Transcript

Intro Clip

Can I get you something? Some old folk butter Laying me to the bone Jacking me up, tighten me I'm sorry, I don't understand.

Nic

Cutty say he can't hang.

Intro Clip

Oh, stewardess, I speak jive. Oh, good. He said that he's in great pain and he wants to know if you can help him. All right, would you tell him to just relax and I'll be back as soon as I can with some medicine. Just hang loose. Blood sugar to catch up on the rebound on the mid side what it is, big mama? My mama raised no dummies I duck a rap Cut me some slack, jack. Chump the one to help chump don't.

Nic

Get the help Jive ass dude don't.

Intro Clip

Got no brains anyhow

Steve

it's two Dads one Movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the 80s and 90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are kicking off our march through the decades of the 80s and 90s that we're calling 2 Dads 2 Decades with a 1980 film, the comedy Airplane. And you know, super excited, Nic, to talk to you about Airplane. This was my pick. So just real briefly, I actually have a great little anecdote about when I first saw this movie.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

I saw this movie when I was 2 years old, not joking. My parents had it on laserdisc. We had a laser. I confirmed this with my mother this week. We had a laserdisc player in the house before we ever had a vcr. My parents did not get a VCR until they wanted to start recording, like sports games off of tv. That's when they first got a vcr. So we had laserdiscs. We had all the original Star wars releases on laserdisc. You know, we had a bunch of movies and this was one of them. And for whatever reason, you know, my parents would, would watch it with me. I would just, I would sit there literally, like at 2 years old, maybe 3, like, maybe right after my third birthday, but like a little, little kid watching this movie with my parents. Hey, it's rated pg, right? What could go wrong? Right?

Nic

Right. We're guiding you.

Steve

Yeah. Also, they decided to maybe be a little more careful about what I watch when at 3 years old, I looked up at them and said, what a pisser. They were like, oh, hey, maybe, maybe we should rethink the whole toddler Watching. Watching Zucker, Abraham Zucker movies.

Nic

I love that. Airplane was your Bluey. That's really funny.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Steel up, Steve. Down in front of Airplane.

Steve

That'll come Raised by Ted Stryker. Yeah. So, Nic, what's your history with Airplane?

Nic

I think I did see this young. This was one that my dad would have been excited for me to see. So I think it was, you know, broadcast on TV at some point when I was, I don't know, eight years old or something like that. So, yeah, I remember seeing it a bunch. I love this style. I love the Police Squad, the Naked Gun, all that stuff. Anything I could get my hands on. And. And I've seen this one a bunch. So, yeah, this is one that's kind of always been there for me.

Steve

Nice listener. Before we get into just the facts, I want to mention that I believe if you're listening to this on release day, that yesterday Nic and I took a little field trip over to a another podcast and we were on the Cinema9 podcast with our friends Michael, Eric and Travis, and we talked about the movie Executive Decision. So if you haven't heard that, please go check it out. I'll see if I can put a link to it in the description of the podcast episode and your podcast player. Not sure if that actually works. Right. But I'll try. But yeah, go Check out Cinema 9 and their episode on Executive Decision because we're on it and you obviously like listening to us.

Nic

Absolutely. And it's a lot of fun and their podcast is great. So you should also check out their podcast 100%.

Steve

All right, now let's jump into the facts on Airplane. The movie Airplane was released on June 27, 1980 with a rating. With a PG rating. This, of course, this was before the PG13 existed. Clearly would have been a PG13.

Nic

Sure.

Steve

Yeah. If it hadn't. If it existed at the time. Running time of a super crisp 88 minutes. Directed and written by the Kentucky Fried Theater, the partnership of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jim Jerry Zucker, starring Robert Hayes, Julie Haggerty and Leslie Nielsen, scores the highest Rotten Tomatoes score we've ever seen on 2Dads. One movie. 97% fresh.

Nic

Crazy.

Steve

Really crazy. It actually is 1% higher than the previous record, which was held collectively by both this is Spinal Tap and the fugitive. Those are both 96s. So the highest we've ever seen. IMDb, not quite as astronomical a score of 7.7, but we did get two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert on this movie.

Nic

Our dads finally agree exactly Awards, A.

Steve

Couple of really high end nominations, but not wins. It was nominated at the 1981 Golden Globes for best comedy or Musical. Did not win. It was nominated at the 1981 BAFTA Awards, which again is sort of the British Oscars for best Screenplay. Did not win there. However, it did win at the 1981 WGA Awards, I.e. the Writers Guild of America Best adapted comedy Screenplay. And we'll get to that in a minute. It was also added to the national film registry in 2010 on a budget of three and a half million dollars, which given some of the effects and the sort of disaster nature is actually pretty impressive at the time. It pulled in an absolutely wild number for the time. 83 and a half million dollars. That is 23.9 times what it cost to make, which is unfortunately for Airplane. We've already looked, we've already seen A Nightmare on Elm street. So that is the second highest multiple. Elm street was around 30x. So very similar kind of blow it away kind of thing.

Nic

Still a good day's work.

Steve

Absolutely. It also, you know, created the careers basically of the ZAZ kind of comedy troupe. So they gave us so many more great movies after this. Couple other bits, little extra facts on Airplane. This is essentially a shot for shot. Maybe that's a little much. It is a remake spoof, not just of like disaster movies in general, but specifically of the 1957 film Zero Hour. So much so that on IMDb the screenwriters of Zero Hour are listed as uncredited writers on this film.

Nic

Wow.

Steve

I had the pleasure of watching Zero Hour yesterday. After watching Airplane and taking my notes on it, I went ahead and watched Zero Hour. It's really interesting. The main character's name is Ted Stryker. He is a, you know, he flew in, quote, the war, but in this was in 57, so the war was World War II and not Vietnam obviously, but all very similar stuff. And so many of the lines in Airplane that aren't jokes, that are just serious exposition are pulled directly from Zero Hour. Like the same thing. Oh, that's cool. Even the, like, I picked a bad week to quit smoking. There's no additional versions of that joke in Zero Hour. But the character that is the sort of more of the Robert Stack character says that in Zero Hour. So they really pulled deliberate stuff. In fact, Zero Hour, the title even ends with an exclamation point like Airplane, which is interesting. Funny little detail. The movie earned back its production budget in the first two days that it was released in cinemas. It earned over three and a half million dollars. In two days. And then this I love. I think everybody kind of really understands, really knows that this was like the first comedic role for Leslie Nielsen. I think that's like a pretty well known fact. He was a serious actor before this. He'd never done a comedy squad before this. No, that's the thing that wasn't. That was after. So the police, like, Police squad was like 8182. So this was like. Because this was the first time he worked at ZAZ as well. So, yeah, very first comedic role for Leslie Nielsen. But did you also know very first comedic roles for Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves? So that's, you know, four major dramatic actors of the era and the. And the decades before. You know, Robert Stack, I know him best from Unsolved Mysteries.

Nic

Right?

Steve

I mean, you know.

Nic

Yeah, absolutely.

Steve

But great comedic stuff. And I love this little note on that Lloyd Bridges Sons actors Jeff and Beau Bridges had to talk him into taking the role. I love the idea of Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges being like, dad, this will be so cool. You know, I mean, I say it like that, but they were like 40 or something, you know, they weren't like kids, you know, like. But yeah, those are the facts on Airplane. All right, so we can go ahead and get started. And this movie starts off and I love it. It's an immediate. If you ever want to know the kind of movie you're watching, I feel like it's important to tell us the kind of movie within the first few seconds. Like, just what kind of movie is this? Am I going to be scared? Is this an action movie? Is a comedy, whatever. This is a spoof. And it tells us that right away. Because we get. It's not exactly the Jaws theme, the famous John Williams Jaws theme, but it's obviously an adaptation. It's Jaws. Ish. It evokes Jaws. And we've just got this cloud cover and then the tail wing or whatever of a commercial jet looking like a shark's dorsal fin, going back and forth a bit. It's just a classic.

Nic

Really good. And. And just a perfect way to start, like if you're in the theater watching this for the first time, because, I mean, they made Kentucky Fried Movie that would have been late 70s or something that was kind of like a series of sketches rather than one movie. But you have to just be like fist in the air, like so excited just from this very beginning. Because your point about it setting the tone is like absolutely there, 100%.

Steve

And even. We even get the. The shark jumps out of the water sort of as the plane kind of flies over us. And then I love to. So, like, I'm going to be doing this the whole time, unfortunately, comparing it to elements of Zero Hour, because the opening of Zero Hour is a visit film from the 50s. So it takes, like, two minutes to get through the credits. And there's literally nothing that happens for the first two minutes. So we have all this, like, dramatic music and establishing shots of, like, LAX and people driving up and nothing really happening.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But we do get this nice little banter back and forth between two people who are doing the, like, announcements. Yes. At lax, right? You know, the red zone is. Or the white zone is for the loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the red zone. And they go back and forth a little bit until finally I think the guy. It's a man's voice and a woman's voice. And the man's voice screws up and says, like, the red zone is for loading and unloading. There's no stopping in the white zone. And the homie goes, no, the white zone. Don't start up with your white zone shit. Again, like, fun fact about these two, they're actually the voices of the announcements at LAX at the time.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

They're a married couple who also ended up doing some announcements at Disneyland.

Nic

Can you think of a better husband, wife, like, company to have that? You just do voiceovers for announcements.

Steve

So. Awesome.

Nic

Dude.

Steve

But yeah, they went. They went and they got the. They tracked out and got the actual LAX announcement couple to do the announcement sequence at the beginning of this movie.

Nic

And this joke, I love this kind of slow burn of this joke because they repeat it the correct way, like, six times before it gets to, like, some deviation from that. And it escalates from there. And it's really well done. And while this is happening, we're seeing kind of all the characters that are going to be on the plane arriving at the airport here.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Some other gags. One gag is we have people walking through airport security, which back in 1980. Oh, my God. You got to get there, like, 10, 12 minutes early sometimes to make your flight. But we have a man comes up, the metal detector goes off, and they say, can you put all your metal objects in this bin? And, you know, keys change, pulls off his artificial arm. So folks watching at home, keeping score at home, we've got another missing slash artificial limp within the first, like, three minutes of this movie.

Steve

Yeah. So fast.

Nic

Oh, my God.

Steve

And I love it, too, because it's like it's maybe the worst of the sort of artificial arms scenarios we've seen because it's meant to be a throwaway gag, it's not like a long term character. But we've talked about how like, you know, in Happy Gilmore, Carl Weathers arm was too long. In army of Darkness there are points where Bruce Campbell's arm is too long. Right. We think this guy has got clearly two arms under the jack. Like it's really bad, but it's because he's pulling it off. It's like from the shoulder down. It's like a full army pulls off. Yeah. But yes, so we have our missing or artificial limb. So we can check that box off of our checklist. But yeah, so. So then for some reason I don't fully understand if we're. I mean, I get it because I've seen the movie a few times. But like we see the one of the little direction guys out on the tarmac with the light sticks, you know, hey, go this way, go this way. And somebody says, hey, where's the something? Oh, it's over there. And he points the other direction and waves his buddy off. At which point the plane that he's been directing turns. Yeah. And crashes through the. Into the terminal.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

No mention of that ever again in the movie, by the way. That massive like that would have been the plot of a movie all its own. But no, we're just going to move.

Nic

Past that and, and the voices going back and forth. You know, it escalates to, you know, not your white zone shit again. And then when it's back to them it's, oh, you're just saying this because you want me to have an abortion. And he's like, well, it's really the only sensible thing. And therapeutically there's no long term damage. It's just God damn. And that's even funnier that they're a real life married couple and they're having him do that. So I really love that. And we see Ted, our kind of main character who's a taxi driver at the beginning.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

He pulls up as a man's hailing a cab and he pulls up almost onto the sidewalk and runs inside. The guy gets in the cab and, and as he's like about to run away, he reaches his hand back in and hits the meter, starts the meter in the cab and then runs inside.

Steve

So he's all good running. He says he'll be right back, but he's not going to. He catches up with Elaine who we, we meet there they're clearly a couple. He says, like, oh, I got home and you know, I got your note and I had to come find you. Like, whatever. And I'll mention in the movie Zero Hour, our Ted Striker in that movie does go home and finds from his wife Ellen. So slight difference there. A note saying, I'm leaving and I'm taking our son Joey. Keep that in mind with me. So there's that. But yeah, so, but this whole, this is one of those sequences I was telling you about off the pod, buddy. Like this whole conversation between Ted and Eileen where she's telling him, like, for instance, she kind of ends with like, you know, it takes more than that for love or something, you know, and I can never be with a man who I don't respect and I don't respect you or something like that.

Nic

Right, yeah.

Steve

That's all pulled straight from Zero Hour. That is a full conversation that those same two characters have in that movie.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Word for word. Like that's why the writers of that movie had to be somehow considered writers of this one. Because there are whole cloth scenes pulled from this 57 film. And, and that's, that's one of them is that thing. But then of course, as Eileen walks away, you know, after saying like, I can never, I can never be with a man I don't respect and I can't respect you. That's when Ted turns to the camera, breaks the fourth wall and just goes, what a pisser. Which of course is what I said at three years old that taught my parents to maybe watch what I was watching.

Nic

Oh, man. Yeah. And that's so great. I, I want to read more about like, why they were so obsessed with this movie. Like why they chose that to be the frame for this, this goofy satire parody that they have. One thing that gets me is I think they're walking by the magazine stand and there's the sections, there's little labels. We have fiction, nonfiction and whacking material.

Steve

Which is of course where Captain over is doing his pre flight check there material.

Nic

His magazine is called Modern Super Sperm.

Steve

Yeah. So strange. Oh, man. And then, and then an ambulance arrives and a girl who's on a stretcher who we learn needs a heart transplant. She's arrives and put on the plane and, and is, you know, I think she's there mostly to give us yet another kind of ticking clock element to all this. Right. Like there's an urgency to like the plane getting where it needs to be because Captain over gets a call on the white phone or whatever, picks up the red phone. Like, no, no, no, the white phone. Oh, sorry. He picks up the white phone and it's a doctor basically saying, a doctor from the Mayo Clinic.

Nic

And there's all these mayonnaise jars behind him as he's on the phone.

Steve

Really funny, so funny. And he's like, hey, you know, this. This girl needs to get, you know, we've got the heart here. And of course, there's literally a heart on like a petri dish on his desk, pumping and beating on its own. Starts bouncing around that. I mean, ridiculous stuff. But he's like, you know, you got to get her here quick so that we can do this heart transplant. Like, just, you know, don't. Don't let there be any delays is kind of what he's saying. And there's a joke about ham on.

Nic

Five on this phone, and they break in and they say, you know, we got a Mr. Ham, an emergency call on line five. All right, give me Ham on five. Hold the mayo.

Steve

God.

Nic

A couple other gags here. I mean, Ted decides, like, okay, the only way to go after Elaine is that I fly on this flight. You know, he obviously fly. So he's like, give me one ticket to Chicago, please. Do you want smoking or non. Smoking. And he says, smoking. And of course, they hand him a ticket which has the smoke coming off of it. Great gag.

Steve

It's a good one.

Nic

Really, really classic. I. I do love that. I mean, as we'll talk about, there's certain stuff in this movie that does not hold up at all. But there's certain stuff that's so univers. You could show it to somebody who does not speak English, who could lived in any decade, and they would understand why it was funny.

Steve

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, That's. The movie does feel a little bit like it's. The needle is buried one direction or the other. It's either like a universal joke that absolutely works just as well today as it did then, or. Oh, my God, I can't believe that. They're like, nobody would get away with that today. There's not much in between the two. But, yeah, so he gets his ticket. I noticed right there's the Runway, stairs. It's not like a jetway or whatever, which, like, look, I wasn't flying flights in 1980, but by 1984, I'd been on a plane, you know, and I don't remember. There was always jetways, like, everywhere. I mean, this is lax. It's like a modern airport. Like, I can't imagine that. It's like the one time I had to do Runway stairs to get onto a plane was like at Long beach, like, you know, like kind of smaller.

Nic

Small airport like that. You know what, though? You know, in, in movies, like more times than in real life, the main character drives a convertible because it's very friendly to be on film. I wonder if the jet. The Runway stairs is the same thing because they almost never show somebody coming down a jetway unless that's part of the gag, like dumb and dumber or whatever. But it's showing someone getting on a plane. It's almost like it doesn't happen, but it makes it look cleaner. Yeah, I don't.

Steve

I would argue potentially that this is another zero hour connection, because in the 50s, that was the only way to get on planes. That's definitely how they get on the plane at zero hour. And then the interior of the plane is so old school. Right. Like the overhead compartments don't close, right? Yeah, they're open.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

The seats are massively wide. Like they're bigger seats than we get in first class today, all throughout the plane. So, like, I think some of those choices, those aesthetic choices are references to the older film potentially.

Nic

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.

Steve

But it was something I noticed is that the seats are enormous. Like everybody's everything.

Nic

Everything about air travel looks so good in old movies. Oh, my God. The. The. The flight attendant is walking down the aisle and she's handing out magazines to everybody. And she comes to this old woman who's sitting next to Ted and she's like, you know, what do you want to read? And she's like, do you have something light? And this is one of my favorite jokes in the movie. She's like, how about this leaflet on famous Jewish sports legends? Leaflet is just so good. And it's like this, the daintiest little piece of paper. God damn.

Steve

Yes. And we meet the two jive talking passengers right after that. And they're talking to the stewardess. And it's not. There's two stewardesses on the flight. So there's Elaine, but then there's also Randy, the other blonde woman. And I think it's Randy is talking to them briefly. I can't remember which one, but they're trying to talk to her. And she's kind of okay, you know. Cause they're saying. And all I remember is like at one point when they're talking to each other, one of them says, and just made me think of the Wire. And the guy goes, she. And it's translated as Golly, yes. Like so dumb, but great. And then we meet our flight crew. So we, we've got Captain Clarence over is the captain of flight. And then we have first mate or whatever they call him. The co pilot is Roger Murdoch, played by Kareem Abdul Jabbar. And then Victor something, I remember Victor's last name is like the navigator, communications guy, whatever. Something like this. There's three of them in this cockpit. Yeah. And the reason I love this because in. In zero hour there's only two. I think it's interesting to point that out because I think the reason there's three here is strictly to be able to do the joke. We have clearance, Clarence. Roger, roger. What's our vector, Victor? Which is something that has stuck with me like my whole life. I will randomly think if I hear the name Clarence in almost any context. Yeah. In my mind I'll hear, we have clearance, Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor? Like every time. Totally every time.

Nic

Yeah. Certain stuff really sticks with you here. Oh my God. And so, so we have Ted and he's sitting, you know, next to the woman who'd just been handed the leaflet. And he's kind of. And she recognizes that. Oh, now I know what's going on. Like, this is your ex, right?

Steve

Because Elaine saw him. And then Elaine is like talking to him. She's like so shocked that he's there. Yeah, we needed to talk. And so the older woman next to Ted is. Yeah. Picking up on the. The vibe here or whatever and that kind of stuff. So he starts going in on. On a long story. Basically he's gonna tell her, you know, about like, you know, how's it going? Because she goes to try to read her leaflet, but then he starts talking. She does that thing.

Nic

I love the look on her face.

Steve

The sigh with taking the reading glasses back off, like, here we go kind of thing. And he goes into like, honestly, a long ass story because the cutaway scene.

Nic

Is like six or seven very long scene. But. And you know, the certain times when I see it, I think like, God, this is kind of a long part that drags. But there's a lot of really funny shit that happens here.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And yeah, he's basically talking about, you know, back when I was in my fictional town in the war, you know, we were at this bar and it was where all the crustiest cutthroats and swashbucklers and all these things, you know, you could only walk in the door if you knew how to use your fist. So of course A fight breaks out.

Steve

In the bar between two Girl Scouts.

Nic

Between two Girl Scouts who were beating up each other in a very funny way, a very theatrical way. There's not a lot of, like, hands exchanging. It's like one big punch. One big punch. One big punch.

Steve

Haymakers.

Nic

And this always made me laugh so hard. I think when I first saw this and was like, aware of it. The thing that made me laugh the hardest is where one of the Girl Scouts throws the other one down the bar and then her head crashes into the jukebox and immediately Staying Alive starts playing. Just that moment of like silence. And then.

Steve

It was like, oh, interesting fun fact about that. They had to slightly.

Nic

Not the real version. It is fast. It is faster than crazy.

Steve

So they had to speed up Staying Alive a little bit to get it to fit in the way they wanted to use it. And they needed to get approval from the Bee Gees to do it.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

So when apparently when you license a recording for a movie, you're licensing the recording as is. They needed to get special approval. I think they sped it up. It's like a 1.15x or something like that where it's just a little bit faster.

Nic

I thought I was remembering it wrong. I thought I was going crazy because I'm like, this is the real stuff song.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Something's weird about it.

Steve

The pitch was slightly higher. Which with the Bee Gees is hard to tell sometimes because obviously they're high pitched singers. Barry. And. And so. But yeah, I agree. Like, you could tell there was just a little difference. I also noticed still, however, the whole song plays. This is very much a Rocky 4 scenario. The whole song plays. It is 3 minutes and 42. 3 minutes and 42 seconds long of playing the song in the movie. And when Ted and Elaine begin dancing, because Elaine's dancing with this random guy who then gets stabbed in the back for some reason. Yeah, somebody. And. And it's really funny because as he's motioning towards the knife, she thinks it's a dance move. Yeah, she's like mimicking his moves or whatever, pointing to her back. But then when Ted walks up to her and starts dancing with her, their dancing goes on for almost two whole minutes. Yeah, that's a long scene, like a big thing. And it's funny, but it is pretty.

Nic

Long with Ted sitting at the bar and it's just kind of a voiceover of Ted telling the story. And he's in his like all white military uniform and he sees Elaine out there and he says, I had to Ask the guy next to me to pinch me to make sure I wasn't dreaming. And it shows him kind of lean over and whisper to the guy. And the guy gives him this look. Like what? And he gets up and walks. I always love that part.

Steve

Good one. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Nic

Yeah. So funny scene. It is long and, you know, kind of.

Steve

It works.

Nic

They're together and then the last joke is that Girl Scout fight still going on as they're like sweeping up the bar at the end of the night.

Steve

Exactly. Yeah. There's a. There's a sequence of very clear wire work during the. During the dance where Elaine is sort of. The idea is that she's got Ted by Ted's ankles but is swinging fast enough to keep him parallel to the ground. Very funny. But obviously like, pretty obvious what's happening with the effects. But it's okay. It works.

Nic

Yeah. And, yeah, so he's got some moves and he's, you know, then back on the plane, he's wrapping up his story to the old woman and he's like. Like, oh, I'm sorry, I. I hope this isn't boring you. And looks over and her feet are just hanging like, you know, she had hung herself from something 10ft above. Really funny.

Steve

Funny but like brutal. Like very dark.

Nic

Not PG rated.

Steve

Yeah, that's the thing is, like, that's one of the. Here's the reason why I think I could watch this When I was like two or three, so many of these jokes just went completely over my head. There's no way I would understand any of it.

Nic

Yeah, I wouldn't know what that meant. Yeah.

Steve

So. But. But that's what happens. There's a great little moment here where, you know, a kid, I think, is it Joey? Is it the one little boy on the plane? I think it's a different. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It is a different boy because he doesn't have. He has all his teeth. But yeah. So he walks up to this little girl. It's like two little like 10 year olds maybe, something like that. And you know, one of them, the boy's got a platter and it like offers him. Would you like some coffee? Just passing by. I thought you might like some coffee. And she's like, oh, thank you so much. And would you like some cream? And she says, no, I like it black like my men. It's like, great joke.

Nic

Yeah. Especially how they delivered it. So. Yeah. So then we have a family on the flight and who have a little boy, Joey.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And he's talking to the flight attendant, he's like, dad, when do I get to see the cockpit? He's like, oh, I think the pilot's pretty busy. But then, you know, pre 9 11, they were like, oh, yeah, dude, cockpit. Come on up, dude. Yeah, cockpit is short for cocktail pit. Come on up and have a drink with the pilot. So. So he gets brought up to get introduced to the pilots and everything.

Steve

Yes. I think before that, Elaine has a memory. She's talking. Somebody was thinking back, whatever, on Ted and her and like. Like when things were good, I think the Ted and her talking and she's talking about, like, remembering the good times. And I love it just because it's a reference to From Here to Eternity, which is a classic movie where they're rolling around on the beach in the surf as it's going, you know, very classic scene. But then, yeah, here they're getting. The tide comes in and they're both just covered in like kelp sacks and things.

Nic

Oh, yeah, horrible.

Steve

But it's, you know, sort of a funny moment and a direct reference to From Here to Eternity. We get Joey coming up to the cockpit. Now this is funny because in Zero Hour, the character Joey, who's actually Ted's son, does come to the cockpit. You know, meets the captain and the co pilot and is handed a little model plane. Hey, this is something we give to our most, you know, special guests or whatever.

Nic

What a lie.

Steve

And yeah, exactly. And he's like, and Joey, have you ever been in a cockpit before? Oh, geez. No, sir. I've never even been up in a plane before. Like that. All that comes straight out of Zero hour. Okay, then we go a step further. In Airplane, when captain, you ever seen.

Nic

A grown man naked?

Steve

This stuff does not hold up. This is definitely all of the captain over stuff with Joey had me. My toes were curled. It's very cringy and very like, not. Not something you would see today. Yeah, but yeah, it's there.

Nic

It's funny. I mean, it's a funny. Especially in light of the original having that line. If you're thinking, like, how do we raise the stakes and make this a joke like that. That's. That's a good way.

Steve

How do we turn something innocent and whatever into something funny? And that'll make people uncomfortable. Right? I mean, that's literally what they're trying to do.

Nic

And if they challenge themselves with like, how close to the real script can we keep it and still cram it full of jokes?

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

So let's see. Oh, Ted, there's kind Of a flashback of Ted at the va. Oh, yeah, the hospital.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And. And he's there, and there's different people suffering and Elaine's there and Ted is painting this picture. So he's laying in bed and he's doing this painting which is, like, a guy with his arm behind or his leg, like, back behind his neck holding a baby upside down in full military gear with an exploding jeep behind him. Right. Which extremely. My. I. You know, that is the exact kind of thing.

Steve

You haven't painted this yet.

Nic

I gotta do that. I love that so much. So, yeah, so he's there and Elaine is. I think she informs him that, you know, one of his former. His team members, George Zip, was dead. So he's basically feels responsible for seven guys getting killed.

Steve

Yeah, exactly.

Nic

And. And then it kind of cuts away from the seriousness where he's like, oh, you know what's happening to this guy? Oh, he thinks he's still in the war. And the guy's like, they're down here in the tunnel and going under his blanket. And then the other guy, you know, what's wrong with him? Oh, you know, severe shell shock. He thinks he's Ethel Merman. Which, again, you know, not a joke for 2025, but in 1980. Dude.

Steve

Well, and it was Ethel Merman. So really hurt.

Nic

Funny for her to be like, okay, we want you to very earnestly, like, pop up and sing your song while you then get restrained by people that work at the hospital. Like, that's a very funny scene.

Steve

She's funny. She's good sport. Yeah. And there's a moment in here where Elaine's talking, you know, about, like, the meeting at headquarters. And Ted goes, what's that? She goes, well, it's a big building where the generals meet. But that's not important right now. And it's good because that's not important right now comes back, like, three more times or something like that. I think we skipped it just a little bit. Back in the cockpit, Joey points out to Roger Murdoch that he's Kareem Abdul Jabbar. And there is just a huge thing where he's like, my dad says you don't try very hard except for the playoffs. And Cream's like, hey, you tell you, old man, I bust my butt out there every day. You try dragging Walton up and down the court. Like, it's all. It was very funny thing with Kareem.

Nic

Oh, quick. Kareem thing that I looked into. So I was thinking about this movie where Kareem's in it and then thinking about Naked Gun, one of our favorites that we'd done before, which has not only O.J. simpson, but also Reggie Jackson.

Steve

That's right. Yep.

Nic

O.J. simpson, 1973 NFL MVP. Reggie Jackson, 1973American League MVP, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, 1973-74 NBA MVP.

Steve

Wow.

Nic

I haven't seen it, but I'm pretty sure Phil Esposito is in Dracula, dead and loving it. Like, it's crazy to have, like, the best of the sports all from that. That year, from that era. I wonder if the Zuckers were kind of just like, oh, it'd be cool to get these athletes that we were all. If they were sports.

Steve

I almost feel like it'd be more fun if they had no clue whatsoever that that was a thing. Didn't care about sports. Just thought it'd be funny to put these athletes in their movies. And later. That was total coincidence, that for some reason that seems much more.

Nic

Yeah, that's KE Fright Theater. But, yeah, I thought that was a very funny coincidence that, like, in that specific year, these are all top of their game.

Steve

That's crazy. That's so funny. Yeah. So now we get one of the stewardesses, Randy. She talks to a nun and is like, hey, can I borrow your guitar? There's this girl up there who, you know, like, I could play a song for. She needs a heart transplant. Like, whatever. This poor girl is in, like, a stretcher, like, in a hospital bed. IVs and everything.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And so Randy gets the guitar from the nun. She sits down, she starts playing, you know, some pseudo religious, sort of groovy and relevant song, whatever, from the 60s. And. But she sits down next to the. To the girl, and it's okay. But when she, like, starts playing with some fervor, she, like, knocks the girl's IV out.

Nic

Yeah. With the neck of the guitar, she's swinging it around.

Steve

Why does that make the girl's face pucker up? Like, I don't.

Nic

And Ivy is a slower drip than that. So, I mean, that's. That wouldn't. That wouldn't happen necessarily.

Steve

But I think it must be like, she needs a heart transplant. So I'm guessing whatever she's hooked up to is. Is pumping her blood, I would guess. And so I guess maybe that's a circulatory thing or something. I don't know. It's very strange. But she gets, like, fish mouth.

Nic

Like, that joke is so funny to me. And it's like, if the whole purpose of having this girl on the plane is just to do the joke where you're too into your song that you're knocking the IV out with the guitar neck and the mom is just, like, clapping and grooving in the background, not paying any attention.

Steve

I don't think we see that girl again in the movie.

Nic

It's. Yeah, it's kind of disregarded after joke.

Steve

Happens and we're good. Oh, man.

Nic

Here's. Here's something that didn't hold up the.

Steve

Whole Peace Corps thing. Yikes. Yeah, yeah. Just in general, like, the. The made up tribal name that they use. I don't remember Malumbo. So whatever. Is not super great. And like, you know, the whole thing of, like, we. We. We taught them how to play basketball. Like, he just got out a hoop and a ball, and then suddenly they're all.

Nic

They're all like amazing Harlem Globetrotters kind of thing. It's like, oh, God, Kareem felt about that.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Looking back. But yeah. So this is kind of their backstory. And there's kind of a funny joke of Elaine. You know, we're trying to teach them our ways. And at first it's just like, you know, this is how you plant corn. What? But then it's like she's having, like, a Tupperware party for them and everything.

Steve

So her stuff is a little more funny and holds up a little better than Ted stuff.

Nic

Yeah, a little bit.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

But it's also one of those things where, you know, in 1980, you could make a joke and be like, oh, he's a black guy. He must be good at basketball. And it's like, okay, we're not really. Yeah, that's not the thing anymore, I.

Steve

Do want to point out. So the man that he is saying that story to is, of course, James Hong, who is David Lo Pan in Big Trouble, Little China, along with a bunch of other. I mean, the dude, literally, I looked it up. First of all, I love it because every single movie James Hong has ever been in, he's got that accent. He's got that thick, you know, very thick accent. And the pro. The thing about it is that he is. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minnesota. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. That man has done 466. I looked. 466 roles. He has two upcoming. He is, like 93 years old, and he's still working. So kudos to James Hall. Like, that is fantastic. But, yeah, he's playing. I think he's credited as Japanese soldiers.

Nic

In, like, a uniform with metals and everything. And they did that just for the sepakuja.

Steve

Exactly. Being able to do seppuku and try to kill himself. Or did actually. No, he did kill him. That's right. He's one of the victims of Ted stories. There is one guy that survives, but it's not him. But I just thought that was interesting. When I looked up James Hong, I was like, just looking for his credits. And then in the bio, it's like, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in like 19, you know, 31 or something. I'm like, what? Like, I assumed he was a, you know, Chinese national.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Nope.

Nic

Oh, one thing. During the flashback, during the Peace Corps thing, at the very end of that, he does say, you know, oh, this stressed me out. I think this is what led to my drinking problem, where he opens his mouth and then kind of pours the glass right below his eye. So that was a good joke. That was a good part of that.

Steve

That section does come back several times throughout the movie that he has this issue with getting the liquid into his mouth.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

Over and over again.

Nic

So. So some of the passengers now are kind of like starting to feel ill, right?

Steve

They're sweating a lot. They're complaining of stomach aches, like, whatever. And so the. The one of the stewardesses mentions it to the captain. The captain says, we'll see if there's a doctor on board. So they start asking around, and this woman who's like, you know, miss, I think my, my, my, the man sitting next to me might be a doctor. And it's Leslie Nielsen.

Nic

And he's wearing a stethoscope with it.

Steve

In his ears because, you know, you got to give away that it's a doctor. But, like, love Leslie Nielsen. So great. So good to see him.

Nic

He's the best.

Steve

And then so he goes over to the first woman, and I'll totally admit this is a gag I've never understood and I still don't get it, but the woman clearly has like a hard boiled egg or something in her mouth. Yeah, you can see it a little bit at first. And he goes like. And so he does the thing where clearly he's.

Nic

He has one.

Steve

Reducing one from his own, you know, whatever, so that it can look like he's pulling more and more and more out of her mouth. And one of them breaks open and it's a bird inside.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

What the fuck is all that? Like, what, what is it like? I don't.

Nic

I don't get it. Just for goofiness. The bird also flies towards the back of the plane and looks like it legitimately scares one of the jive talking guys because you see the bird, like go back and then you see a guy be like, ah. And like kind of freak out. And you couldn't train that bird to do that.

Steve

No, no. It just would have flown wherever. Yeah, but it's just. I don't. I. Yeah, I've been. Because I guess my thing about it is, like, I want to believe it's making a reference to some kind of symptom or illness. And maybe I'm just thinking about it way too much and it's just.

Nic

Or maybe it's like an old kind of like vaudeville silent show. Sometimes it's a nod to these old that's true timey jokes.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

The family that had the little boy, Joey. Yeah, the two parents. So she had said earlier when they asked if they wanted another cup of coffee, and Jim's like, oh, actually I'll have one. And then in her head she's like, jim never has a second cup of coffee at home.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So when it's back to them, he's now sick from the dinner and he's throwing up into the vomit bag. And she's like, jim never vomits at home.

Steve

I love it.

Nic

Okay, so, so Captain over real quick is talking to. To Leslie Nielsen, the doctor. And, and he says something like, I can't tell you that. He's a said, you know, how fast can we land this plane? There's some people getting sick. I can't tell you that. You could tell me, I'm a doctor. And that whole exchange that they have.

Steve

You know, I need to get these patients to a hospital. What's that? A hospital. It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now. Yeah. And then, so then quickly, I think Captain over goes back to like see, see, to one of the patients as well, or one of the passengers rather, who's sick as well. So now he and the doctor out of the cockpit. I think we've already had an issue with Victor. He's already been succumbed. He was like one of the first ones. But now the plane starts in a dive and everybody starts freaking out and they go back into the cockpit and Roger, the co pilot, is slumped over the yoke and it's pressing downward. So they get him out of there and of course, as they pull him away from the waist down, he's in his Lakers uniform, the knee pads, the shoes, everything.

Nic

And he's wearing his Rex backs. That's right.

Steve

Yeah, that's right. He's got the goggles on and everything. Because he reverted to Kareem, I guess. Guess. Like, yeah. And then I love the. The doctor starts explaining, listening, starts explaining to one of the stewardesses, I think, what the symptoms are, like what they should be looking for. And as he's explaining them, Captain over is experiencing every one of the symptoms in order.

Nic

Yeah. And he looks at his plate. They're talking about everyone who had the fish is sick. And he looks, and there's just the perfect like Heathcliff style fish bone on the plate.

Steve

Like he did. Lady sucked it right off the bone. Like. So he is, he is out. So now they have to engage the autopilot.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Our buddy Otto, who inflates and begins driving the vehicle. Like, I love Otto, who doesn't.

Nic

Yeah, really good inflatable dude. And so I think we get our first glimpse of the kind of control center there where we have McCroski is Lloyd Bridges. And he's on there and he's explaining them what to do. And you know, after he tells her about the autopilot, he's like, I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

Lights up a cigarette.

Steve

Which again is an actual line from Sterling Hayden's character in Zero Hour, who is actually more of the Captain Kra Robert Stack guy in that movie. But he has the same line. He does not have the successive versions of it, but. But he does have that one. Yeah. And so then, then there's a point where the plane starts to dive again and they're not sure what's going on. At which point Elaine looks over and Otto has started to deflate. So Lloyd Bridges has got to just tell her. Well, there's, there's a manual reinflation nozzle around the belt of the, of the autopilot. You need to get down there and blow. Yeah. Okay, so we now have her bent over the doll and. Or whatever and using her mouth right near its belt. And that's when the doctor comes back into the cockpit and goes, never mind. And turns her.

Nic

I love that. I love that. All his entrances into the cockpit are solid gold.

Steve

Really? In this movie? Absolutely.

Nic

But yeah, him coming in and just seeing kind of the inflated pilot from behind, like, oh, sorry, let me leave you too.

Steve

Exactly. I didn't mean to interrupt.

Nic

And that, you know, when they show it on tv, that scene is not there. So it kind of shows them smoking cigarettes for no reason after, which is really weird.

Steve

That's funny.

Nic

So they have to find somebody on this plane who can fly the plane and did not have fish for dinner.

Steve

That's right. Yep. And so they ask around, and Ted is like, the only one who has any kind of flying experience, and he indeed did not have fish for dinner. So they, you know, bring him up to the piling. They. They tell. They get him up there by saying that, look, one of the captain needs help, right? Like, you know, one of the pilots is not. So he. He just needs helped to be helped, which is in zero hour. Exactly how they get Ted into the cockpit as well, by telling him that, you know, the co pilots down and the captain needs somebody to run the radio. That's like what they tell him.

Nic

Oh, zero hours.

Steve

And so he gets up there, it's like, oh, no. Both pilots, like, you know, that kind of thing, or they're all the pilots or whatever. And so that's when I think. I think the plane starts to dive again or. Oh, no. This is when they mention they're looking for somebody who can fly the plane.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And that's when the chaos breaks out.

Nic

Everyone's freaking out.

Steve

And the rand. The famous random boobs of airplane fly onto screen, jiggle for a moment, then go back off screen for, like, no good reason whatsoever. Not even sure if that character. I don't even sure if that actor is on the plane. Otherwise.

Nic

That was almost like, how much can we fit in and still get under the PC?

Steve

That was the push to see will they make that. If they say, this is why it's an R, we'll take it out. Yeah, but if we can get away with it, we're going to get away with it.

Nic

And it, of course, it keeps cutting back to the guy who's in Ted's cab. As the meter's running, it's at, like, 113 bucks. And he's just looking at his watch, bro, get out.

Steve

Get out of the cab. Go.

Nic

One of the women, the wife of the man who is vomiting, the mom of Joey. She's, like, kind of freaking out at the table, and. And Randy walks up to her, and she's like, you got to get a hold of herself. She's kind of shaking her by the shoulders. And then there's just a random guy behind her. Get a hold of yourself. And he slaps her. And then Leslie Nielsen's I'll take care of this. Get a hold of her. And shaking her harder, slaps her twice, slaps her as he walks away. And then it shows this very funny line of people who all have, like, increasingly dangerous weapons until someone has a gun. Someone has a gun.

Steve

Great. So great thing about this. So. So that scene was originally going to be just like it was in Zero Hour. So in Zero Hour, there's only one stewardess, and her boyfriend is on the flight, and it's not Ted, because Ted's got a wife. So it's a little different setup, but the. The only stewardess is named Janet, and she's got. Her boyfriend Rick is flying. So Janet's the one that comes to the. There's a woman. Passengers freaking out. I got to get out. She says, I got to get out here. I got to get out of here. Yeah, whatever. And she, like, shakes her, like. But Janet's the one that slaps her. And then her boyfriend Rick goes, you go take care of the passengers. I'll take care of her. And he doesn't slap the woman. He just shakes her a little more. That's the. The. That's the moment in Zero Hour that they're referencing.

Nic

Oh, that's.

Steve

And apparently originally it was just going to be Randy and then one more passenger and then Leslie Nielsen, and that was it. And the woman playing the woman being slapped that's getting out goes, wouldn't it be funnier if it was a lot more people who are all pissed at me? And they used it like. That was literally her idea was like, maybe you should have, like, more people waiting to beat me up.

Nic

Oh, man.

Steve

Good for them.

Nic

Taking notes from the talent there. That's a great call by her.

Steve

Exactly. Because it is. Is. That joke is so much funnier with its ridiculous things. Yeah. So a lot of fun. And then we get. We get. We got to get. So now that Ted's there and he's talking to Chicago. Right? Because they're flying LAX of Chicago, and in zero hour, it's Winnipeg to Vancouver. Not nearly as interesting, but, yes, they're flying to Chicago, and Ted's now on the radio with Chicago, and they're talking to him, and they realize, we got to get somebody who knows this guy, knows how to deal with the. And I don't remember if it's Lloyd Bridges or one of the other characters, like, knows that there's this guy, Captain Kramer who, you know, knows Ted and. And. And could maybe, like, help out or something like that, Right. So they go and they send somebody to Kramer's house. And Kramer, of course, played by Robert Stack, the host of Unsolved Mysteries, when the guy from the airport gets to. To. To Kramer's house, he's greeted, in a sense, immediately by the golden retriever, the dog of the house, who Is super aggressive. More aggressive than any golden I've ever dealt with with.

Nic

It was almost a Doberman picture.

Steve

It was crazy because that dog, that guy up like so bad.

Nic

Oh, my God. I. I spend most of my. I spent all of my childhood afraid of dogs. So this was a scene that just made me be like, yeah, God, that's what dogs are like. They suck.

Steve

Oh, no.

Nic

Yeah, so it's really funny. So he's gonna bring Rex Kramer back. Then, of course, as they're driving, you know, to the control station, first of all, this guy is up, his glasses are all messed up and he's got scratches on his face and stuff. And Rex Kramer's just like hitting people. And then there's wild stuff happening behind.

Steve

Obviously very similar to the opening of Police Squad and the Naked Gun where it's like the. The crazy looking screen behind the camp, the car or whatever. That kind of idea where. Yeah, he's going super fast, Turning crazy fast. It looks like he's like driving down Mulholland or something out of the Hollywood Hills. Like, it's ridiculous. Yeah. But yeah, so he's doing that. They're getting the. They're on their way to the airport and that's. Yeah. So we're back on the plane. This is when we get the don't call me Shirley line. I think it's right, you know, Shirley, you can't be serious. I am serious. And don't call me Shirley. Just another classic one. But I love that. The one point we get, Ted looks at the instrument panel in the cockpit, right? Because he's being asked to do this. And it just keeps panning to the right. And there's so many. And two things, and I'll say about this one is this immediately made me think while I was watching it of Spaceball, of the opening of spaceball as spaceball1 goes by. And it's like, even though that was itself a reference to Star wars, like, it still made me think, you know, very similar kind of thing. And then in zero Hour, there's a moment where Ted Stryker has looks at the instrument panel. And it's slow. It is a shit ton of instruments. And it slowly pans over. It's about two or three seconds worth, not 15 seconds.

Nic

Right.

Steve

But it's the same. And it's like, clearly that was a direct spoof off of that part as well. So just so funny how that happens. Yeah. Wild, wild car, blue screen, driving to the airport.

Nic

And you know, something we didn't talk about earlier is as it's Shown people walking through the airport. They've been approached by these different kind of like Harry Krishna Looney, like religious groups. Right. The guy would come up, will you accept this flower from the Church of Religious Consciousness? You know, and there's all these different ones. So that keeps escalating. And when, and earlier Ted had punched one of them in the space. And now when Rex Kramer's walking through, he's just like, like beating them all. Everyone that walks up to him, he's punching him in the. I'm here from the moon. He's pro choose for Jesus. Boom, like all over the place. He's just beating these guys up. It's really funny. Yeah, I, I, I like some Rex Kramer here.

Steve

Yes, absolutely. It's good stuff. At one point here, Leslie Nielsen has to go out, the doctor has to go out on back into the cabin to kind of tell everybody what's going on. And it's so funny because immediately you can see he walks out and he's got his nose is like, like different, like it looks prosthetic or whatever. And he starts telling him how, like, everything's going to be fine and, you know, there's a, a pilot, you know, that's still in control or like, whatever, and he's got the Pinocchio nose keeps growing as he lies. Very funny stuff.

Nic

And one thing is there's a couple scenes of them making an announcement, like from the cockpit of, hey, everything's going to be fine. We just hit some turbulence while the flight attendants are like dragging the pilot and the co pilot down the aisle.

Steve

No, attention, attention. And I think this is where we get one of the two jive talking guys is really sick. And so his buddy is like, trying to get the stewardess's attention. Dr. Raining, they're speaking, you know, jive, whatever. Like they're kind of like urban, you know, colloquialisms. And she can't understand them. And that's when Barbara Billingsley, right, Like the Leave it to Beaver's mom, right?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

June Cleaver gets up to say, like, excuse me, stewardess, I speak jive. And sure enough, man, she banters back and forth with them a little bit. It, I love there's like translation, but, but it's really you kind of, I think you can get the gist of it without the translation that basically she's saying, you're gonna get some help, but you gotta wait. And he's like, we can't wait. I don't want to wait. Like, you know, whatever. Yeah. Then she goes, chump don't want no help. Chomp don't get no help.

Nic

I had to write that line down too, because that's my favorite part of it. I couldn't begin to quote the rest of it because it moves so fast and whatever. But, yeah, that scene is. Is really, really funny.

Steve

It's a classic.

Nic

And. And again, we're back at MC McCrusy. What's his name? McCrusy.

Steve

Oh, yeah.

Nic

You know, now he's. He's already picked the wrong week to quit smoking, quit drinking, and now he's. I picked the wrong week to quit. To quit amphetamines.

Steve

Amphetamines, Right. Which is not the zenith of that joke we'll get later. No, but. Yeah, and so, yeah, and then at some point in here, and I just noticed. I just wrote this note down, but at some point somebody mentioned that this shit'll really hit the fan. And sure enough, they just like briefly throw at a desk fan just because, you know.

Nic

Yeah, there are a couple things here that I think were great. So at the control center where McCuskey and Rex Kramer are now, there was all this press that was let in and they're asking questions and we're kind of shown that it's spreading the word. You know, it's like a hostage terrorist, terrorist hostage type thing. And Die Hard where it's all over the news and everything. And as the press guys are leaving, the guy says, okay, boys, let's get some pictures. And then they all just run to the wall and start taking photos off the wall.

Steve

So I want this one.

Nic

And then the other thing is, there's a guy in the plane. You know, all the passengers are stressed out, obviously, takes a slug out of his flask. And then he offers it to this very judgmental looking woman. He's like, do you want some whiskey? And she kind of gives him a look like, you piece of. And then she goes and starts snorting coke off this little mirror. So great gags there.

Steve

Funny enough, another. Another. That's another direct Zero Hour reference. So there is a passenger in Zero Hour who's got. Who snuck booze onto the plane. Like a fifth. Like a big bottle of whiskey. And he's got a little bit of like an Irish Canadian accent. I don't know if you've ever heard that, but it's like. And he's talking to the stewardess about how the Argos. Because they're flying to Vancouver, the Vancouver Argonauts have a new system where they're running a guy out wide like he's talking about Canadian football, and that's earlier in the movie. And then later on, he's sitting next to a woman, and as things are starting to go wrong, he takes a slug from his big bottle and goes, would you like a drum of whiskey? And she goes, certainly not. Which is what the woman does in this one. But then goes to snort the coke off her hand and. Or off the mirror or whatever. But, yeah, I just. I thought it was funny that. That is another direct kind of pull from Zero Hour. And at some point in here, we definitely see Atari basketball being played on a 2600, but I don't actually remember where.

Nic

Yeah, okay. I was going to ask if you knew what that was. I wasn't sure if it was in television or what it was.

Steve

I had the 2600 as a kid. That was basketball. It was. The game was just called basketball. No, nothing back then. You could just name the game tennis or basketball or whatever, because there weren't that many games. Yeah, so that was basketball on the 2600.

Nic

One of the guys we haven't talked about who's back at the control station, character Johnny. Right. So he's the. The flamboyant guy back there and everything. And he has some good lines throughout all this. So be like, johnny, how about some coffee? No, thanks. Right. And this one scene really, really killed me where he says where they're. They're in the control room and they're like, oh, he's gonna have some trouble. The fog is getting thicker. And then Johnny, like, hops in from the screen and grabs the belly of this random guy and he goes, goes. And Leon's getting larger and then just hops out.

Steve

So bizarre. And that's funny because there. There is a little helper character in Zero Hour named Johnny in the control room who has asked for coffee twice, goes and gets the coffee. How about some. How about some. How about some coffee? Johnny, or whatever needs leaves to go get coffee. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so now I think we're getting to the point where he's actually. We're actually getting ready to land at this point, I think, because. Are we. Are we that far along or.

Nic

Yeah, we're getting pretty close. So. So he's got to psych him up. So I think Ted has come out of the cockpit and kind of decided, like, I don't know if I can do this. And then Leslie Nielsen, the doctor, comes over and he says, hey, you know, I had a patient, whatever. And it turns out that the patient was this George Zip, who Was the. The last of the guys that he found out was killed from his.

Steve

That's right. I'm so glad that the captain made the choice he made because, you know, I don't know why he would be glad, but he. What he was. It basically, like, helped Ted know, like, hey, at least the guys there that you. That died because of your choices, they didn't. They don't blame the wrong call. They didn't blame you, you know, and that can help, and it definitely helps.

Nic

And then there was, like, a win one for the zipper joke.

Steve

That's right. Because.

Nic

And they had mentioned Ronald Reagan earlier. They said something about, I haven't felt this six since I saw that Ronald Reagan film, which, hella funny in the.

Steve

Year that Reagan was running for president is when this came out. Right. He hadn't even been president yet. He was the governor of California.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Point. So, yeah, interesting.

Nic

But they probably had plenty of time to already start dating him, like, during that time. So. So there's, like, other. There's a bunch of the. Rex Kramer and McCuskey and all these dudes who are in the control center are now in the tower, and there's a referee there who's introducing the captains to each other. I thought that was very funny.

Steve

Yeah. And at one point here, they'd say, hey, we got to put all the lights out on that Runway, you know, turn off everything but nine and. Or whatever it is, is. And then it's like all the lights go out, period. And then we cut to Johnny, who's, like, standing there next to an extension cordless. I'm just kidding. And he plugs it back in. So dumb, but so good.

Nic

Another gag is there. The plane is now flying low on its way to descent, and we see kind of a Chicago skyline with this radio building and an antenna on the back. And it's like wzaz, where disco lives forever. And the plane wing takes out the. The antenna. Yeah. So they're on their way in. They do say something about, oh, let's flood. Let's get every light we can on that Runway. And then it's just a dump truck full of lamps.

Steve

Yes, exactly.

Nic

For some reason, they've gone and gotten Captain Over's wife from home.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So this is something to do with zero.

Steve

Yeah. So in zero hour, the captain, he was Captain somebody. Wilson, maybe something different was the pilot. And they did. And the thing about that scene, and I think the reason that it was put in this is because when she is called at home, she does not have a horse. In the bed, like, Captain over his wife or anything crazy like that. There's nobody, like, with her.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But she is wearing, for a 1950s film, a very slinky negligee and kind of gets up on one arm to, like, answer the phone, and it's almost like, is she gonna completely fall out of this lingerie she's wearing? So the idea of having this sort of busty, sexy wife of the pilot show up whatever was pulled straight from Zero Hour and then obviously made far more ridiculous the way. The way that they do it in this movie. But yeah. Yeah, it was definitely an homage to that.

Nic

And she's great. She looks great and everything. And, yeah, she's definitely dressed provocatively and stuff. And during this thing where, you know, Rex Kramer is on the radio with Ted, she's trying to, you know, help him through the landing.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And she's increasingly, like, touching him and all over him. She looks like Erica Kirk on JD Vance. She's all over this guy right now. It's disgusting.

Steve

Running hands through the hair. All the bad. All the bad.

Nic

The flight attendants telling everyone on the plane, like, get ready for your crash. Crash positions.

Steve

That's right. Yes, exactly. Assume the crash positions. And. And this is when I think of right around where Ted has started sweating just a ridiculous amount. Right. The water.

Nic

Sweatiest movies of that.

Steve

Exactly. Also. Also another movie that contains a meme. Right. That has absolutely become, like, a reaction Gif used, you know, across the Internet. Is Ted Striker sweating like that? I will mention in Zero Hour, that Ted Striker in there also crazy sweaty. The sweatiest person in there. They clearly put tons of water on, like, his forehead to show how nervous he is. Not quite to the level, obviously, that they take this Ted Striker. But again, another reference that they went ahead and made made crazier. Right. And pushed further.

Nic

Nice.

Steve

But, yeah, so he. We basically. He takes it down. You know, they argue with him that he needs to stay up there because the fog is still so thick. Chicago. Right. And so. So you got to stay up there and fly around. He's like, no, we're coming in now. Like, these passengers don't have time. You know, all these sick people, they need to get to a hospital. And so they come in, you know, and then this is like the kind of stressful stuff of like, you're coming too fast, you're too low, you know, whatever. So they. They hit the ground, and it kind of looks like it's going to be fine at first. And then the landing gear just, like, rips apart from the plane and it skids along its belly, but it.

Nic

It does stop lands. Okay. And I think, you know, they did a good job of making it an actual, like, kind of suspenseful. Yeah. Landing sequence.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

I thought that was very well done in this for it being at such a goofy movie.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

Like, it was serious in that part.

Steve

You know, pulled directly from zero hour. It's exactly how the plane lands. The landing gear lands and.

Nic

No. And then they get to come down the. Oh. And a couple times during this stressful landing thing at the very beginning of it, and then a couple times during Leslie Nielsen pops into the cockpit and he just says, I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you. And he does it the exact same way at all these different weird times. So when they finally land the plane and it comes to a stop, he pops in and says it again.

Steve

Yeah. And this is. And this whole sequence has taught Elaine that Ted, you know, maybe is a stronger, braver man than he'd been lately. So it's clear that they're sort of, like, getting back together. And. Yeah. Everybody leaves the plane through the lesson. Like, you know, the inflatable slide, basically. Right. The emergency landing thing looks fun. It does look like fun. A little less. So maybe if you're going right down on a tarmac. I feel like that's a. That's a rough landing, maybe. But, yeah, so that's it. Everybody's. Everybody's landed. And then I think it's Kramer, Right. Gets on the horn with Ted and is like, ted, like, that was probably the worst landing this airport's ever seen. But a lot of people here, myself included, would like to shake your hand and buy you a beer. Which are. Which are the final words of Zero Hour. That's how that movie ends completely.

Nic

But, yeah, because then he just keeps yapping. He's talking about, like, investing municipal bonds and all this kind of the best.

Steve

Investment you can get. Municipal bonds sturdy.

Nic

And then there's some people as they're coming off the plane that are getting loaded into an ambulance, and the ambulance drives away. Then you hear the crash, and then the hubcap kind of roll back onto the screen, which is really good. Yeah. So he has a very kind of long kiss scene with Elaine. And then the last thing that they see is they look back towards the plane and the autopilot, the inflatable autopilot is there.

Steve

There.

Nic

And he looks at them out the window. He's in the. In the pilot seat. And then you see a female inflatable there, and then the plane just, like, takes off with no landing gears. Really goofy.

Steve

Yeah. Very silly.

Nic

But it seemed like at the end of this, they were kind of like, all right, we've given you enough. So, blah, blah, blah, it ends almost.

Steve

Like, how do we end it?

Nic

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Steve

It's like, we don't want to just end it. We should have, like, one last gag. Well, let's have Otto fly the plane away.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

All right. That works. Oh, man. That's airplane.

Nic

That is airplane.

Steve

Gosh darn it. That's a crazy movie. Oh, man. All right, well, I'll go ahead and give my. My two cents. First, I really like this movie. I mean, again, I saw it first when I was frankly, way too young to see it. But that's okay. It's not my fault. I was a kid. But, yeah, this is still hilarious. The gags come rapid fire. The jokes come just. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom the whole time. I really do think I really, like. Like, for myself, that I watched Zero Hour before doing this and kind of being able to watch and look at what the. You know, what did they pull straight from it? What were they clearly referencing? Because some of it is, like, pulled whole cloth, like I said, and some of it is just like, well, that. That moment in the. In the, you know, serious movie, so to speak, inspired this gag or inspired this joke. And so it's a lot of fun to kind of get that context and understand the movie a little better that way. I will say this movie really suffers from the changes in time. And I struggle sometimes with, like, how much do you sort of, like, quote, unquote, hold that against a movie? It is a product of 46 years ago. This is a movie that, you know, is a very different world in 1980 than it was today. If you think about it. You know, the Academy Award winning film, It Happened One night came out 46 years before this movie did. And that's like, ancient history at this point. I mean, it's just, you know, you're talking about the 30s, right? Like, so. So, you know, yeah, 1934 is as close to this movie as we are, which, yeah, takes a minute to totally. Right.

Nic

Yeah. And that's a good way to kind of frame it, though, that having been. To understand it a little better.

Steve

Yeah. That having been said, it still makes it harder to enjoy the movie today, some of the stuff that's in it. So I'm giving this a three out of five. I still enjoy the movie. You know, again, I would say, I like it. I don't love it. You know, some of the stuff definitely still works, and some of it really doesn't. And that's sort of like what's got me there at the. That. At that sort of the good side of middle. That's kind of where I put it. It's on the good side of middle. I'm a three out of five on airplane. What about you?

Nic

All right. Yeah. I mean, I. Your points are very well taken. And I think structurally, I. There were parts of this movie that I'm like, okay, well, you going to move it along at some point. I do want to see Zero Hours because I think that would appreciate. But I think that there's to. This is, to me, a. The sum of its parts are greater than the whole because of just the individual jokes and scenes and how much of this film is memorable. The fact that it kind of launched Leslie Nielsen into a comedy career that we both love.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

You know, and. And taking dramatic actors and having them do this, like, serious delivery of crazy lines because nobody really has a goofy delivery of anything. No, true. Everything is very earnest in this movie. And. And I really like this. This introduced me to a type of humor that I didn't know was out there and really opened up. Up possibilities. I don't like the tribe basketball thing, but I love the jive thing. And, you know, I take my coffee the way I take my men. So I don't know, maybe I live in, like, the, you know, 1993 or something like that, but I think this movie was a ton of fun. I looked back at my rating for Naked Gun to see what I gave it. I gave naked gun A4.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

And I think I get. I'm gonna give this A4, too, because this has just so much to enjoy. I don't know if.

Steve

If.

Nic

If you haven't seen it recently. I mean, it is interesting just to see what holds up and what doesn't, but there's a lot that's just, like, rock solid. That's a good joke, no matter what.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And the Leslie Nielsen part, I just love the guy. I didn't love Ted. I didn't love the main actor. Elaine's. She's okay. She's funny. Her voice sounds like a fake voice, but I think that's her real voice.

Steve

I think. I think it is. I think my issue with the two of them is that, like, Ted's not interesting enough to be the lead. And, like, no offense, I don't. I don't think Elaine is Like pretty enough to be the like love interest. They don't quite work in that way. Whereas Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves and Leslie Nielsen are all so amazing.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And so wonderfully like stunt cast for the time.

Nic

Oh, fantastic. And then Kareem. You know what, Kareem was funny in this. He's a, he's been in. I've seen him in several things and like he's a good. Yeah, he's a good actor.

Steve

Second time we've seen him because he was in Fletch.

Nic

That's right, we saw him in Fletch. And you know, there's still possibilities to see Kareem again. Yeah. So I'm a four for this. I thought this was a lot of fun.

Steve

Nice. So we are a 7 out of 10 on airplane, which is, you know, a little lower than the kind of critics consensus. But. But I think that's where we're land with it. I think that's, that's a good score for, for Airplane. And we're going to move through two dad's, two decades to the year 1981. Yeah. And it is your picnic. What 1981 movie are we watching next week?

Nic

So 1981, I kind of maybe making a turn on this one. Something unexpected because there's a lot of really big movies from 1981. But I was thinking like in the way it fits in, in the sequence of what we're doing, isn't it kind of fun to watch one that I haven't seen before? Oh, I don't know if you've seen it before.

Steve

I don't know.

Nic

But this movie is from 1981. It stars James Caan. It's a one of the early efforts directed by Michael Mann. And this one is called Thief and it's following James Caan as a, you know, a safe cracker kind of thief. I've heard it's very, very, very good.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And I want to kind of dig into these things that I might have missed. So I think this might be a fun one to talk about.

Steve

I also have never seen Thief. This will be interesting. We'll both come into it clean. I do happen to know it was actually Michael Mann's very first feature length film. At least, at least major film. So that's great. Love James Kahn. Huge fan of James Kahn, Sonny Corleone and yeah, I'm excited. It'll be fun to, to watch and, and we'll both come at it, you know, crisp and clean and kind of see, see what happens.

Nic

Fresh 2025 perspective on this film.

Steve

We'll see if it holds.

Nic

2026.

Steve

Oh my God. 2026. Dude, come on. Yeah, perfect. All right, so next week we'll watch Thief and yeah, that's a wrap. So if you like what you hear, and we hope you do, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a five star review. It really helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website@2dads1movie.com. That's the number two and the number one where you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter the rewind and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. We'd also love it if you followed us on Instagram @2dads1movie. Once again, this has been Airplane, another episode of 2Dads1movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.