Airplane! (1980)

This week, the Dads kick off their new 2 Dads 2 Decades series with 1980's Airplane!, and Steve arrives with the ultimate childhood credential: he first watched this movie at two years old on laserdisc. His parents reconsidered their parenting choices when three-year-old Steve looked up at them and said, "What a pisser." Nic's introduction came via TV broadcast around age eight, and both Dads credit this Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker classic with shaping their sense of humor. Steve went deep on the research, watching the 1957 disaster film Zero Hour! that Airplane! spoofs nearly shot-for-shot, and spends much of the episode pointing out how many "serious" lines are lifted verbatim from that film, including "I picked a bad week to quit smoking."

The Dads marvel at the stunt casting that put four dramatic actors into their first-ever comedic roles: Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges (whose sons Jeff and Beau talked him into it), and Peter Graves. They dig into the gags that still land perfectly, from the white zone/red zone airport announcement bickering (performed by the actual married couple who did LAX announcements) to the Mayo Clinic doctor with mayonnaise jars behind him and a beating heart bouncing around his desk. The smoking ticket bit, the drinking problem visual gag, the line of passengers waiting to slap the hysterical woman with increasingly dangerous weapons, "We have clearance, Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?"—all rock solid forty-five years later. They also appreciate the details, like how the actress being slapped suggested making that line of attackers longer, which turned a good joke into an iconic one.

But the Dads also wrestle with what hasn't aged well, from Captain Oveur's deeply uncomfortable cockpit conversation with young Joey to the Peace Corps basketball sequence that lands with a thud in 2026. Steve frames it this way: 1934's It Happened One Night is as far from Airplane! as Airplane! is from today, which helps explain why some jokes feel like artifacts from another era. Still, this is a movie where the sum of its parts outweighs the whole, a gag-a-second comedy that launched Leslie Nielsen's second act and taught a generation that deadpan delivery of absurd lines is an art form.