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When they shot "Airplane!" on the Universal backlot, it's unlikely that the Zucker brothers (Jerry and David) and Jim Abrahams expected the spoof would be analyzed and immortalized in the Sunday New York Times thirty years later. But here we are. Writer Matt Zoller Seitz calls "Airplane!" a "compact, even classical piece of filmmaking."
Within months of its release in July 1980 “Airplane!” became the highest-grossing comedy in box office history, a distinction that held until “Ghostbusters” came along in 1984. And it remains one of the most influential. Its anything-goes slapstick and furious pop culture riffs can be seen in the 20-gags-a-minute relentlessness of “The Simpsons,” “South Park” and “Family Guy” and grab-bag big-screen parodies like “Epic Movie, “Date Movie” and the “Scary Movie” franchise (the third and fourth installments of which were directed by none other than David Zucker). It also inspired “Airplane II: The Sequel” in 1982....The plentiful pop cultural references and anything-for-a-laugh attitude of “Airplane!” recalled early films by Mel Brooks (“Blazing Saddles”) and Woody Allen (“Bananas”). But its velocity and density were new. Every scene was packed with surreal, often faintly metafictional sight gags (including a supporting turn by the N.B.A. giant Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a co-pilot who denies that he’s really Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and a cameo by Ethel Merman playing a psychiatric patient who thinks he’s Ethel Merman). And the film proudly served up jokes so astoundingly corny that they somehow managed to circle around the bend and become hilarious. (“Surely you can’t be serious.” “I am serious — and don’t call me Shirley!”)
Photo of Julie Hagerty, Abdul-Jabbar, Leslie Nielsen and Peter Graves: Paramount via New York Times