Tony Maietta:
Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's Golden Age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self-delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Tony Maietta:
Brad, as a air quotes film historian, I can't tell you how much I have been looking forward to recording this episode on Battleship Potemkin. I mean, how often do you get to talk about a film from 1920, April Fool? It's not Battleship of Tim Can. It's Airplane. Airplane.

Brad Shreve:
You actually caught me off guard. I'm like, wait a minute, where's he going?

Tony Maietta:
Listeners, just for your edification. So when Brad and I always have the conversation before we start, do you have a beginning? Do I have a beginning? Sometimes Brad has one, sometimes I have one. But we don't tell each other what they are beforehand because we want to be fresh. So that's why I thought that was pretty good. I had Brad fooled. Although the people who are listening to this episode, it's gonna be listed in the contents of the episode that it's Airplane. So we're really not fooling anybody. But I had fun playing that little trick on Brad.

Tony Maietta:
That's all.

Brad Shreve:
Well, and what's funny is, you know, we do everything we can not to talk about the movie before we record, but usually somewhere in the process, we mention what movie we're gonna talk about. We didn't even do that today. That's why you caught me off guard.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, that's true. I didn't say anything.

Brad Shreve:
We logged in, we made sure the recordings were working, and we said, let's record. We did not say we're gonna talk about airplanes. So you fooled me.

Tony Maietta:
What source we had before we hit record, let me tell you right now, I don't think it has to do with the fact that Brad is in Spain. I just think it's. It is what it is.

Brad Shreve:
I think it's Tony, but that's a whole different story.

Tony Maietta:
But anyway, here we are, finally. But, Brad, I've been meaning to ask you, since you are in Spain, tell me, how's your YouTube channel going? You know, listeners, Brad has a YouTube channel about his adventures in Spain.

Brad Shreve:
I'm glad you asked. I'm more than happy to. You know, the YouTube channel. For those that are wondering, since Maurice and I moved to Spain, we decided to do a YouTube channel that pretty much is a vlog. Just tells her about our adventures. You know, we moved here sight unseen, to a little town that nobody's heard of. And it's all about our adventures of learning the town and learning about life in Spain, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, it's going really well in YouTube standards.

Brad Shreve:
So folks, please check us out. Hopefully you think it's fun. It's called our chosen Spanish Life. And we'll leave a link in the show notes. And I think Tony still has to capture catch up on some episodes.

Tony Maietta:
I do, I do. I'm a very. I'm a bad co host. Well, that's good. I'm glad. I'm glad.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, you are.

Tony Maietta:
But you know what else I gotta say is I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines. I'll tell you right now, because we have had a hell of a time with this recording. But we're back on track now to talk about. We were talking about doing a April. We realized this episode was going to drop on April 1st, and we're like, let's do a April Fool's movie. And I tell you what, I cannot think of a better definition of an April Fool's movie than Airplane, can you?

Brad Shreve:
No. And I can't think of a better April Fool's joke on us than the technical problems we're having. But, no, I think it's perfect for April Fool's Day.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue, I'll tell you right now. But we're gonna get through this. We're gonna get through this and we're gonna have a fun. Because this movie, I mean, God, this movie is fun. And it's interesting that, you know, you're in Spain, I'm in the United States, and, you know, in Europe, this movie has a different title. Did you know that?

Brad Shreve:
I heard that. I know. I'll tell you, it's a normal thing out here to have different names. Some of them are just plain crazy.

Tony Maietta:
Well, this one in Europe is called Flying High. They couldn't call it Airplane because Universal sued Paramount. Because this movie sounds a little bit like another movie that, hey, we've Talked about from 1970 called Airport. Actually, all the Airport movies. Okay? So Universal's like, no, you can't call it Airplane. So they came to the agreement. It could be called Flying High in Europe. Whatever you call this Flying High.

Tony Maietta:
Airplane, Whatever. It's just a hysterically funny, funny movie. It's just the best.

Brad Shreve:
I would think part of it is because not everybody calls it an airplane.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, that's true, too. That could be it. That could be it. But this is how they came to their agreement that they could continue with this movie.

Brad Shreve:
That makes sense.

Tony Maietta:
So for those of you who live under a rock and who've never seen Airplane, I don't know how that is from Paramount in 1981. It is probably. I think it's on the list of the second greatest comedy of all time on many lists. I mean, it's kind of silly. I mean, it really, it's. Its reputation over the years has grown and grown and grown and grown, especially since in 1981, nobody knew what the hell Zuckers and Abrams were doing with this. And now it's huge.

Brad Shreve:
I just can't imagine them and just suddenly being explosive. And the talk of Hollywood, like, from this. I can't remember the budget. It had to be cheap because it was all filmed inside of an old airplane.

Tony Maietta:
The budget was $3.5 million.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And they filmed it in a month, 34 days. Just a little over a month.

Brad Shreve:
And I really had never thought about before as I'm watching this movie, I'm like, they're just using the same set. I mean, there's very little elsewhere. Well, yeah, because my. I always wondered. I'm like, you know the scene where the airplane burst into the. Into the airport?

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm like, that's a sight gag. That is like two minutes into the movie. And that seems awfully expensive. And I'm like, they didn't have money to spend anywhere else in the film.

Tony Maietta:
And they were very, very upset about how much that cost. But it worked because they showed that clip in every single commercial for this film. So it paid off. That was a very.

Brad Shreve:
And everybody knew. As soon as that happened, they knew they were in for a wild ride.

Tony Maietta:
It's. It's crazy. It's crazy. So those of you who don't know, or if you do, I'll just refresh your memory. Airplane is a parody of the disaster film genre particularly, and this was interesting, not Airport and the Airport movies. Yes, it does reference the airport movies, but it's Based on the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour because it not only borrows the plot, it borrows the central characters and their names and some dialogue from this film. Had you ever heard of or seen Zero Hour, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
Not until I started looking into this film. I had never. And I actually would like to watch it.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the plot is exactly the same. The character's name is Stryker in both films. And basically the plot of Airplane, which is passengers on an airliner in eat some bad fish and they have to make an emergency landing, is the plot of Zero Hour. It's so funny. In fact, Zucker and Abrams, we should just call them Zaz Zucker, Abram Zucker.

Brad Shreve:
Thank you.

Tony Maietta:
Were afraid perhaps they thought they were going to have to buy the rights to Zero Hour because this film is so Much like Zero Hour, but it's not. They were able to get away with the parody of it, and that's what it is. When was the last time you saw this, Brad? Before you and I watched it for this podcast.

Brad Shreve:
It had been years. I will tell you. I had watched some reaction videos because I love watching these young folk watching these shows. And it'll be fun to get into because some of the. The gags they found either very offensive or.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And especially some that just aren't considered funny in today's standards. And like things about gladiators, but they don't find that funny at all.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, neither did Robert Graves, by the way.

Brad Shreve:
Y. And some of it's outdated. You know, there's a few jokes. For the most part, most are not Peter Griffiths. They don't get the reference.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
But, yeah, it's just fun to watch because it doesn't matter how anybody can not laugh at this film. It's. It's so. I couldn't tell you the answer other than watching clippets with. With Reaction videos.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, Peter Graves didn't find the jokes about pedophilia funny either. But I gotta tell you, there are so many things in this film which are just like, wow, this could. And it's kind of sad. This could not be made in 2025. I just. Or 2026. What year are we. I just.

Tony Maietta:
Unfortunately, I really don't think it could. Even though we have shows like south park, which is still on, and still push the envelope. And there's a lot of things that push the envelope. Some of these specific things just. You just go, ooh. I mean, you might laugh, but you. I mean, I laugh because Peter Graves is so fricking deadpan when he's asking. And you're just.

Tony Maietta:
It's so outrageous. You're like, where does this come from? But anyway, we'll get to that. We'll get to all that stuff.

Brad Shreve:
Well, and I mean, the obvious thing is that's one of the brilliant things about this film is you have these very dramatic actors that play in a deadpan.

Tony Maietta:
That's it. Exactly. That's exactly.

Brad Shreve:
If they played to the camera, it would never have worked.

Tony Maietta:
Which is kind of. I was thinking about this. It's the opposite of. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world where we had a cast of comics. Here we have a cast of very serious actors. And Zaz was. Wanted it that way. Paramount wanted them to cast it with comics.

Tony Maietta:
But they're like, no, we need the Robert Stacks. We need the Peter Graves, we need the Lloyd Bridges because they bring the gravitas, which makes it all the funnier. Makes it all the funnier.

Brad Shreve:
Exactly.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, surely you can't be serious. You know, I am serious. And don't call me Shirley. Could have been very funny with Harvey Corman, but I guarantee you it's nowhere near as funny as it is with Leslie Nielsen.

Brad Shreve:
No.

Tony Maietta:
Which is absolutely not famous. So I have. I haven't seen this movie in a long time. And I was watching it and I thought, I'm gonna time this. And there was literally a laugh, a joke every 10 seconds in this movie. I mean, it is one ridiculous joke after the other after the other. And audiences hadn't seen anything like this, really. Mel Brooks, we said this a thousand times.

Tony Maietta:
Mel Brooks, yes. But even Mel Brooks is not this outrageous and this funny and this non sequitur. Like, I mean, these jokes in Airplane come out of nowhere. You know, they say the shit hits the fan and then you see shit hitting a fan. I mean, that's just craziness. Craziness.

Brad Shreve:
You know, I think of the scene in Blazing Saddles where he's. He's riding the horse through the desert with the. The dread music. And he comes up on. Oh, my God, I can't think of the musician.

Tony Maietta:
Duke Allen. Basie. Count Basie.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. They're in the middle of the desert. That is a very. Airplane.

Tony Maietta:
That is.

Brad Shreve:
So Mel had these sprinkled in, but never did he make a movie that was non stop. That.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. It's literally every 10 seconds there's another joke. Some land, some don't. Some don't.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. And that's the beauty. Like Mel Brooks, when they don't land is so quick onto the next one.

Tony Maietta:
You don't get it. You don't have time.

Brad Shreve:
You don't have time to groan.

Tony Maietta:
So let's talk about this cast before we get into this film. Do you want to go through the cast or do you want me to go through the cast?

Brad Shreve:
Sure, I'm more than happy to. Let's start with Robert Hayes, who played Ted Stryker, who I always found very handsome. I remember him best from the TV series Angie, of course. I think I'm one of five people in the world that watched Angie.

Tony Maietta:
No, everybody knows Angie. Let the time go. Let the. I better not sing.

Brad Shreve:
It only lasted two seasons, didn't it?

Tony Maietta:
It did. But here's the wonderful and sad thing about Robert Hayes is that he books this sitcom finally Angie, and then he books this movie at the same time. So he's Got to fit his schedule filming Airplane around filming Angie, which wasn't hard. It was a month to film Airplane, but still. And then where'd he go? I know what happened to Robert Hayes. It's like you have two years where you were the hottest star in the world and this was a huge movie and he was. And then what happened to him? I mean, he still worked, he did television, he did films after this. But you would think he would have become Gene Wilder or something along those lines, you know, and not.

Tony Maietta:
Not at all.

Brad Shreve:
I was always curious as to why that happened. Then we have Julie Haggerty, who. She did some good films. She did Lost in America. What about Bob? She had a good career. I think she chose to step. I know she married a guy who Maurice actually knows through business, so he's met her and I'm presuming that's why she stepped away. She got married and was happy with her new life.

Brad Shreve:
I don't know that. I think she's done a few things here and there, but nothing like she did.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, you know, and she's wonderful in this. She is again perfect. Just like Robert Hayes. Perfect. Adorable leading characters. Yes.

Brad Shreve:
And of course we have Leslie Nielsen, who never had a huge career, but he always had these small, dramatic. He did. I can't remember the name of the sci fi film from the 50s.

Tony Maietta:
Journey, wasn't it? Journey. Planet. Forbidden Planet. Forbidden Planet.

Brad Shreve:
Forbidden Planet, yes, he did that. That was probably his main. His big primary role that I've ever heard of.

Tony Maietta:
He was in Tammy and the Bachelor with Debbie too.

Brad Shreve:
And this is the best thing that ever happened to that man.

Tony Maietta:
It certainly is.

Brad Shreve:
He shot to stardom. And don't get me started on the Naked Gun series because I will laugh non stop just thinking about it. Peter Graves, who again has done many times, he's most known for Mission Impossible as I can't remember the head of Mission Impossible. And I will never forgive the Tom Cruise film for making him the bad guy. I actually have refused to watch it since then and also because I'm not a fan of Tom. But I was so angry that they did that that I haven't watched it again. Lloyd Bridges, he did a lot of dramatic stuff. My understanding is he embraced comedy after this and watched Hot Shots.

Brad Shreve:
I haven't watched Hot Shots since it very first came out. I think it was trash, if I recall, though I can't really say that to be sure. Like I said, I'm going by memory here, so I could be totally wrong. Robert Stack, who we all know From Unsolved Mysteries, the talk about deadpan.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
He continued after this movie. He continued with that whole deadpan thing. He didn't change at all. And then we have the last major one. I mean, we have a lot. So many other celebrities and. Or just other people that played roles. Was Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Brad Shreve:
And that was a lot of fun.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. You know, it's funny. And all these people. Most. Except for Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Do you know who they originally wanted to play? He plays Officer Murdoch, one of the pilots they originally wanted. Pete Rose.

Brad Shreve:
I saw that. Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And Kareem Abdul Jabbar didn't want to do it, but there was a rug he wanted to buy, and the rug cost $30,000. And his agent said if you pay him $30,000, he'll do it.

Brad Shreve:
Are you serious?

Tony Maietta:
This is how movies get made. This is how you want a rug, do this movie. So these people are all. But as you just listed, they're all known as serious actors. You know, Robert Stack had an entire career. He was in the Untouchables. He was. He's Elliot Ness.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. I forgot. I was trying to remember what he was in.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. In fact, Zaz Zucker, Abram Zucker said that Robert Stack was their linchpin. They knew they wanted Robert Stack and everything else would fall in place because he just has that kind of Persona, that kind of very, very serious Persona. And he is brilliant in this. He plays Captain Kramer in this film, and he really is the. I mean, Leslie Nielsen, really. It's hard to top Leslie Nielsen in this, but Robert Stack is a definite close second. Definite close second.

Brad Shreve:
Well, because, Leslie, I will say. And maybe it's just because of his lines.

Tony Maietta:
He.

Brad Shreve:
I hate to say this because it was so. He played it up to the camera more than anybody else, but he really didn't. Does that make sense?

Tony Maietta:
No, I know what you mean. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
It could have been. His delivery was a little more comical than the others.

Tony Maietta:
He has an added level of awareness. It's a very, very tricky thing to do. You kind of have to have that.

Brad Shreve:
If you hear the stories about him, he's always been a character behind the scenes. I think that's. Yeah, he's a fart machine. Practical joker. Yes. He's famous for his fart machine. So I'm guessing that may be the reason. Why is he got it better than the others?

Tony Maietta:
Well, he didn't at first, though, and I want to loop around that. But first I have to give a shout out to Michael because Michael said, told me about the fart machine. I hadn't heard about that. And Michael used to work on Little House on the Prairie. And he said, yes, when, when. When Leslie Nielsen was a guest on Little House, he told them about the fart machine, how he would play it in elevators and people be looking around going, what is that? What is that? But apparently Leslie Nielsen had never done anything like this before. And the very first day of shooting was the Shirley, one of the Shirley sequences, and he wasn't getting it. And so Zaz gave him a tape of Zero Hour and said, go home and watch this and pay attention to the doctor, because there's a doctor in Zero Hour as well, and replicate his line deliveries.

Tony Maietta:
And that's what he did. And he started an entire new career on that. So he got it right away. He got it right away.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
But somebody who didn't get it right away and was having a lot of difficulties was Lloyd Bridges, which is funny that you mention that. He went on to do more and more and more. I think once these actors realized they could do this, it gave them an entirely new career in these spoofs. And Lloyd Bridges wasn't getting it. And apparently Robert Stack, he's like, I don't get these jokes. I don't understand these jokes. And. And Robert Stack took him aside and said, lloyd, we are the jokes.

Tony Maietta:
It's us. We are the jokes. And that something clicked in Lloyd Bridges when he said that to him. And he got it.

Brad Shreve:
The thing that's funny about Lloyd Bridges not getting it is he had. Because of the whole, like at the end where he's on drugs and he's floating and everything. He probably had the most ridiculous scenes.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, he did, for one of the

Brad Shreve:
straight actors, for that reason, you know, his hair standing on the end. You know, they have, you know, they obviously had to moose his hair up and.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I picked a fine week to quit, you know, sniffing glue. I picked a fine week to quit doing amphetamines. I mean, yes, he was ridiculous. And I love that scene where he's. He. He's smoking the cigarette and he puts it down. He just pauses. And then the camera pulls back and you see a photo of him doing the exact same stance.

Tony Maietta:
It's just this kind of silly, silly thing. But you didn't mention one of my favorite actors in this, and you can be forgiven. But his name is Steven Stucker.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, yes.

Tony Maietta:
And he plays air traffic controller Johnny Henshaw Jacobs. And I remember as a kid not being offended by Johnny, but being hyster Just thinking he was the most hysterical thing because he's the most flamboyant. He's just out there effeminate character. And, you know, he's. He's the one where he says he's the one where everybody knows who Johnny is. I'm hoping he's to the tower. Rapunzel. Rapunzel.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, it's just he's such a fun, fun character. And I don't particularly find him offensive at all. I find, like many of these things of their time, but very funny. Very, very funny.

Brad Shreve:
I agree. I think he's hysterical and I don't think I've ever heard of a gay person telling me that they found him offensive. Most think it's fun and over the top. I think they get the joke. What's really interesting about his character, he is probably more than any other charact, total playing it for laughs. And the reason why it works is he's the only one doing it.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, exactly. Exactly. He's. Yes. He's. He's commenting. He's doing that meta. He's doing those meta commenting things.

Tony Maietta:
You know, like I was thinking about the time when. When they're. They're looking at that newspaper. They bring the newspaper in in the tower of the airport, and the headline in the newspaper says, passenger certain to die. And then they hand it to Lloyd Bridges and he turns it over and goes, and airline neglect. And then he has to Johnny. And Johnny says, there's a sale at Penny's

Brad Shreve:
and the grieving, the troubled wife worried about her husband. He's complaining about her dress and her shoes. Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Where did you get that dress and that coat and those shoes? Oh, anyway, it's very funny. We could go on and on.

Brad Shreve:
But you know, my favorite gag that he does, and I don't think most people find it nearly as funny as I do when Ted is trying to land the plane and all the. All the Runway lights go D. Johnny holds the giant plug going, just kidding. And he plugs it back in.

Tony Maietta:
Just kidding.

Brad Shreve:
Just evil.

Tony Maietta:
Anyway, I want to give. I'm going to give just a brief background of this movie because it really is kind of interesting how Zucker, Abrams and Zucker got this together. So we're talking about Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrams and David Zucker. And they had a theater in Los Angeles called Kentucky Fried Theater. Now, if you know anything about Zaz, you know, they also made a film called Kentucky Fried. Movie was made before this. This was. That was their first movie.

Tony Maietta:
But basically what they would do in this theater Was in order to obtain comedy routines, they would tape, record audio, record late night television to get the commercials, and then they would listen to the tapes later, and then they would spoof the commercials in their teeth in their show. Well, one night they, they did that and they happened to tape record this film from 1957 called Zero Hour with Dana Andrews. It's a Paramount film and Linda Darnell. And they, they thought it would be. It was just perfect for a spoof. It was a perfect thing to spoof up. So what they, what they basically did was they took the plot, as I said, the plot, the characters aligns from Zero Hour, threw in some airport, airport 75, airport 77. And made this hysterically funny, funny movie.

Tony Maietta:
And they wrote the script around 1974. And when they first wrote it, it was called the Late show because their original concept was basically an evening of television, mostly commercials, interrupted by this spoof of Zero Hour. And they shopped it around, and they shopped it around and they couldn't get anybody interested except they finally, they finally were able to get a meeting with Paramount. And Paramount said, you know what? We like the spoof of the airplane, the airline story of Zero Hour. Maybe the film should be about that and less of the commercials. So if you notice, in Airplane there are little commercials, like the coffee commercial. Like Jim never gets a second cup of coffee at home. Jim never vomits at home.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, so there's little peppered commercials in Airplane, and that's where that comes from.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I never knew that background story. So that's really interesting. And before we leave, I need to ask about the. The coffee lady. So I read something. I don't know if I believe it or not.

Tony Maietta:
So anyway, so, yes, so the film, the film, the script was rejected by a lot of people. Finally, as I said, it finally made its way to Paramount with Michael Eisner, who was running Paramount at this time. And the original concept of the Late show was, since it's called hello, the Late show, that it was going to be in black and white and it was going to be a prop plane set in the 50s. And Eisner said, no, the film needs to be in color.

Brad Shreve:
Well, there still is a prop plane in the film. You just never see it.

Tony Maietta:
They're on a jet in the film. Airplanes. A jet. The airliner they're on is a jet.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I know, but there's a prop plane sound, if you notice, whenever they show the exterior.

Tony Maietta:
Right, right, exactly. Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. So Eisner insisted the film be shot in Color, not black and white. That it be a jetliner they're on rather than a propeller plane. And just so it'd be more identifiable to movie, to moviegoers. So they made that change, which I think is amazing because as you said, you're right. There is the sound of the propeller in the movie. Oh, it's so funny.

Tony Maietta:
It's such a great movie. Do you want to tell people a little bit about what the movie's about? I kind of gave a bare bones synopsis of it.

Brad Shreve:
Well, yeah, it's. It's a pretty easy film. It's. Stryker is a pilot from the war. And it's a very convoluted. Wherever this war happened and when it happened.

Tony Maietta:
Sometimes it's World War I in flashbacks, it's World War I, it's World War II, it's all kinds of wars.

Brad Shreve:
But he was in the war. He has PTSD from a squadron that he handled. And so anyway, he is on the plane to chase after his beloved who has broken up with him because of his troubles from his ptsd. And just so happens that this plane, they were serving bad fish and the entire cockpit crew ate the fish. And so Ted was left to fly. There's only one person, and that's really. He was the only person that could fly the plane. And then everything else.

Brad Shreve:
Comedy ensues, but played straight.

Tony Maietta:
He had some kind of unknown trauma during the war that included Robert Stack. Robert Stack was involved in it. We're not really sure what the trauma was, but he was dating Julie Haggerty at the time. His. The character that Julie Haggerty's playing. And so they're broken up. Julie. Julie Hagadry.

Brad Shreve:
No, it said what the. It said what the trauma was from.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, that's right. It was zip. Lieutenant. Zip. Lieutenant Zip.

Brad Shreve:
Well, the trauma was he led a mission and pretty much almost everybody died if not everybody else died.

Tony Maietta:
Right. I'm sorry, you're right, you're right, you're right. So Julie Haggerty, who plays Elaine and he had a romance and she. And they've broken up and he's chasing after her and that's why he's going on this airplane. That's why he's on this flight and that's why he's there. And of course, in the process of the film, because he saves these passengers because they're all. They all have food poisoning from this fish. He saves their lives.

Tony Maietta:
He's a hero again. And of course they end up together at the end, which is basically the. The plot in Zero Hour is very similar. Dana Andrews is chasing after his wife in Zero Hour, but he has to land the plane because people ate bad fish.

Brad Shreve:
And, you know, that's one of the beauties of this film, too. Both from a comedy standpoint and following along the lines of disaster films is once it's resolved, in the end, it's over.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, it does end like that.

Brad Shreve:
This whole, what happens next? Let's resolve the romance. It's just over. They land, they get off the plane, and that's the end of the film.

Tony Maietta:
Except for that one guy at the end of the credits who's still waiting for him to come. I'm gonna give him five more minutes and I want to talk about that at the end so I have the information on that. I love that.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I know the guy.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. So did you know the role of Ted Stryker, Robert Hayes role was originally written the person they had in mind. Do you have an idea?

Brad Shreve:
No, that I did not see.

Tony Maietta:
It was written with David Letterman in mind because David Letterman was acting at this time, too, and he actually auditioned for it and he didn't get it, obviously. And later on, when Abram Zucker were on the David Letterman show, they showed his audition. Isn't that funny?

Brad Shreve:
You know, I did hear that years and years and years ago.

Tony Maietta:
Other people that were considered were Chevy Chase, Barry Manilow, Bill Murray, Fred Willard and then Bruce. Now Caitlyn Jenner all read for this part and were considered for this part. But I think they made the absolute right choice with Robert Hayes. I think he has just the right amount. He's adorable, he's handsome, he's kind of rugged, if you really want to push it. He could be rugged, but he's a total leading man. But he's so funny. He's got that knowledge, kind of like Leslie Nielsen, where there's that added level of awareness that they know it's a comedy, but they're playing it so serious.

Tony Maietta:
And that's the trickiest thing in the world, is to have that added level of awareness that, yeah, it's a comedy, but I'm playing it very serious. I'm playing it very serious.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Who could take a glass and put it up to the side of their face and play it straight?

Tony Maietta:
It's crazy. As I said, Zaz always wanted Robert Stack. They fought for Robert Stack. He really wasn't interested, but they persuaded him. Lloyd Bridges was advised by his kids. Do you know who Lloyd Bridges children are?

Brad Shreve:
Yes, Jeff.

Tony Maietta:
Jeff Bridges. And what's that?

Brad Shreve:
Other Bridges. I am drawing a blank I feel bad for. How can I forget Bo? I'm embarrassed.

Tony Maietta:
It's okay. You're forgiven. It's what, 3:00am There? Their children loved it. They loved it. They convinced him to do it. He had never done anything like this before. And he had a wonderful career after this doing this kind of stuff. As I said, Peter Graves did not want to do it because he thought it was tasteless, but his wife convinced him to do it.

Tony Maietta:
And Peter Graves didn't understand these jokes. Like, have you ever seen a grown man naked? You know, and they said, I don't. And he said, don't worry about it, Graves. It'll be explained to you later on in the script. And of course, it never is. He just keeps saying the most ridiculous things. Have you ever been in a Turkish prison? Things like, we might as well tell people. What is it exactly that Peter Graves was objecting to with these comments?

Brad Shreve:
They are pedophilia jokes. And that's why I said it doesn't go over today when I watch these younger folk watching these. Because this is a really bad thing to say. Pedophilia is not funny anymore. And I meant in the sense that we are a lot more sensitive to those kind of things, as we probably should be.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
You know what makes me think of is there was a skit on Saturday Night Live where Buck Henry was the uncle, and whenever he would babysit, the girls would slide down banisters and he would take pictures. And that would never happen today. Yeah, we thought it was funny.

Tony Maietta:
I think that that's probably the most objectionable thing about Airplane is the fact that they are joking about this. What happens is the little boy in. The little boy who's on the plane comes up to the cockpit, and the little boy who looks amazingly like the kid from Poseidon Adventure. Did you get that? I'm like, they cast this kid because he looks just like the kid in the Poseidon Adventure. And Peter Graves, who's so serious, makes these outrageous comments about seeing grown men naked, about being in a Turkish prison. And, yeah, it's pretty squirmy now to watch that. The only reason it works is because of Peter Graves. Because Peter Graves.

Tony Maietta:
It just. When Peter Graves says it, for some reason, it doesn't seem like he knows what he's saying. Or maybe I'm just. Maybe I'm way off base here. I mean, it's tasteless no matter how you look at it. It's cringy, but it's in there. It's in the movie.

Brad Shreve:
I also think what Part of what makes it okay is the situation. It's not harmless, but he's in a cockpit. There's always at least two, sometimes three other people there. So he can make these references, but that's as far as, you know, needless

Tony Maietta:
to say, would never fly today.

Brad Shreve:
But I'm sorry. They are fun. They are funny. I laugh every time. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. Yeah, with no apologies.

Tony Maietta:
Would never fly today, obviously, but this is 1981, and it. It was. Apparently audiences loved it back then. But the next joke comes so fast that you forget all about it. Some of the people who were considered for the Doctor before Leslie Nielsen were Christopher Lee, Jack Webb, Dom DeLuise, if you can believe that, before they landed on the perfect, perfect person, Mr. Leslie Nielsen, who, I mean, absolutely, if anybody steals this movie is Leslie Nielsen, obviously. Hello. He made an entire career out of doing this.

Tony Maietta:
For the rest of his. For the rest of his life, he

Brad Shreve:
was doing movies, and rightfully so. You know, I couldn't picture Jack Webb in that, but, boy, he would have been perfect in this film.

Tony Maietta:
He would have been. He would have been, as we said, based on this film Zero Hour, which was written by Arthur Haley, who also wrote Airport. So they really were kind of plagiarizing Arthur Haley all around here. They were making fun of Arthur Haley when they were making this film, but they weren't really making fun of the film. They were making fun of that very serious style of acting that you see in those films. I'm a big Dana Andrews fan. Dana Andrews was the. Was played.

Tony Maietta:
Ted played Stryker in Zero Hour, but he has a deadly serious manner that you see replicated in Airplane. And that's really what they're poking fun at. And they're also picking fun at TV commercials and the ridiculousness of that. And it's. Yeah, it's. It's all these things it's making fun of. But, Brad, we haven't gotten to. I know it's my favorite part of the film, and I think it might be one of your.

Tony Maietta:
If you're not your favorite, your almost favorite. And it features a woman we've talked about before who you love as a couple. Oh, do you want to tell the people that?

Brad Shreve:
Is that. Actually, it gets me the biggest laugh in the whole film.

Tony Maietta:
It does me, too. It does me, too.

Brad Shreve:
Every time I see it, it's such a great joke. And what the scene is, is Ted is in the psychiatric hospital.

Tony Maietta:
A flashback.

Brad Shreve:
It's from the 1940s. Yeah. He's a flashback to psychiatric hospital from the 1940s now. So he was obviously, probably he lived. Let's just say he looked really good for his age. If that was.

Tony Maietta:
Well, there is no time. We should probably say there's no time line in Arab. One of the funniest things about it is it's got attitudes of the 50s, because the original script they wrote took place in the 50s, so they just kept it all in 70s fashion. 50s fashions. It's all blended. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
So anyway, he's in psychiatric hospital and he's talking about the different patients and what's wrong with them? Because Julie Haggerty's character is asking, and then she's like, well, what happened to him? And he says, that's private. So and so he thinks he's Ethel Merman. And it cuts over and there is Ethel Merman. She throws off her bedspread and jumps up in the scene. Everything's coming up roses. And they grab her and they put her down and she's like, everything come.

Tony Maietta:
It is. It's indicative of. What is so great about this movie is it's out of left field. What's that noise? Oh, that's Lieutenant Hurwitz. He thinks he's Ethel Merman. Camera cuts. It's Ethel Merman. You'll be swell.

Tony Maietta:
You'll be great. And I mean, full throttle. Ethel Merman belting that out. And then. Yes, then they sedater. I. I still laugh every time I see it. I laugh because it's.

Tony Maietta:
I know it's coming, but I know it's brilliant. It's this kind of crazy non sequitur humor that's throughout Airplane that makes it so funny. It's like when the plane is gonna land and it's jiggling and you see that jello jiggle. And then the camera moves and you see that woman's breast jiggle. The woman. They're going in the crash landing and the woman's putting on her makeup. And I believe that was Zucker's mother. Straight to.

Tony Maietta:
She's putting on her makeup through the whole movie. She keeps putting on her makeup, putting on her lipstick, her eyebrows. The plane is crashing and she's putting on her. Her eyebrow pencil. It's. And she leaves at the very end. And her face looks like, you know, it's got the spears of makeup all over it. Oh, it's so silly.

Brad Shreve:
There's another joke that I probably like, equal to Ethel Merman. And we're jumping all over the place, which is really hard not to do with this film.

Tony Maietta:
There's no. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And again, I don't know if other people find it as funny, but when the plane is crash landing and they're like, you know, it's coming in at gate four. Oh, gate five, gate six. And people are going there. And then it's like gate 12, Gwade 13, and people running downhill. It's so ridiculous. I crack up every time I see that.

Tony Maietta:
This is what was so outrageous about this movie and why people didn't get it. Because there is no, there's not a shred of reality in this. There's nothing for anybody to grab onto and say. When we talked about screwball comedy, and I say, you know, you have to have somebody to identify with so you can go into this crazy world. It's kind of like there is not one single thing that makes sense in this film. There are little individual things that, yes, obviously, but the thrust of the narrative makes absolutely no sense. And it absolutely does not matter because it's just funny. Funny, funny, funny.

Brad Shreve:
But you don't need the straight character because they really all are, it's the,

Tony Maietta:
they're all straight characters.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, it's the circumstances that are absurd. Not the characters.

Tony Maietta:
It's just, but these things that, you know, you just throw every, you suspend every single disbelief you have when you watch this movie. And it's, that's what makes it so much fun and it makes it so delicious. One of my favorite scenes that I also laugh out loud as features one of the icons of classic 50s television. Yes, Mrs. Leave it to Beaver herself, Barbara Billingsley. Barbara Billingsley is not only a talented actress, she also speaks jive. Stewardess. I speak jive because there's, because that's

Brad Shreve:
of Leon that lived the next block over from the Cleaver family. But

Tony Maietta:
there are two actors or two African American men on the plane who basically. And this could also be problematic in 2026. I don't think so, but maybe who speak a form of English which only they understand. And the stewardess is trying to communicate with them. And that's when Barbara Billingsley, the most milquetoast white bread pearls, you know, she's. Mrs. Leave it to Beaver comes up and says, stewardess, I speak jive. And she communicates with them.

Tony Maietta:
And to see Barbara Billingsley get down and do this jive talk with these two actors is hysterically funny. It's so funny, I, I, I scream every time I see that.

Brad Shreve:
And then when she's, when they make her angry and she's walking away, she goes,

Tony Maietta:
No, she says what she says Is Jah. That dude ain't got no brains anyhow. Shit. Cut me some slack, Jack.

Brad Shreve:
I heard this long ago. I didn't read it and just. I meant to look it up before to see if it was true. My understanding is it was offered to Harriet Nelson and she did not want to do it. And later she said, I regret it. Well, yeah.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, my God. I mean, I don't know about that. It sounds true. I mean, they obviously wanted to get her or Donna Reid or Harriet Nelson. I mean, I don't think Donna Reed would have done it. Yeah, she was still alive. She was Miss Ellie on Dallas at this time or close to it.

Brad Shreve:
I don't think it would have worked. Because as popular as Ozzie and Harriet was, it did not carry over into, like, the reruns in the 70s as Potter is Leave it to Beaver. So I don't think it would have worked nearly as well.

Tony Maietta:
What's really amazing about the two Jive brothers, I'm going to call them, because if you remember, this was not long after Shaft. So this was very much in the Zeitgeist at the time is these two actors, when they came to audition, they came together and they came to audition and Zucker, Abram Zucker, just wrote in the script Jive Talk. So these guys actually improvised this. So these lines. How about. That's your way. That's the way to get into a movie, folks, right there. So these guys made this up.

Tony Maietta:
And what we listen to them saying in those is basically what they wrote. So isn't that incredible? I mean, you know, chump don't want the help, Chump don't get the help. I mean, it's just. It's brilliant. It's. It's so much fun. And to see Barbara Billingsley get down with him in the jive talk is one of the highlights of this movie. It's one of the highlights of this

Brad Shreve:
movie, to me, partially because that's the first time you see her. Because they're sitting there and the waitress is confused, and all of a sudden there's June Cleaver. Excuse me, stewardess. I speak jive.

Tony Maietta:
I speak jive.

Brad Shreve:
What the fuck? But, you know, I will say that is something that did not. Is not timeless. Because I've watched people watching that today, and they're like, did people talk that way before? They're really confused by it. They don't understand what that is and why it would be funny because it makes no sense to them.

Tony Maietta:
I think you have to have the knowledge of Shaft and All those blaxploitation movies in the 70s, to find that, to understand that humor and the fact that you have the whitest lady in the world coming up and communicating with them. Jump. Don't want the help, chump. Don't get the help. I think is. It's a genius, genius thing. What are some of your favorite moments in this movie? Any other ones that we haven't talked about?

Brad Shreve:
You know, there's so many, it's hard to pin them down. But some of them, to me, that are the most funny are probably not as funny to most people. And it's because they go so fast.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Like when Stryker says something and he says, all together. And then Leslie Nielsen and the other flight attendant say, repeat what he just said. Because he just said all together. And it's so fast. I don't think a lot of people have time to realize, like, why did they just say that?

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
And then it goes on to. It's those little nuggets that I find the funniest.

Tony Maietta:
It is. And, you know, those most iconic lines are funny because people are saying things and people are taking them at face value. I mean, everything is literal. Everything is literal. The most iconic one of all is when Leslie Nielsen says, can you fly this plane and land it? And Robert Hayes says, surely we can't be serious. And Leslie Nielsen says, I am serious and don't call me Shirley, and walks out. I mean, it's. You know, everybody knows that line from this movie.

Tony Maietta:
Everybody knows. But some of the ones that I laughed out loud at, that I had forgotten, is again, Leslie Nielsen. And Peter Graves, he takes him assigned, and he says, how soon can you land? And Peter Graves says, oh, I love that. Peter Graves says, I can't tell. And Leslie Nielsen says, you can tell me. I'm a doctor.

Brad Shreve:
He's like, in two hours. You can't tell me for two hours.

Tony Maietta:
And then another one that Leslie Nielsen says is, you better tell the captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has got to get to a hospital. And Julie Haggerty says, a hospital? What is it? It's a big building with patience, but that's not important right now.

Brad Shreve:
And one that's not spoken and it just is so absurd is Julie Haggerty walks up. You haven't seen. It's the first time we see Leslie Nelson. She walks up, you only see her, and she says, excuse me, sir, are you a doctor? And there's Leslie Nelson sitting there with the stethoscope. You know, every Doctor has it on their head at all times.

Tony Maietta:
Oh my God. It's just. Yeah, it's just one after the other after the other. And that's what's so great about it is these things happen so fast that even if you didn't get the last one, you get the next one. You get the next one, you get the next one. Or if it doesn't land, there's one right behind it 10 seconds later.

Brad Shreve:
To highlight how great this film is, let's talk about some of the things that in your opinion didn't work.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, okay.

Brad Shreve:
I have two in mind.

Tony Maietta:
You go for it. What didn't work for you?

Brad Shreve:
The first one that people find hysterical and I, and actually I heard my understands the studio when it cut was the autopilot. Of course I think it was funny at first. When they first brought him out, it was funny but that should have been the end of it. It should have been a one time joke.

Tony Maietta:
A one time joke. What about the end though? The very end.

Brad Shreve:
The end. I actually hated that the most.

Tony Maietta:
Tell the people what you were talking

Brad Shreve:
about at the end. Okay.

Tony Maietta:
No, tell them from the beginning. Tell them about.

Brad Shreve:
Yes Am So the. When the plane is going out of control because the whole flight crew is there and Julie Hagerty's character, who I can't remember her name is Elaine, in the cockpit the autopilot comes on and the autopilot is basically a blow up doll. Not, not a sexual kind of blow up doll, but looks like a pilot. Pilot.

Tony Maietta:
With a silly grin on his face.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, with a big. Well, he didn't have the grin on his face till she had to blow him back up because he deflated but. And the movie ends where he is sitting in the cockpit because everybody's deplaned at that point on the tarmac. He is on the plane and he salutes and then this female balloon or doll pops up in the cut in the co pilot seat and they fly away. And that it was too cartoonish for me. It didn't fit in a movie that was taken very seriously. That's my opinion. I actually.

Brad Shreve:
It didn't ruin the movie in any way, shape or form and I thought it was funny. When he first popped up. I think the gag ran too long. The other thing that I think hurt the movie and to me it's the only really drag in the film is the flashback to the bar where the couple met. There are some hysterical, hysterical moments in there, but the scene was way, way too long.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I would agree with you on that. The scene was very long. The thing with the two Girl scouts basically destroying each other and destroying the bar is very funny. But it goes on way too long.

Brad Shreve:
There are moments of greatness in it. The scene in general is not bad. I just think it went on too long. The whole Saturday night. The Saturday Night Fever song coming on. The guy with his knife in his back, you know, pinch me. And I hope people understand. I'm very quickly going through these jokes.

Brad Shreve:
If you haven't watched this, we just run this film for you. Hopefully you know what we're talking about. Why would you describe every one of these? All of those are funny. It's just that whole scene in general, and it was to set up their falling in love. I get that. But it actually, you know what? Their. Their whole dance routine, that's what I think went on.

Tony Maietta:
It's a bit much. I would agree with you.

Brad Shreve:
Juggling the balls and she's throwing him through the air. That is the part I think that could have been cut.

Tony Maietta:
I would agree with you on that. I. I have less. What my. My things are. Are. I don't know. Not dislike them.

Tony Maietta:
I just think that you have to have been born in that era to understand it. Like when Peter Graves wife is awakened in the middle of the night and she's on the phone and she turns a light on and she's got a horse in bed with her. A real alive horse. You know, thinking a little bit about the Godfather and the dead horse. There's that. The Sarah, the Saturday Night Live illusions. When I mean Saturday Night Fever. What I say Saturday Night Live.

Tony Maietta:
Saturday Night Fever. Unless you knew that, then that joke kind of falls flat. How about when the plane is coming in for the landing and you see the radio tower and it says wkrr, where disco never dies and the airplane cuts off the antenna and it dies.

Brad Shreve:
That's the only joke that I can think of that they should have known that would be dated very quickly.

Tony Maietta:
Well, there's a bunch of things. The coffee thing and the gym never has a second cup of coffee at home. So it's still funny if you. In itself. But unless you know the commercial. The commercial is really. It makes it really funny. If you know the commercial.

Brad Shreve:
Jim never vomits at home. That's only funny if you really know that coffee commercial. And that's something I wanted to ask you that I'd heard is the woman playing that role is the same woman that played the coffee commercial.

Tony Maietta:
I don't know that it is what

Brad Shreve:
I heard that I have a hard time Believing this is the part I have a hard time believing. I think I wouldn't surprise me because it is definitely a very similar voice. What I heard is she says that they didn't even know when they hired her that she was that coffee voice. And I'm like, there is no way.

Tony Maietta:
Well, you know, stranger things have happened in Hollywood. That very well could be true. It sounds a bit far fetched, but she is perfect. She's perfect for that.

Brad Shreve:
She was.

Tony Maietta:
You know, they're just.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, another of my favorite jokes I gotta give because that woman's involved.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, I know which one you're gonna say.

Brad Shreve:
When the flight attendant, she says, I'm 30 and I've never been married. She comes up and she says, well,

Tony Maietta:
set it up, set it up, set it up, set it up for people.

Brad Shreve:
I wish I could remember that second flight attendant. She didn't do much acting after this film. And I absolutely adored her in this film.

Tony Maietta:
First of all, her name is Lorna Patterson. She plays Randy. The flight attendant.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, Randy the flight attendant. And Randy is upset because, you know, they. They were all worried that they're gonna die. And she's crying to Leslie Nelson's character and saying that, you know, she's 26 and has never been married and she's terrified. And it was at that moment. Yes. And at that moment, the coffee lady walks up, the woman saying, talking about her husband never gets a second cup of coffee. And she's talking to the doctor and asking everything's okay.

Brad Shreve:
And he says, while Randy is standing there and he says, so how are you doing? She's like, something of the nature. We're holding up and thank God I at least have a husband. Of course, Randy breaks into tears.

Tony Maietta:
Well, what's funny is she says the exact same thing Randy does. You know, I'm terrified and I'm not even. I'm 26 and I'm not even married. And then she comes up and says, I'm terrified, but at least I have a husband, and walks out. That's great. That's great. Lorna Patterson did do some acting after this, so she had a career. She did the TV version of Private Benjamin.

Tony Maietta:
There's a deep cut for you folks,

Brad Shreve:
but I don't think she did much.

Tony Maietta:
You didn't even know there was one, did you?

Brad Shreve:
I remember that, but I don't think she did much after that. I could be wrong.

Tony Maietta:
A lot of these people, Robert Hayes, Julie Haggerty, I mean, we're just asking this why they had careers after this. Julie Haggerty in particular as you named some, you know, Lost in America and some wonderful stuff. But you, you would have expected them to really go on like Zucker, Abram Zucker did, because you can imagine after this thing was released and made $180 million on a 3 million dollar budget, they were the hottest things in Hollywood. And of course, as we've said before, they went on to make Ruthless People. They made Top Secret Jim Abrams, they eventually split and Jim Abrams went to did big business, which we just talked about last year on the show. So they had quite the career. The actors, unfortunately, you know, the younger actors didn't as much, which I think is kind of, it's sad because these were talented, talented people. They had careers.

Tony Maietta:
They just didn't, you know, they didn't explode like you would imagine they would have.

Brad Shreve:
And I want to talk about Zaz because there's something about them that I find fascinating and I have the utmost respect for them because they did something that never happens in Hollywood. They all went their own ways and it was done cordially and agreed upon because they all wanted to do their own thing. And they're just like, okay, we're done. We've done as good as we can. We're never going to top this. We all want to do our own thing. Let's go do it. I'm sure there was probably some tension, but for the most part it was, you know, usually there's some infighting and two people never work again together and none of that, none of that at all.

Brad Shreve:
But before they broke up, they did do one of my favorite movies. And it's a big argument between these two films and I, I think they're both valid for different reasons. I absolutely love the Naked Gun series. Unlike this movie, which does make me laugh, every one of the Naked Gun jokes still lands perfectly on me and I laugh non stop. Ruthless People is another one I really love. Now, I don't know what your thoughts on it. I do kind of do want to talk about what basically people's thoughts are.

Tony Maietta:
So. Yes. So they made the original Police Squad is what you're talking about with Leslie Nielsen, which then spurned the Naked Gun TV show. But yes, I don't know if he

Brad Shreve:
was on the series. I don't think he was on Police Squad, but they brought him in for the Naked Gun series. I could be wrong about that because I never watched Police Squad. It didn't last. It wasn't a, it wasn't a good.

Tony Maietta:
No, Leslie Nielsen was in. Was in.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, was he it wasn't a very good thing for television, so it didn't work. But it made a brilliant film. And here's. I can tell you, I did a lot of digging into reviews on these two films and here's what I've seen as the consensus. Critics have a huge respect for Airplane because it was groundbreaking and it was so brilliantly written. And I think everybody will always love Airplane. Audiences watch Naked Gun more frequently over and over and over again because it's sillier in a lot of sense. And I think a lot of the reason has to do is Airplane doesn't last in the sense that we talked about some of the things that are somewhat dated a little bit.

Brad Shreve:
But if there's one thing that's really dated, it's that old disaster films, those went away, but the series, the other series was cop shows and they stood on their own by themselves. There wasn't. There's some dated, but that's why I really prefer that one. If I have to go back and watch them, I prefer the Naked Gun.

Tony Maietta:
No, you're right. I mean. And how about. They created. But they created the. The template. The ultimate. The granddaddy, as we said so many times.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, yeah, yeah. These spoof films. Yes. They also went on. And maybe the Naked Gun slash Police Squad franchise is a little more identifiable to you. You got to give it up to Zaz for going out there originally with this idea that nobody wanted. And thank God Paramount, Michael Eisner had the foresight to say, no, I think there's something here. I think there's something here because it's just hysterically funny.

Tony Maietta:
Funny. It's the template for all the rest of it. All the rest of this stuff.

Brad Shreve:
That's the reason why Airplane is taught so heavily in film school. Whereas I don't know if the Naked Gun is not. But I know they really go into Airplane because it's so brilliantly written.

Tony Maietta:
So you talked about the. You think the movie's over. And we get to the end credits and there's one last thing. There's that customer that Robert Hayes dropped off at the airport. And he looks at his watch and says, well, I'll give him another 20 minutes, but that's it. He's been in that cab this whole time waiting for him to come back. You said you had something you want to say about that.

Brad Shreve:
I can't remember his name now. It escapes me. He was the guy that did the bag.

Tony Maietta:
Howard Jarvis.

Brad Shreve:
Howard Jarvis.

Tony Maietta:
His name's Howard Jarvis.

Brad Shreve:
Anti tax thing in. During the 70s in California, I think that they made it so that the public has to vote on tax increases. I remember he was huge nationwide from. Because of his activism.

Tony Maietta:
Right. But you know what that is? That's something that we said before that modern audiences may not get that reference, but it's a funny, funny joke. This guy, just the way he looks and he says it has been waiting an hour and a half for this cab driver to come back and I'll give him another 20 minutes.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I mean it's. You don't have. I mean, if you know who he is, it adds to the joke. But you don't have to know. It's a man stupidly sitting for hours in a cab waiting for the driver to come back will be funny no matter who, who plays that role.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, it's just funny. It's funny. So when they finished this movie, as I said, it took 34 days to film. And what they would do is, and this is very smart too, is they would preview it at colleges and universities and audio again, zaz with the audio tapes would audiotape the audience's reaction. And that's how they would make their cuts. That's how they would actually cut the movie by the laughs. Why that joke hit. That joke didn't hit.

Tony Maietta:
And they. That's incredible. It's amazing. But they had the very first showing at Paramount. Eisner wanted the very first showing in this film at Paramount. Now it's really hard to premiere a movie at a movie theater with all these hard bitten studio executives because they don't laugh. You know, it's just not the best idea. But Eisner wanted it, so they did it.

Tony Maietta:
But what was really terrible was the projectionist got the reels mixed up and reel four was skipped. And apparently one of the Zucker or Abins ran up and said, stop the film. Stop the film. And put, put it back in order. But what happened was, was that the joke about the shit hitting the fan then happened twice. Oh, and apparently a disgruntled moviegoer came up to them and said afterwards, I like this shit in the fan joke, but you shouldn't do it twice. So yes, it eventually premiered in Toronto and buffalo. It grossed $83 million in the US and it became the fourth highest rated grossing film of 1980.

Tony Maietta:
I'm doing your job here. What are the numbers on this, Brad? What numbers do you have?

Brad Shreve:
I have that was made for three and a half million, which we discussed. I'm showing that the worldwide gross was somewhere between 130 to 160 million.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. Yes. My. My gross was in the US and Canada, so. Yes. Adding in Europe, that's what we got. That's where we got yours. That's where you got yours.

Brad Shreve:
And then I'll talk about the critics score, and this is one that will. You know, when you think of how ridiculously silly you could see, I always. You know me, I always think of Rex Reed, and when a snot he was, you know, if it wasn't long and boring, he hated the film. So when I see critic scores like this, the critic score was actually 97%. The audience score is 89. So the critics, as much as people love and adore this film, the critics love it anymore. And I think because of the historical values, I think why.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I think so, too. I agree with you. I agree with you. You know, and there were sequels, of course there were, but not by ZAZ. Not by ZAZ. There was Airplane 2, which was released in 1982. And I think that there was. Most of the cast was in Airplane 2.

Tony Maietta:
The writer and director, Abrams and Zuckerberg were not involved in Airplane two. And I think that was probably the best. Yes. You know, it's.

Brad Shreve:
Well, no, maybe they could have saved that garbage, but. Because it never should have had a sequel. But my God, that second movie, you know what? It. It doesn't even exist in my head. Doesn't exist.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, Lord, it doesn't exist. Doesn't. But anyway, well, that was our April Fools movie. I don't think we fooled anybody. Maybe I fooled Brad a little bit in the beginning, but. Brad, is there anything else you want to say about Airplane or the podcast or anything else else?

Brad Shreve:
Well, I do. I want to bring up a nice email that we got.

Tony Maietta:
Oh.

Brad Shreve:
From Ellen in Toronto. And she addressed it to me, but it was about you.

Tony Maietta:
Okay, I'll take it.

Brad Shreve:
Love you, Ellen. That's okay. Anyway, because we had a good exchange. She said, I'm contacting you, let you know how much I enjoy going Hollywood, and. But she does say the one episode in particular that she really enjoyed was the Lucy in London.

Tony Maietta:
That's wonderful.

Brad Shreve:
Huge Lucy fan, and I love her already.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, she loves Tony Newley. Oh, like Lucy's cousin Cleo. That's great. That's great. Thank you.

Brad Shreve:
The biggest news for you is she has requested something that you and I have talked about numerous times that we're gonna do, so she has locked it in that we must do it, and that is the Dick Van Dyke Show. We have been talking about that since we did Mary Tyler Moore.

Tony Maietta:
Done. Da da da da da da da da da da. Yep. But it's going to happen. Thank you so much for that email. We so appreciate it. See, people, all you got to do is ask and we're going to do our damnedest to make it happen. We have a couple more that were coming up soon that were requests as well, but that's excited.

Tony Maietta:
I'm happy to be talking about the Dick Van Dyke Show.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, absolutely. So aside from that, again, like I said last week, we're really happy that you're back with us after our hiatus. And hopefully, if you are listening to us right now, it means that you enjoy the show. So please rate and review, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get this podcast. And if you're new to the show, I hope you love and adore us, as everyone should, Please subscribe.

Tony Maietta:
That's right.

Brad Shreve:
We aren't going to ask that you rate and review. We'll let you watch a few times. But actually, I say subscribe. I'm sorry. They have changed it. It's now a follow button on most apps. So hit the follow button.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, it's great. It's great to be back for our third season. It's kind of interesting. As everybody knows, Brad is in Spain, I am in California. And so we're making it work. We're making it work. But aside from technical difficulties, as much as fun as it was to talk about this movie, I got to tell you, I'm exhausted. I haven't felt this awful since we saw that Ronald Reagan film.

Tony Maietta:
That's from the movie. We didn't talk about a Ronald Reagan.

Brad Shreve:
No.

Tony Maietta:
So I guess that leaves us with just one thing left to say. But I don't want to say it. So let's not say goodbye. Let's say, cut me some slack, Jack.

Brad Shreve:
No. Let's say goodbye.

Tony Maietta:
Chump don't want the help. Chump don't get the help. Bye, everybody.