Review of Airplane! (1980) by Donald W — 20 Aug 2014

Don't Call Me Shirley.

This is movie changed the form of comedy movies. Each line in the movie is an absurd joke. It came out in 1980 and makes fun of just about everything that happened in the 1970's. The story follows a 1950's airplane disaster movie plot but folded in jokes about the Airplane and other disaster movies from the 1970's. They also had flashbacks to make fun of war movie plots and disco movies and disco music. I got this movie on Laserdisc back when I bought my first Laserdisc player. A lot of the early scenes in the movie are from a real airport. Airports have changed a lot since 1980. In the movie they made a joke about going through a metal detector but there still was less security in airports and they allowed cult religious groups to beg for money in the airport lobbies. This was the basis of many of the jokes in the first half of the movie. The best line of the movie is, "Can you fly this plane?" "Surely you can't be serious?" "Yes, I am and don't call me Shirley." Be sure to watch all the way past the end credits because the last joke is after the credits.