that it hearkened back to the days where a movie comedy was about the jokes. The movie wasn’t clever or witty, it was full of dumb jokes (the kind you hear around a school playground) and just kept throwing them at you. If you didn’t laugh at the last joke, there are 3 more coming up quickly that might catch you. The audience wasn’t expected to think, but if you did, you could see them poking fun at everyone and everything. It started a spoof revolution that continues to this day. Although most of the newer movies, seem to miss the basic point.

Why did Airplane work and why don’t a lot of the current spoof movies work? There are several reasons, but the two big ones are shock and setup. When Airplane came out, there wasn’t anything like it in the market. It shocked people into laughing because it was so different then anything else. When there are 2-3 movies just like Airplane coming out each year, it’s not as fresh and not as shockingly funny. And the second reason is the setup. Airplane‘s plot was held up by a core of dramatic actors who were playing their roles perfectly straight. Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves and Robert Stack never let on that they were in a comedy. And that was part of what made it so funny. The humorous lines being delivered in such a deadpan manner when it was clear that the character was taking everything seriously was part of what made it even funnier. A lot of more recent spoofs skimp out on the dramatic parts. They have the plot lifted by comedic actors doing funny things and that just doesn’t work as well.

Farewell Leslie Nielsen. The straight man who became a comedic legend.