Episode 00: Airplane! (1980)

Alice Wahid color story. Let's Lee Knew kicked her long weight? Qushnas bro stand by for the most extraordinary chain of events ever swept up into high adventure. Hey Larry, where's the fort Clift? Part Clift with the Vaga water Airplane?

Airplane is drama. There's a doctor Brodie at the Mayo Clinic. There's a passenger on your Chicago flight two O nine or a little girl named Lisa Davis en route to Minneapolis. She scheduled for a heart transplant. I want you to make sure that she's kept in a reclined position and that a continuous watch is kept r IV airplane is action.

Airplane is romance. I love you. Elane Airplane is music. There is only one river, there is only one seed. Airplane is dancing.

Never has the spoon been so big? Have you ever been in a cockpit before, Sir, I've never been up in a room before. Peter Graves seen a grown man naked. Kareem abdul Jabbar. My name is Roger Murdoch.

I'm an airline pilot. Leslie Nielsen. This woman has to be got into a hospital. Whispital that's a big building with patience. That's not important right now.

Lloyd Bridges, Johnny, look you they got an issue this black nick hat for a brooch for pterodiacical people. Robert Stack all right, Steven's face, a few facts and we hope you enjoy the rest of your flight. Julie Haggarty, By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane? Can you fly this plane and landed? Robert Hayes.

Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't call me Shirley. I gotta get out of here. Get out of here. Don't get a hell of yourself.

Please let me hang. I'll get back to your seat. I'll take care of this down here. Do you want on the floor? Everything's yourself made?

Day? Oh? I know everybody getting crash positions. The most incredible adventure the screen has ever created. Spillers the Big News Airplane from the files of Police Squad in Color.

This is a new podcast hosted by Me, Mike White, Mark Begley, and Chris Dash who say hello, gentlemen, Hello, gentlemen. Perfect, perfect. This is the kind of show where that's the response that you're gonna get. I was hoping so I was really hoping. On this podcast, we are talking about Police Squad, a very very short lived TV series from the early nineteen eighties.

It was put together by the fine gentleman Jim Abrams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker also known as ZAZ. We'll be using that acronym quite a bit as we go through here. They are the guys that were the I don't know what their role was in the Kentucky Theater, this comedy troupe from the seventies. They put together the Kentucky Fried Movie, put together a little bit of a movie called Airplane, and they've gone on to do a whole lot of other things, including Pollie Squad. But tonight we're gonna be kicking it off with a discussion of Airplane.

Released in nineteen eighty. Airplane is an amazing parody of film of well quite a few airplane films, but mostly the movie Zero Hour from nineteen fifty seven. Oh my god, the first time I saw Zero Hour, I couldn't stop laughing because I was so used to airplane. Airplane also played a lot on all of the Airport movies. I'm not sure if the audience remembers that there was a whole spate of airport movies that were happening in mid to late seventies, and these things.

There were the official ones, and then there were the knockoffs, and this was the parody, and God bless them, this was freaking hilarious. So Mark, when was the first time you saw Airplane? I saw this in the theater as an eleven year old boy. I don't know if this was like a birthday event or just mom dropping us off to get rid of us so they can shop or whatever, but I remember enjoying it immensely, even though a lot of the humor and a lot of the parody went way over my head. I don't know if I had seen any of those airport movies on TV, any of the disaster films.

Definitely hadn't seen Zero Hour as a kid. Still haven't seen it, actually, Oh boy, Yeah, that was another thing I dropped the ball on. It became a regular rental when VHS came around and cable. I haven't watched it in years, though, until Chris and I watched it with the commentary, and then I watched it last night with my daughter, which was an absolute fucking blast watching with her. It's to me, one of the if not the best parody of the last forty two years.

So, Chris, you actually watched this movie. I just want to point out that that is in reference to something else, not the fact that I've never watched something, because I most of the time am doing what Mike is doing, which is hosting the shows, and if the host doesn't watch it, what the fuck is going on? So, yes, I watched Airplane, not once, not twice, but well just twice. I watched it once with Mark Begley because we wanted to watch the momentary together, which pretty much meant we did not catch any of the dialogue driven jokes. And I think we should make a distinction here, especially just right out of the gate, because dialogue driven jokes and visual gags are going to be two very different conversations to be had.

So we watched Airplane in a way that I'd never watched it before, which is without any of the don't call me Shirley, or you know you've seen a grown man naked or you guys picked a hell of a day to stop sniff and glue. Not that we've missed it, but we didn't get to hear it because we're listening to the zaz commentary, So it was more about the visual gags. By the way, it holds up if if you just watch it for visual gags, it holds up even without the dialogue. But man, I watched it again this morning. It took me back to the first time I saw it, which would have been let's say sometime between two thousand and three and two thousand and six, so that's how late into my life Airplane entered, which would have been the last sixteen years essentially.

So I saw it as a teenager. I got most of the jokes. But the more I've watched it, especially now as someone who has seen exponentially more movies since two thousand and six or whatever the fuck it was, I understand the references now I have. Like Mike mentioned, Zero Hour is a big influence. I watched Zero Hour when I watched Airplane the first time a long time ago, and I just kind of skimmed around it on this one, because again I've seen it, and this movie Airplane is pretty much just Zero Hour, but the comedic version, like it's it's such a close fact simile that Zero Hour almost becomes I'm not gonna say not worth watching, but you can essentially watch it by watching Airplane, but a more entertaining version because it doesn't take itself as seriously.

It kind of reminded me of when I was when we were talking earlier this year, Mike, you and I about Lethal Weapon, and I was like, I know the plot of Lethal Weapon because of Naked or because of National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon, which is a funnier and better movie. An Airplane is a funnier and better movie than Zero Hour is because it takes what Zero Hour hangs its hat on and says, well's it's kind of goofy, you know that, right, Like it's kind of silly and they poke fun at it. I don't know if I would go as far as say it's the best parody movie. I think Blazing Saddles is still better because it's a parody too, right, I guess, or as Blazing Saddle is a satire, because that's the thing, like this is a parody in the vein, and like scary movie is in the vein of airplane, a scary movie is, I guess scary movies in the vein of Blazing Saddles.

I just blazing Saddles always felt a little bit more nuanced than Airplane. But Airplane's jokes are funnier than Blazing Saddles. Does that make sense? I mean Blazing Saddles is tackling something else. There's none of the racial underpinnings in all the racists or idiots, because there's none of that in this movie.

There are some scenes that people might watch today and be like, wait a second, but they still worked, namely the I speak jive but they still work like they still work because it's not poking fun at the difference is it's poking fun at the fact that this you know, Barbara Billingsley speaks jive as the youngest one here and the person who is closest to the age of people who might find this problematic, it's not. This is like, like Mark said, this is a solid parody film, and I don't know if it's the best, but it's in the conversation for the best for sure. And I would not argue as someone if they said, what it is the best because it's a laugh a minute and there's very few moments in this movie that still don't work today.

Yeah, I would definitely say that Blazing saddles. I mean, we've seen the stranger comes to town. We've seen you know, the railroad baron is crooked, the governor is crooked, all those kind of things. But the sheriff coming to town being black and being ostracized because of that in a funny way, I don't think we had necessarily seen that before. I would say that that is more of a satire than a parody, as opposed to this, where you're just going beat by beat.

I mean, Zero Hour is almost impossible for me to watch because it gives you the setup for every single joke, but it doesn't give you the punchline. But you're filling in the punch line every single time. Unless you've never seen airplane, then you can enjoy Zero Hour. But having seen airplane, you're just waiting for you know, surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't call me surely like you're just waiting for Dana Andrews to follow up with some of these lines in here, because they are playing everything straight.

And that's the great thing about Airplane is that so much of the time, I'd said, probably eighty percent of the time, everybody is playing stuff straight. I mean, having Leslie Nielsen and this is like his breakout comedic role, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves. I mean, just all of these actors playing a one hundred percent straight Robert, Robert Hayes and Julie Haggerty are playing it's straight. There is not a single joke that either one of them has in the movie at all. Like it's it's a straight performance.

And I like too that it's very timeless. You know, I saw this maybe when I was eight years old. I don't remember if I saw that. I know for sure I saw the sequel theatrically. I don't remember I saw the original theatrically, but I know I had seen the original before I saw the sequel, so I imagine I had to have seen it theatrically.

And yeah, same thing as you Mark. Just the jokes flew over my head. I had no idea. I mean, I knew that things were funny when it came to like, oh, this is Saturday Night fever. I knew the contemporary jokes to nineteen eighty, but I didn't any know.

Oh it starts off like Jaws. Okay, I get those things, but I'm not picking up all of the Arthur Haley type references and Arthur Haley is. I mean, it's hilarious how many times they remade some of the same stuff. I mean, Airport is basically very very close to Flight into Danger. In Flight into Danger had been made several times, going back all the way to nineteen fifty six on a television show, and then there's just all of these remakes, and then Airport was nineteen seventy, but then by seventy five it becomes kind of this cottage industry.

I mean, I've got a book over here called The Stewardess is Flying the Plane, all about disaster movies. And to your point, Chris, disaster movies in the nineteen seventies. That was big notes. You know, you've got your meteors and disaster movies in the seventies, man, Like, that's those are the genres in the seventies that really stand out to me. We just talked about Harry and Tante on the Culture Cast, and I said, road movies in the seventies, but Earthquake, Towering Inferno, I mean, Adam Adam Long mentioned it a bunch of times, Towering Inferno, But then all of these movies like this is a response to how I'm sorry to say this, but disaster movies for me are just the drizzling shits of a genre.

Like, for the most part, they're all the same. Even the good ones are still kind of the same. Even the good ones, though there are some really good ones out there. Yeah, beside an Adventure towering in Turno, what our boys Levenson and Link they worked on roller Coaster. It's a fantastic movie.

Earthquake is pretty good too. I mean, they're the big ones are pretty good. But then, like you mentioned, you get every derivative version from here until Kingdom Come, and it's like, did we really mean Earthquake five? I mean, I know that's not a thing, but effectively, any movie that comes afterwards is just aping what those movies did, probably better, and we tried to pick that up. I mean, we tried to have disaster movies again, like twenty twelve and can't remember the last one, Ray San Andres, thank you, I knew.

I almost said the one that The Rock did so San Andreas. I mean, Independent Stay, so many, so many of them, A couple of Volcano ones, Dante's Peak, right, Yeah, there was that in the nineties, was like it was a resurgence of it that was thanks to CGI Yeah, Deep Impact and Armageddon, And I kind of want to nail myself up to a cross here on this podcast immediately. I kind of like Armageddon now because of all those movies that came out in the late nineties early two thousands, it's the one that doesn't care that it's stupid. Oh yeah, yeah, it revels right. All the other ones are like, we refuse to be dumb.

Deep Impact refuses to be stupid. And Armageddon is unequivocally the dumbest disaster movie that came out of the nineties, but it's also the most fun and holy shit, the cast alone. But that's the other thing about these kinds of movies, these disaster movies or even disaster this parody disaster movie. The cast just stacks itself as you need to have. It's like a disaster movie.

It's a necessity to have pig names in it. Like it's almost like a requirement that you have to have John Carroll, Dge melting in Lava, you know, and and Haitians a Haitian, Tommy Lee Jones and Volcano. It is right, there's Ann Haitian. That movie. It might No, I must be confusing it with something.

Yeah, no, no, she is. I'm trying to think it was Tia Leone and Deep Impacts, right, the other actress and then Linda Hamilton and Dante's Peak with Pierce Brosnan. Yeah right, yeah, I mean that was the thing on those posters. It would be here's all the pictures of all the stars that you're going to see, and they bring out the old stars, they bring out you know, Gloria Swanson would be in them, Helen ready, you know, just all of these little cameos basically because you've got it's like a cruise ship. You've got all of these people that are right there and they're all stuck in one location.

So you know, I mean, God towering Infernos, got what Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. I mean, yes, Poseidon Adventure doesn't Posidon Adventure? He Oh God, uncle Joe from Willie Wonk. I always forget that actor's name. But Shelley Winters and Roddy McDowell and Gene Hackman and Ernest Borg not yeah, good God in heaven.

That's the draw of disaster movies. One of the draws is like all of the cast. And what's funny is, even though that Airplane is a parody movie, the cast is completely insane, even for this movie. I mean, yeah, Leslie Nielsen, I'm sure you two knowing you did your research, but this is the comedic Leslie Nielsen movie. He literally wanted to do comedy and they didn't cast him as a comedic actor.

And this is the first time he's a comedic actor. And I don't think there's a moment from here on out where he's not doing comedy maybe a little bit after this, until this comes out and him right like Leslie Nielsen for people my age, naked Gun, it's mister McGoo, it's police squad. But again, police squad is a more recent thing. But this, like you mentioned, Mike, this is the moment where the perception of Leslie Nielsen changes one to eighty. And he wanted that to be the case.

He wanted to do comedy, which is insane because knowing what we know about Leslie Nielsen's career post Airplanes, like, of course he's doing comedy. That's what he's known for. Now. That's why I know, Miss Frank Drivon, That's the only thing I really know Leslie Nielsen as like, but he was the heavy before that, always right, the heavy. For me, not having watched this in a long time and seeing some of the later comedic roles, I prefer when he plays it straight same light and airplane, Yes, right, and we'll get into that later, especially in the Naked Gun series.

It becomes diminishing returns for me when he is being goofy. It doesn't land. All his lines are straight lines in Airplane. Most of his lines in Police Squad are the same kind of blurs the edge is there a little bit in that. But watching it again for the first time these last couple of weeks, it's like, yes, this is what I expect from him, and what for me works from him is total dead pan, straight delivery of every single line.

Well, and almost everybody's doing a dead pan right, Like I guess Stephen Stucker is not playing the air traffic the John. Yeah, the hardcore joke master of the air traffic controllers. I mean, he's there's always like one character in each of these kind of groups that's the funnier one, and he's the funniest of all of them because he's the one actually telling the jokes. You have Lloyd Bridges doing the straight man thing, which in and of itself is hilarious. But everybody on the airplane's playing it straight like everybody, but they're just taking the words and they're just you know, well they're on instruments and then you know, you have the you know or it's raining, and they make up for it because they know what your expectations are and they one hundred percent subvert them.

I think when I was a kid, Johnny was my favorite because that was the humor I could latch onto as a kid. Watching it last night with the audio and all the jokes, watching it with my daughter, I was like, oh, this is He's the least funny part of this. There's there's only a few lines of his now that still really resonate with me, Like, looking to make of this Johnny, Well, I can make a brochat. That one works. There's also when he pulls out the plug and laughs at the camera.

I love that. The other one is and Leon's getting larger. That's it, you know. Otherwise it's like there's a sale of pennies, like some of them. Yeah, Rapunzel, Rapunzel.

It's like, Okay, it gets a little much, but I know what you mean. Yeah, And it was interesting to gauge my daughter's reaction to him as well, so I was sort of able to tune out a little bit of my own watching of it and watch her watch it. It seemed like that was the stuff that landed the least for her as well. But there I don't know how many times she said that was so stupid. Oh my god, that was so stupid, as she's laughing.

Yeah, I can't even think of the last movie that we've watched where she has laughed that much. And I was like, yep, still got it. And of course she got the Jaws reference Saturday Night Fever. Maybe not. I know she knows the song, but I don't know if she knows that dance routine.

I think that's where things like Scary Movie and other more recent parody films missed the mark, as they're too hung up on recent things. So once you get past screen or whenever, that'll happen. Once you get past screen being popular, first Scary Movie is still amazing, though, like that's it, hits. I think it has those timeless beats enough, because Scream is timeless, right the first one. But then yeah, you get into the others and it's this happened last Tuesday.

You know, you watch Epic Movie or some of those other horrible, horrible ones, and you're just like, this joke is fresh as of a week ago, and it already feels old. Yeah, And like when Miles Fisher did the Tom Cruise thing right in Disaster Movie and it's like, good God, like those like the same year, and like nobody's talking about that. I don't even think people remember that anymore, like to bring attention to the fact to Tom Cruise is a scientologist and he made a crazy person scientologist video that's worth checking out. But yeah, it's like this is not going to age well, like if at all, question Mark And here you have a parody of a movie from nineteen fifty seven being made in nineteen seventy nine coming out in nineteen eighty.

I love that za Z year like we wanted to dress people more in fifties garb than in these garb so that it would be more timeless. And I'm just like, yeah, it kind of works because other than those very specific cultural touchstones like Saturday Night Fever like Jaws, but thank god, those were huge, so you can definitely get those things. I mean, there are a couple other, like very specific things to nineteen seventy nine, but for the most part, I would say ninety percent of this movie, if not more, is completely timeless. And it was so smart to base it on something old because it just takes that and it's timeless. Basically, are you telling me that kids in twenty twenty two don't know who ethel Mermon is?

So I'm like, that's the real ethel merm Okay, that means right right. Watching it with Mark and listening to the commentary, it's so funny. I had never noticed it before. So, yeah, everybody's dressed up in fifties garb, right, but when we're in the airport, they're fucked. They don't even it's real people.

It's just real people. So it's you got you know, Julie Haggerty dressed up like a nineteen fifties, you know, flight attendant, and then you know everybody else is dressed like the seventies. It's white collars. Yeah, it's hilarious. They're tight.

What were the name of those slacks or the bell bottoms? Sands of bell slacks, Yeah, huggers the one thing and you didn't know this reference. Chris was the my husband never has a second cup of coffee. I know that. I can't remember what coffee it was from, but I know those ads.

Oh yeah, I looked it up this morning and it was from you ban. Oh sure, you can't stap a more coffee. It's late and you've never had a second you know, I'd love another cup. You've never had seconds of my coffee. I'm a pretty good coffee.

But that night we both discovered you ben. You ban special coffee because it's made with special beans one one hundred percent Colombian. We're taste in a rooma so deliciously rich. Hey, how about seconds for me? With richness worth a second cup?

Yeah, you ban coffee. This stuff's great. You put sprinkle that on a little bit. I scream, I know what you band is only because of the National Lampoon's Vegas vacation, because that's what that's what cousin Eddie buries the money in his yard and is ban coffee. Wow, there are some jokes that don't let that would not land today, Like let them crash the fucking counterpoint joke like that, I mean, that's fucker.

Carlson basically Wow, yeah, sure, but like but that again, like that's in the commentary Zaz mentioned that that was in Kentucky Fried movie, that the original version of that joke is but point counterpoint. Yeah, there are a couple jokes that are kind of a little too specific. But at the same time, like you mentioned, Mike, it's not the whole movie, like disaster movie is like a really the entire movie. I'll tell you I saw a disaster movie in theaters. I saw a disaster movie in theaters after I went and watched Smoking Aces the same day.

Wow. Yeah, fuck me, that was a shitty double feature, just like from one piece of shit to another piece of shit. Like you both have mentioned by the time that Scary Movie four, I will hardcore defense, Scary Movie three, Scary Movie four, an epic movie, and disaster movie and all of the Oh what's the freeburg? Is that who they are? Celta, Yeah, when we get to that point, it's like the girl who you know, the girl with the dragon tattoo, who dated the guy with the forty year old It's like, guys, right, which is not them?

That's another Yeah? Oh really, Oh I assumed it was. I just assumed that was them, sorry mine, And I think Freedburg. I think he got his start because his dad directed Spyheart, if memory serves oh, which is one of those lesser Leslie Nielsen ones where he is yucking Adopt and hamming it up and doing the mugging towards the camera. All that.

Spyheart has a pretty good opening song sure does, done by weird Al Yankovic, the recipient of his own biopic. Apparently. Yeah, I remember when he was murdered in nineteen eighty five, though that was very sad for me. Oh my god, yeah, Al Yankovic, Oh my god. The fact that weird Al is all over Leslie Nielsen's career will never not be funny.

Also, god, yeah, it's airplane. Those those singular jokes are there, but they don't get in the way of I picked the hell of the day to stop sniff and glue, Like, yeah, there's no cultural point for that. That's just funny because you know it's those escalation jokes are the jokes for me an airplane that always work. And Mark, when we were watching it, you talked about the long callback jokes, which are also something that like za Z does better than anybody else, like in Maked Gun two with the zoo joke. The fact that that is throughout the entire goddamn movie, the fact that that factors into the climax of the movie is impressive beyond belief.

And you see the kind of the beginnings of it here an airplane where there are the Shirley joke continues. It persists every time they say it, and most times with stuff like this, they do it once and they don't do it again. Well, that's the thing, too, is when you have a movie that is just rapid fire jokes, if you miss a couple, that's okay, and you get you guys both listen to the commentary. You know how they fine tune this movie. You know how they were just chopping stuff that wasn't working, and sticking and stuff that was, and sticking to their guns and saying this one works, this one doesn't.

And there were a lot of times in the commentary where they're like, well this joke doesn't work anymore, and I'm like, it works for me, you know, I think it's pretty funny. You know. There are a few things, yeah, we talked about Johnny, like a few things that don't really hit that much anymore. But so many of these things do just hilarious. And then yeah, just being like this machine gun of jokes.

You miss a few times, that's okay, You're still going to just hit that target so many times, both visual and dialogue driven, because again we the first time I watched it in probably a decade, was just visual gags only, and they're all there. A scene now that I cannot unsee. It's Robert Stack doing his own stunts in the scene where he's punching all of the religious zealots. He's doing that himself. I told my daughter to watch out for his flip over the guy him scientology.

And we should point out because you kind of mentioned it, Mike. The way they fine tuned this movie is they took it to college campuses and they showed it to college kids, and where the college kids weren't laughing, they took that out. And you know what, as far as I'm concerned, if I were a movie like this today in twenty twenty two, same crowd would be I would be showing it too, because those are the people that I give a shit if they find it funny. You know, there are going to be people my age they're going to be people y'all's age that find these things funny. But ultimately, the tastemakers and the people's whose opinion you want to be hitting are the college kids, because they're going to be the people that are going to be driving things for the next decade.

And Yeah, what a better way to get a movie that's funny into the right group of people to tell you if it's funny you're not by showing it to college kids. I know that zaz are rather hard on themselves, especially about the second half of the movie, because I don't think the second half of the movies is funny. Is the first half? Also. I think that's because the second half of the movie requires there to be a plot exactly, and where most comedies die for me is when the plot enters the picture.

Right in this movie, it doesn't, but it does kind of throw its hooks into the movie and slow it down ever so slightly. Yeah, there was a little bit of drag on the wings, Yeah exactly, but you still have I mean, by that time, we've gained the momentum and we're just posting on that. We've got Bernstein's score just driving us along. We've got the score in a comedy movie. It's insane, though, Shit, folks like that should happening today coming Oh, you know all those Hans Zimmer movies that are comedies.

Like No, I put the close captions on because I wanted those point I would assuming that. I think that's how we watched it as well, Chris. I wanted that to come up when the music changed, so that my daughter would I mean, she noticed it anyway, but she was like, Oh, the music's changed again. It's all the different themes, slow morose music playing, intense, happy music, playing et cetera, et cetera. It's like, oh, man, that's so good.

I don't know that I would necessarily catch that with my ears, just watching it for the heck of it or something, but it's amazing to me that this is I just kept thinking, oh, this is library music that they're using for specific spots, because it's so varied throughout the whole film and just so bombastic and over the top that bom bom bom bah and just taking us there and I mean all of the older to your point, it sounds like library music when the planes are crashing, and the use of the stock footage for that or scenes from other movies and stock noise is that they used for the plane. That's like at the biplane. It makes sense though, it makes sense when you're watching a movie. But I don't know if they were meaning for that to be part of the joke, but yet it's part I think there were.

It works either way, yeah, either way. Like you know, again, Abram Zucker and a Zucker, Like I don't want to give them all the credit in the world, but Jesus Christ, there's only three names on this well, even the model, I mean the model of the plane. I old my daughter, I'm like, I much prefer this over a CGI plane. I don't care how cheap it looks. It's just hanging there.

Yeah, and it doesn't even matter if it's as a joke or not. I just like seeing a real plane in fluffy fake clouds. And if I see the string every once in a while, you know, a big fucking deal. Yeah. Same with the leaping heart in the Mayo Clinic.

You know, they point out the string in that and it's like, who cares? Oh man, I mean that might be one of the most specific jokes that they have as far as the whole patient on the airplane, the singing Lady and all that. I mean, because that is right out of one of those airport movies. I can't remember which one, because they all well together after a while, because I know I saw a lot of those disaster movies. I know I saw Concord, I saw the one where they land in the water.

I mean each time it was like, how are we going to crash this plane? Or kind of like with airplane who they went out into space. There was already a supersonic jet that goes off into space. I think Lane Majors was piloting it in a real movie. And then here's this parody movie.

I mean, it's it was just a whole thing of like, how are we going to get these people in peril? You know it's food poisoning, terrorists on the plane, you know, oh something went wrong with the electrical. It's wild those movies. And then yeah, that scene of the girl who's there and they've got I think it really was Helen Ready in the movie. But she's a singing nun and singing to this poor little girl who needs an organ transplant or something.

It's just like that to me is the most specific, but it really works well because even if you don't, the reference is just a goofy fucking scene. Yeah. I think that's one of the few of the airport disaster movies that I saw, because I remember going, oh, wait, I know this from something else, because I had already seen Airplane. In the commentary, they mentioned that they didn't want to have a lot of cameos from comedians, and obviously Jimmy Walker shows up as Windshield wiper Man as he's credited as. Can we talk about I think the cameo in this movie that is the one worth talking about, which is Kareem abdul Jabar playing Kareem abdul Jabar playing Roger Murdoch Kareem abdul Jabar in disguise, which I assume is the part of the joke.

But it's that moment where he's not Kareem abdul Jabar until he is, and that and that's such a smart joke because in so many other movies again at the time, I mean, even fucking they're all they're doing is just aping the fact that OJ was in Towering Inferno, and and but yet, but yet, I mean that's what it is, right, I mean, they're they're leaning into it. But at the same time, a lesser movie would never have done the joke of him in his gear being dragged out of the cockpit, but yet this movie does. And it all the credit goes to za Z because even though you do have Jimmy Walker, who was a big deal at the time, I mean, holy shit, they could have made a big deal about him being in the movie, it's not.

He's just he's just there. And you know, you do have ethel Merman, and you have these other kind of smaller cameos. But that's kind of the weird thing about these these kinds of movies later in their lifespan, is it almost starts to be coming about the cameos and less about telling jokes throughout the movie. And this movie, yeah there are jokes, quote unquote, but they don't need Kareem Abdul's bar there. He just happens to be there.

I'm not trying to be this guy. But what it actually was for the reason Kareem wasn't here was the co pilot in Zero Hour Hour was Elroy Crazy Legs Hirsch, who was a football player, and so they're like, we need a sports star. They went to Pete Rose originally for that role. He turned him down. It was baseball season, and then they went with Kareem, So it's kind of playing on that history already though.

I think that the OJ thing, and of course we'll talk about OJ as we go along well this series, Yes, but yeah, it was really because of crazy Legs and then yeah, this whole thing of he's not Kareem abdul Jabbar, but then he becomes Cream abdul Jabbar. And I mean just that stupid back and forth of over and under and Roger and I mean as Clarence best things ever. I love it. Huh. It's waiting for that, for that to come into play.

I'm like, why is this last name over? When is that? You know? Because I know they say over when you sign off? But yes, oh there it is.

There it is, and it works so fucking perfectly. Blind to zero nine or clear bar Victor at three to four, we have Clarence, Clarence, Roger Roger. Let's our victory Victor now Radio Clarence over Clarence over over Roger owner. Let's not forget the fact that there's just casual pedophilia in this movie that Peter Graves didn't understand was funny. Oh man, Peter Graves is so good in this and I love that scene.

I mean that is one quotable, quotable section. It used to be a lot more quotable than it is now, but still everything a grown man naked. Yeah, that was the scene that went over my tasium. Do you like Gladiator movies? But again, like you couldn't.

I would go out on a limb and say you couldn't make those jokes now, right? Like that? That might be kind of where people are checking out casual pet Tophelia jokes and again, but they work here because it's not overt or is it. I don't know, I don't know, I don't think hard. Yeah, maybe if it's Peter Graves doing it or someone who has is you know, contemporary equivalent, right, which I guess would be what like Tom Selleck.

I don't know, I don't know, Like who's Peter Graves's equivalent in twenty twenty two? Wow, the James Brolin, I don't know. Yeah, maybe I see we'll see the return of that kind of in Police Squad right with the doctor. Yeah, yeah, so that gets returned, although that's still early eighties so, but it was on TV that's just two years away from this. Yeah.

But I also really like Robert Hayes. I have seen Robert Hayes and all of one other thing, and you guys are gonna laugh, but I saw him as the Dad and Homeward bound Hey film about talk sucking animals featuring Michael J. Fox. I think I watched the TV show he was on that they referenced in the commentary, and I can, of course, now I can't remember the name of it, but it was a pretty big deal in the late seventies. So I think I knew Angie.

Yeah, Angie Angie. Yeah. I mostly knew him after this, from his turn as Starman in like eighty six or something when they made a Starman TV show. I like him. He's good, He's a great he Again, like the thing is, they don't have to be comedic actors in this movie.

That's the thing about this movie that makes it sing is I don't know if Lloyd Bridges was a comedic actor. Frankly, I would wager he wasn't. But he's in this He's in hot Shots, He's in Jane Austen's Mafia, which is his goddamn last movie role even which, you know, the hustle in these parody movies is impressive because again, like even Leslie Yelsen was doing Scary Movie up until the mid two thousands. I mean he was in Scary Movie three and maybe even four. Nobody in this movie is a comedic actor up until this point other than like Stephen Stucker or some of the kind of their Kentucky Freight Theater players.

But they're only there because they're part of that Kentucky Freight theater. You know, Robert Hayes, Julie Haggarty, Leslie I mean Leslie Nilson after the fact, but none of these actors were, oh, that's a funny guy, other than like Jimmy Walker. Like again, but but they're not given much time intentionally because it's the script that's funny. It's the writing that's funny. It's the visual gags that's funny.

And that's how you do this kind of movie, which is why these kinds of movies don't exist anymore, because nobody understands the formula anymore. And I'm not saying I understand the formula. Put this put a fucking put a superhero parody movie. In front of me and tell me to do it, and I would just I would just say, nope, fuck no, I'm not doing it, because, like the holy shit, at this point, to do a superhero parody movie is like doing a disaster parody movie in the eighties. You have way too much to draw from and it's hard to drown out the noise to get to like those root ideas.

Because that's the thing about Airplane that makes it such a good movie is it distills down all the bullshit noise into just a couple of main ideas and goes these how we're going to hit these ideas and you know what, everything else. We don't need to parry the parody those things because they're not going to have lasting power. And even Airport doesn't have lasting power. Nobody's talking about Airport in twenty twenty two, but we'll still watch Airplane. Yeah, a movie that parody is those movies.

Like what a shame it must be to be the people who made the movies that this movie parodies, Because, like I said, was Zero Hour. I've seen zero R one time, no interest in watching it again because anytime I watch it, anytime I watch Airplane, I feel like I'm watching Zero Hour anyways. I love the story about Robert Stack and that they had to teach Robert Stack to basically parody himself from the John Beiner album So Good. And I think it's the success of the film is that these aren't comedic actors. They're not looking to hit a funny tone or a funny face or it's all the dialogue and the visuals.

We have a couple, you know, other than Johnny, the character of Johnny, there's a couple fourth wall breaks that I guess you could say, are you know, supposed to be funny or jokey, But for the most part, it's it's all played straight and nobody realizes. It's almost like nobody realizes what they're doing or saying is funny. Well, Robert Hayes essentially just goes like, oh, that's ethel Merman over there, like it's got a joke, Like that's just ethel Merman singing in a bed, we as the audience find it funny. Or like when when Robert Hayes and Julie Haggarty go to the tribe and they're fucking selling tupperware and teaching them basketball. None of those characters would find in the fiction of the film, would not find that funny, But yet we as the audience find it funny.

And for me, like, that's not something that anybody's doing anymore. That's not a comedic style anymore. And you know what, I know people are always like, oh, comedy is so easy. Fuck it. This is the hardest podcast I've ever done, because I have almost avoided doing comedic films on a podcast entirely since I started podcasting, because it just evolves into remember that one part that was funny.

It's goddamn impossible to talk about a comedy, yet here we are, and yet it's also impossible to make a funny movie. I've all if someone came up to me and said, what genre? Would you not want to write comedy? But like one, I would not want to write comedy. I really wouldn't because it's not easy.

It's it's not only is it not easy, I personally think it is the hardest genre to try to be successful at. Already. Comedy movies. Have you talked about on the projection Beef Mike, Like a handful? Probably probably a handful.

And yeah, it's very difficult because I am constantly trying not to be like, oh, and then there's this other thing, and there's this other thing, and it's just yeah, it gets so old after a while. And I know it's gonna be very tough to talk about the police squad stuff because that is just again, joke after joke after joke after joke, and it's gonna be tough, guys. But I think we'll be able to do it if tonight is you know, in any way a reflection of how that'll go. I think we're fine. I mean saying some of the lines like don't call me surely, etc.

Are fine or not. It's not quote fast two thousand member. It's the member barrier. Yeah right, well that's the thing. I mean, you put somebody like again again someone my age.

I didn't have a frame or reference who Barbara Billingsley was. I didn't grow up watching Leave It to be Right. I thought that that joke was funny when I first saw it, because it is an old white woman talking to African American well dressed men about, you know, cut off a piece of pork and drag it through the garden, Like that's funny because she's saying it, but knowing the kind of meta textual joke makes it even funnier because she's essentially America's mom a lot in a lot of ways, or at least for a certain generation. And that's what makes it even funnier, possibly even funnier than what she's saying. And that is a testament to za Z as a writing trio, to say, Okay, so you've got the joke, but you've got the addition to the joke, and that's what makes the joke work, not just now, but forever, because the Barbara Billingsley thing only works through a certain generation, but an old white woman speaking quote jive unquote will never not be funny in any context.

Well, especially because that jive is just amazing, just the thickness of it. And I'm just like, is this really even how anyone actually spoke? Just these two is coming up with us? Yeah? Right, I just believe that's what they said in the commentary, that it was just their thing.

She men. Then hunk came up and miss my old lady got to be running cool upside down his head, you know. He Oh, I'm not getting biggert. No, You're gonna let him a big rapp up on you. Man, I say, hey, Scott so to say, I won't see pretty jee.

I get the same old, same movie knock a self approach, like the great amount of backlop performers down. I take TC being man, Hey, you know what they say, see you brawl to get that booty ac laying down the smack got to be yo. That's just amazing because and I loved the subtitles and all that. It's so good and when she gets mad at them and just she starts speaking jib, I mean, it's so good. Excuse me, Stewart us I speak jive, cut me off a piece of the pork and drag get through the garden is a quote that lives in my brain rent Free.

I don't know why it's stuck out to me all these years, but that specific part of it just has stuck out to me. And again, it's all fake. Nobody actually talks like that, but it adds immense amounts of comedic value to the movie, even if it's again kind of tone deaf in twenty twenty two, but not really. I feel like even the most wokesters of twenty twenty two would still find some comedic value in it. I would hope, so I would hope that good taste because doesn't get in the way of humor, because this movie is so fucking funny.

Right. Well, it's like every couple of years I see people getting on Twitter and they're like, cancel Blake or whatever social media duor because Twitter is not long for this world. Future listener, When people get on Twitter and they're like, cancel Blazing Saddles, it's racist. It's like, you do yet have you seen You haven't seen it? Okay, got it?

If you watched it, you would know that the racist are the fucking idiots in the movie. The people who are progressive are seen as the smart ones like you, And again that's satire. But parody kind of has that same problem where it's people don't It's like with the Onion. People don't get it, and when it's taken out of context, it can be seen as serious, but the intent of the people behind it is never to be serious or honest with their feelings. It's meant to poke fun at the people who are This movie would not have worked if people had been mugged into the camera.

It wouldn't have I would not we would not be talking about this movie today. We wouldn't be talking about any zac anything if they were, you know, if they were doing Late Naked Gun thirty three and a third bullshit where it's like I'm good, like I don't need to see this. I wanted to mention something about the context issue where they talk about in the commentary the loudspeaker at the beginning talking about the red and the white zone, were really the people that did that for lax, Like who the fuck would know that? Right? If you were air traveler in the late seventies and went and saw this, you go, oh, that sounds like the same people that actually do the voice over in the airport or whatever, or having the real DJ for that radio station in Chicago that they knocked the tower over from, you know, you know za Z keeping Disco alive.

It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but yes, if you're privy to that, I guess you get a little extra level. So like with my daughter having to explain, you know, that's ethel Merman, she don't know who the fuck ethel Mermon is. I probably didn't know who the fuck ethel Mermon was at eleven years old. The joke works either way because it's an actual woman singing this song that might or might not be familiar. Not a soldier in drag singing the song, so it works on that level.

The Jimmy Walker thing, I don't think I would ever have known that was him if that hadn't been mentioned in the commentary. Not that that's a contextual joke, but you can fairly make him out. There are a lot of people in this movie though, I mean, holy shit, thanks when we were watching this movie. The holy shit chat of the bags in this movie, those of you know him is what Mike Ermin trout from Breaking Bad. Also, James Hong in this movie as a guy just casually killing himself.

Nothing about this movie would be funny realistically. That whole running gag of all the people killing themselves is so good, especially the Middle Eastern guy with the pouring gasoline Oliver himself. Oh my god, it's so good. Everything about this movie just is a success, frankly. And if this were the first movie that you made, you know you would have people lighting up at your door to make another movie.

This is the second movie that Zaz made after Kentucky Fried movie, so they had people lighting up at their door to do things. But even then, like the testament of a real comedy is whether or not we could watch it today and it'd be funny and it holds up. And there were movies made a year ago that people are not going to be watching next week and find funny. But yet I would contend you could put on Airplane for a group of people varying ages in twenty twenty two, and I think people would walk away from it going, yeah, it's pretty funny. There are still some timeless jokes like Julie Haggarty giving the autopilot a blowjob and smoking a cigarette after.

I mean that there will never not be funny because that joke has no social or societal context that's needed. I mean, some of the jokes need a societal context, but a lot of the jokes don't. And when they don't, that's when a comedy kind of transcends just being funny, and it kind of transcends into being important or culturally necessary. I'm not saying this movie is culture necessary for people to see, but this kind of comedy and these kinds of movies, this kind of movie specifically doesn't get made this well anymore if it ever did. Like, there are a handful of movies that I would consider come close to what Airplane did.

But even then, I don't think they're as solid as Airplane is. Throughout. There's not a like and they're like one joke, maybe that doesn't work, but even then you've got another one coming up right exactly. Like it's so quick with the jokes that it doesn't even matter if they don't land, because they put another one right up against it, even if it's not a dialogue joke. Sometimes a dialogue and a visual joke are in the same scene and one works and the other doesn't.

That's a testament to the people who are writing these movies, because it just doesn't happen anymore, and it's a shame. But at the same time, it's not easy. Like I said, I would never the last thing I would want to do is try to make other people laugh. Like really, it's not easy. As funny as I know people think I am or Mike White you make me laugh, and Mark you make me laugh.

Like I don't think any one of us would want to go and try to make a funny movie to make other people laugh, because fuck that I'm not I'm not getting involved in what other people think. It's funny. No way. No, there's a reason why I don't go on comedy podcasts. I mean you can.

You can hear some of my performances on things like god awful movies. I just crashed it, burn buddy. But I consider you a funny guy, Mike. That's the funny. That's a funny guy.

We're a funny guy. Like I'm a clown, like I amuse you. You're a funny guy. I don't watch a lot of comedies anymore because they become I don't know if it's the Mike Myers effect or where this started. Maybe it's a Saturday Night Live that trademark, that one the Mike Myers effect.

Yeah, where we talked about running gags in this, but there aren't that many. There's the Shirley line a couple of times. There's the taxi, which we hit. I think I counted for times up until that final one credit scene, including a post credit scene the people killing themselves because of his long boring stories. There's the what is it like?

What's a hospital building? The building which is Those are pretty those those never get old, and we'll see those, I believe in police squad show up a number of times. But that idea of running a joke into the ground to where it becomes unfunny, then absurd, and then funny again, that's like a more modern idea, and that shit drives me crazy. I think of Austin Powers when when I think of that, like, let's take it and just keep going until we've exhausted it and then bring it back around and hope that it's funny again at the end. I don't know.

That doesn't really happen, at least in this one. I haven't watched the Naked Gun movies in a very long time, so they might do that in those. You really haven't watched Naked Gun I watched every year. I haven't. I haven't watched.

I'm excited I haven't watched. I just haven't been off of comedies for someone because I fear that even the ones that I used to find funny I won't anymore. Okay, Caddyshack, tell both of y'all, Naked Gun that only holds up. It is still funny and it's meta text really funny now because it has O. J.

Simpson in it, and that was that's funny. That's funny for all the wrong reasons. I'm with you, Mark, I don't really go back and rewatch that now. Top Secret. Yes, I will watch Top Secret whenever it's on.

I need to watch that one again. I've brought that up to my daughter a number of times, trying to rope her in. I'm like, I should it pops up on Prime, you know, like suggestions for you, and I'm like, hey, you know you want to watch this? And it never gets a bite from her. So maybe now after watching this, because I'm telling you, man, she fucking laughed a lot.

She might have said, that's such a joke a lot. But I mean that's what my dad used to say when we watched things, when we watched Murder by Death as an example, that's so stupid. As he's laughing, I take that with a grain of salt. I've never seen Top Secret. Oh boy, we should do that.

I've never show hashtag. I've never seen I know, I know that it's kind of the in between project, right, it's there in between project right. Yeah, I said this might be although is that really that's not really a parody though, I mean, I guess it's kind of a parody. It kind of is. Yeah, I mean it takes a lot from a lot of other films.

I mean just little bits and pieces. I mean, of course there's the Blue Lagoons stuff in there, but this whole thing and the pop star going overseas and becoming a spy, I mean that had to have been in something. It's kind of a parody of the Elvis movies as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would watch it. I've never seen it, and I look good Kilmer who doesn't love out kilm Oh my god?

And he is so good in this good in Everything movie? Right was that his first movie? Yeah? Yeah, he hit it out of the park in that one. And this is where they you know, they start looking at the camera a little bit.

It's kind of you know, like you can tell, like you said, this is that in between Police Squad and the first Naked Gun film is where this one's at, and they're starting to do some of those things that are not necessarily going to endear us to the Naked gun films. But I think they do it so well in this one. And honestly, for me, I don't like it when they look at the camera. Like, for me, the joke is always about make the joke and move on, right, The one area where they look at the camera in Top Secret is when they say it's as if we were in some sort of awful movie, and then they both look at the camera and then they look back at each other, and then they move on and that's it, you mean, Like in Spaceballs.

My favorite scene in Spaceballs is when they put in Spaceballs the movie and they're they're showing the movie wind will then be now soon like that, but again they are knowingly making a joke about it. When you go out of your weight to make a joke about it, that for me is when the jokes really sing. It's just like like, oh, come on, guys, like you've hit ninety nine percent of the balls, don't miss this last one just because you want to be cute c because that for me, it's it's just this like cutesy nonsense that you get, you know, the meat, the mugging towards the camera or the fourth wall break. It's like, you don't need it to be funny. You've been funny up until this point.

Without it, there's none of it. An airplane, they never look at the camera and go well, zero hour, you know, And I appreciate that because, like you've mentioned later. It gets with za Z stuff the more they start, especially a Naked Gun two and three, like oh my god boy, Yeah, Naked Gun three is mug fest. Leslie Nielsen like it, not a fan. Even though that movie has some pretty funny moments, it's just you can't look at the camera and make a joke.

You're not a stand up comedian. That's not what made you funny to begin with, and that's not what is going to make me laugh now. They have a set of fifteen rules zazz and they mentioned it a few times in the commentary. But I feel like those later films, and especially like the Scary movie stuff. And I believe that's only one of the brothers, one of the Zuckers that directed those, and they're all involved in producing it.

They weren't involved in the first ones, were they? Yeah, I don't think the first two. I think it was starting with three. That was the Wayans brothers that started the Scary movie franchise. But they start to break their break their own rules about those kind of jokes, the like being in on it right, calling attention there's no they're in a movie, or having you're not supposed to have a foreground joke and a background joke at the same time.

If there's a background joke, the foreground needs to be straight. They play with those rules even in Airplane, but generally if there's something going on in the background, what's going on in front isn't funny, right, And they stick to that pretty closely, like all through the six episodes a Police Squad. I think later on they start to lose grasp of their own self created rules that's out there for people to look up. The Original Scary Movie, Squiggy is the principle at the school and they don't hang a lantern on it. David L.

Lander is the principle and he's principal Squiggy in the movie. In two or three or in not three or four or five, they would have hung a lantern on it. But in the Original Scary Movie he's just principal Squiggy. And that's what reminded, that's what made that movie so good, is it's just like Airplane, just keep going, don't stop and let the jokes sit because you've got something else coming up. And that for me is always what's more important.

It's not the joke that you told, but the next joke that's coming up. That's always the more important joke. It's not the one that's making people laugh, but can you get them to laugh again again and through the end of the movie. I think Scary Movie two is one of the worst movies ever made. I've never seen it.

I've never seen it. I've seen the third one is fun. I like three, I like four. Five. I don't think I made it through five.

It was that bad. But two. I try to forget that movie. But there are some things in there. There's this whole running thing, and I love Chris Elliott, but his role, his character is so annoying and so's They're trying to be gross, but it's not gross and it's not funny.

The third movie, You Know Who. The third movie is half written by Craig Mazin, who wrote Sure, Noble and The Last of Us Like Holy Shit, like what the fuck? And Craig maze and also wrote one of my favorite movies, nineteen ninety seven's comedy classic Harlan Ellison Leading rocket Man, a comedy that we did talk about it on my podcast because it has Bill Sadler in it and Harlan Williams as the lead in a movie is not a thing that's happened. Well, frankly, since you said to Harlan Ellison first, Harlan Williams. Sorry, yes, sweet swirling onion rings.

Harlan Williams, the Man with No Chin, as he probably prefer to be known as Williams. Harlan Williams in a biopic of Harlan Wison. I just watched that. Call me Harlin. What if it was Harlan Williams just doing comedy in the middle of the desert.

Oh, that already exists. Never mind. I don't know if you guys have you seen that. There's just it's I forget what the hell the comedy special is, but it's Harland Williams in the desert doing stand up on essentially like a cliff face in the Mojave desert, and it's just him just doing his stand up routine. Don't see that guy in much anymore these days.

He's the only thing that I really remember from something about Mary is always the hitchhiker. The rest of the movie. I mean, I kind of remember some franks and beans and hair gel, but really it's all about that hitchhiker, and we quote that all that I quote that all the time, it's not to my office because you're fucking fired. I would like to point out that Harlan Williams is also in Freddie Got Fingered, a movie that totally should be a Projection Booth episode at some point, because I think the I think the general consensus has come around that it is a movie worth reassessing. Frank, we're seeing it.

I'm kind of waiting for the Criterion Collection to put it out. Okay, I mean it might happen. It could happen. Freddy gott Fingered is a movie that deserves re appreciation. And you know who it hasn't it Julie Haggarty playing Tom Green's mother.

So there you go. Even he understood the comedic value of Julie Haggarty, who was about to be in The Christmas Star. I was just gonna say that taking over Melinda Dylan's role a movie that none of us knew we needed. She is hilarious. She is she's pretty funny.

She plays sting this. Oh yeah, she plays the Haggard up, you know, just kind of like look hands up in the air. Female lead really well. And she's not having any of Richard or Richard Hayes. What's his name, Robert Hayes.

Shit, she's not having any of his ship in this man Again, She's a very strong female lead in this, and I'm glad that she left him over all this night. Yes, she and Mary Steen Virgin sometimes I would mix up when I was younger because they both have that kind of soft spokenness to them, and I'm glad they're both still working. Yes, yeah, Julie Haggardy getting all the roles at Shelley Duval isn't getting Yeah. Yeah. So I asked my daughter after watching this, I said, what was your favorite scene or what was your favorite gag?

And she said, I think the whole bar scene And I was like, Okay, that's that's hard to dispute at the pointing at the bag girl Scout fight is legitimately well done, well done stunt acting. I kind of have to agree with her on this. And what they say they shot that whole thing in three days. Yeah, that doesn't seem possible, what with the rig to do the rig they dancing. Yeah, my god, well you know they probably had what like four weeks to do the whole movie.

That's what they said, Yeah, that they shot this whole thing in thirty days. Well I could, What the fuck did I do in thirty days? Holy shit? Were like my age, right, they're in their thirties. Fuck me here.

You know. Here's the thing though, at the end of the day, I feel like this is the high that has never recaptured, which is unfortunate in a lot of ways, because normally your career kind of starts at a midpoint, and you reach that high point two or three movies or two or three years in. You know, I love Naked Gun, and we're gonna be talking about the police squad and all that, which I fucking love. And I've seen Naked Gun more times than I've seen Airplane. But similarly to Mark when you and I talked about Jordan Peel movies, I love Nope, but I understand that get Out is the better movie.

I love Naked Gun, but Airplane is the better movie. Airplane is the more important movie. And Airplane is in the goddamn Library of Congress, folks, It's in the National Film Registry, and I'm not sure Naked Gun is. So I think it speaks volumes that a movie that's a parody of other movies is in the Film registry, and those movies aren't. Airport is not in the film registry, but Airplane is.

And that, my friends, is a testament to what comedy can be when done by the right people. And the caz Man. If they never get better than this, great and they don't, they really don't. But that's okay. This high.

Most people never hit this high. Most people don't even come close to this high. But yet they did, and that that has to be applauded. And that's why this movie is still funny forty fifty two years later. Whatever the hell is sixty two years later?

What is it? What are we at two forty two? I don't know mad Old right now? Don't sorry, guys, I don't know math. I'm a podcaster.

I didn't listen in math class. I listened to all the other classes that were important for the class. Oh yeah, they were teaching in high school. I'm sure they have them now, yeah, boy, but they do. They're gonna come take our Speaking of people taking our jobs, they're gonna come take our job.

We're old hat now. Telecommunications it is probably a whole other world now, Oh boy, Yeah, Mike, I have to ask you, what's your favorite bit in the movie. Oh God. I always love Robert Stack driving and just the use of the rear projection and that they're just calling such attention to how fake the rear projection is. I really like that a lot that comes back and naked gun, and they do like an evolved version of it and naked gun, Oh, they sure do.

Yeah, I think for me, I don't know, I'd love that they're on instruments gag because it's such a throwaway. It's such a fucking throwaway gag. But I always watch Leslie Nielsen in that scene. He's just yeah, no, no, no, he's really committing to playing that upright bass. I don't know.

Anytime Lislie Nielsen's on screen is probably my favorite part. But I love that they're on instruments or Lloyd Bridge is going they're coming right at us and jumping out the window. That will never not be funny. It's so good about you, Bagley. You mentioned what your daughter's favorite bit is.

But I gotta know, I do like the bar scene a lot, but I, for some reason always go back to the painting that he's doing and not psychiatric hospital. Yeah, and then the reveal, Can I get a break? Here, what a strange gag. Yeah, it's weird, And I think that stuck out to me as a kid, like what the fuck? You know?

His leg is really over his shoulder and it's surreal in a very odd way. And and za Z in the commentary talk about how they were like, not a whole lot of people laughed at it, but we left it in. Yeah, and I'm glad they did because it's I think it work. You can't trust audiences for every gag. You gotta sometimes you gotta hold tight to the ones that you really think aren't going to work for that one person sitting in a movie theater in Fresno, California, in nineteen eighty and they kept it in for me, So I'm happy about that.

You know what, one last thing I thought of was when we were watching it with the commentary, I realized, Okay, all these big names are in this, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, but they don't show up. Leslie Nielsen shows up a little over half an hour in. Lloyd Bridges is later than that, Robert Stack is later than that. You don't have them from the onset. Because as we were watching it, Chris, I was like, but where are all these guys that I misremember them all being in this?

Yeah? I don't know. It's just weird to me how that it works in a movie these days. You wouldn't have your big names coming in so late in the film. There'd be some kind of introduction to them earlier.

I know you mentioned Jimmy Walker, and I think I realized that he was in it, but really didn't you know, It's not like, oh, yeah, Jimmy Walker was in that movie. David Leisure. He's the one that I always remember. He's one of the two Chris Christians. Yes, and he ended up and I don't know if you're gonna know this one, Chris, but he was Joe is Zuzu.

He was the lying pitchman for the Zuzu car company and he every I mean everything that he said was captioned as far as like because everything he said was a one percent baldfaced lie. He was so good as that pitchman that you know. That's like one of his major roles for me is all of those commercials that he was in. He was so perfect as that. But I love when he shows up as one of the Harry Christas and then he actually comes back in the sequel as well with this lie detector.

I'll prove this great looking at Suzu is a better pickup than Toyota. It has more standard features than Toyota. It has a double walled cargo bed, steel built at radios and a five speed transmission. Toyota doesn't yet to louis priced in poort truck in America. See you can trust me?

Wow? Oh yes, Airplane too. Yes, the sequel a movie we're not talking about coincidentally, not because we don't want to, but because za z are not involved. That's true. No, I love that movie and I wrote a nice big essay about it that has my favorite line of the Airplane series lights blinking no Fresno, who goes to Fresno anymore?

Delivered by by Johnny. And then we went to Bakersfield, and then we ended up in Fresno, Fresno. No one goes in Fresno anymore. Nice. It's like, oh, my hometowns in a movie.

I shouldn't watch it because I have not seen it since I watched Airplane One and was like, oh, there's a sequel, I should watch it, and then was promptly disappointed. But again, that was fifteen years ago, so that doesn't count. And it has ripped torn in it and ripped horns amazing, he isn't Freddie got fingered for folks like half of the cast. If Freddie got fingered as an airplane too, the secrets there you go. I don't know how that HAPs.

I remember nothing about the movie other than that FROs No line. I really don't. I believe I saw in the theater two, probably because I liked Airplane so much. I remember mostly the courtroom scenes and the misunderstanding of one of the people on the stand. I mean, I probably give it a big pass because I did see that the theatrically for sure, and it's got Shatner and all this great stuff going on in it.

For me, it's probably not as funny as I think, but I remember liking it quite a bit. I mean, it's definitely no Airplane one, but it's got some good gags. Airplane two is never gonna be. I mean, that's that's the problem. I mean, once we get to you know, once we're done talking about police one, we get the naked gun.

Well, I mean, that's the same thing with Naked Gun one and Naked Gun two. It's like it's not as good. It was never going to be because the notes that Naked Gun hits or airplane hits aren't. They just they're not going to resonate as much because they're the ones who did it first. You can't play the note after somebody and expect that people are going to, well, that's a special note.

You're playing the same note that somebody else is playing, just a little differently, and they can never get over the fact that it's the same note that somebody else plays, even if you're the ones making the second movie, Which is why I would contend no comedy needs a sequel. Anchorman two, Jesus Christ or I'm trying to think of, oh what super Troopers two gets a pass because it does a little bit different. But most of the sequels to comedies are not very good. Tell me a good sequel comedy. Begley already brought it up.

I mean, you've got the trilogy, the e trilogy of Austin Powers films talk about diminishing returns. I will tell you that I laughed my ass off watching I think it was that third one, which is probably horrible that I did. But I that's surprising more than anything else where. Now I love good Man. Okay, that may be the exception that proves the rule.

For the most part, comedy sequels never hit the highs of the original, right, oh Hangover are you? Are you trying to prove a point? Yeah, speaking of Craig Mason, he wrote at least Hangover two, maybe even three, maybe even one. So and he wrote those some of those late he wrote Scary Movie three. So horror movie sequels tend to be bad.

Comedy movie sequels tend to be bad. Like it's not a lot of the times that original idea that you've captured. It is lightning in a bottle, and you know people will line up to see a second and third movie, but it will never reach that at high that the first one did. It just won't. Like the highs of Airplane were never reached ever again, even by Naked Gun.

Like the funny jokes in Airplane cannot be reached again because this are timeless. They're just they are without a place in time. People fifty years from now can watch it, and people almost fifty years ago we're watching it and laughing at it. And that's a testament to a comedy that's in the National Film Registrate. So I think that's the final word on that.

Yeah, how often are we doing this, fellas? Is this is going to be every week? When this is coming out every month? I mean, what are our plan here for? Let's let the people know, Bagley, I believe we decided that it'll be weekly, So ten weeks, because we've got this episode on airplane, will have the six episodes on each of the sood it's a police squad, I think weekly and every episode is an episode.

So yeah, that's what my understanding was. And we'll record you know, one and two, but split them into separate episode record three and four or five and six, and then the Naked Gun movies will be their own episodes. Because I think Chris wanted a ten episode package, sure, why not? I figured it was ten episodes ten weeks. That takes us what three and a half months?

Ye, though, I would vote for one extra episode if we can talk about Top Gun, especially since you've never seen it. No top Gun top Secret. Yeah, I haven't seen Top Gun as an adult, but I don't want to watch that movie. No, No, to be fair, I do like Hot Shots a lot, which is true Top Gun the parody movie one of my favorite bits. You're doing okay, John Cryer with your fucking We used to do that to each other at the movie theater a lot.

We'll just walk right up to somebody and like be so in their face. You don't, okay, buddy, I love a top hot Shots part due with Rowan Atkinson. Oh fucking Miguel for air in there. Yeah, it's fantastic, za z baby. They were bringing home the bacon even into the late nineties.

Yeah. Well, until we talk again next week, Fellas, where we will be finally cracking open the files of Police Squad. Now that we have set the tone of this podcast, Chris, what is going on in your world? My friend? Well, we started a podcast network, you and I did, and then all of our friends joined us, like Mark Begley.

So weird Ingway Media is where you can go to find out all about nineteen. I guess this is twenty. This is the twenty show, twenty and counting or twenty one and two. The other day. Oh shit, my math is wrong.

I didn't say I didn't care about math and high school folks, I already said at once. So Herewaymedia dot com is where you can go to find all the shows that Mike White works on, that Mark Bagley works on and now I work on, and then all the shows that we work on together and separately. And that's where you can go. What about you, Mark Bagley, what's keeping you busy? Well, not a whole lot this month other than this, probably so, but you can check out older episodes with Chris and Mike and Chris and Mike on Wakeupheavy dot com or at weird Newaymedia dot com.

Mike, where can people find you? Well, you guys already stole my thunder about weird new Media here. I thought it was going to be making a whole announcement and everything. It's called the bar. I've got everybody waiting upstairs as champagne bottles chill but whatever.

Yeah, and go to the protection booth and find more about me in projection with podcast dot com, or just go to Weirdingwaymedia dot com and I swear one of these days will have a prettier site than what Spreaker gives us. So that's one area where that could definitely improve their user experience. Oh, just one of many, just one? Are we going to become like the Simpsons and just drag the platform that we're on. It is pretty just the running.

It's pretty ugly. I mean, as long as they deserve it. I mean, I mean, there's got to be other people that are Dragon spreakers, so let's just by a law. How's that head or image looking for you? Huh yeah?

Where can people find this show? Mike weirdingwaymedia dot Com. Be sure to tune in next week for another exciting story from the files of Police Squad