'Airplane!' creators to tell all about their surprise 1980 hit movie at Dearborn event

“Can you fly this plane and land it?” asks a physician named Dr. Rumack after food poisoning fells the flight crew of a jet heading from Los Angeles to Chicago.

“Surely you can’t be serious,” says Ted Striker, a former war pilot traumatized by his service.

“I am serious,” replies Rumack, “and don’t call me Shirley.”

If we had you at “surely,” you’re part of the generation whose sense of humor was warped, er, shaped by “Airplane!,” the 1980 disaster movie parody that has become a classic and was a touchstone for some of the great comedic performers of the last 40 years.

To mark the publication of a new book about the making of the film, an event is being held next week by the Dearborn Public Library. What is it? As Rumack might say: "It’s a big building with lots of books you can borrow, but that’s not important right now."

Filmmakers Jim Abrahams and David Zucker will appear Tuesday at a virtual Zoom conversation about “Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!,” an oral history that is generously laced with quotes from a bevy of famous “Airplane!” fans.

Written by Abrahams and brothers David and Jerry Zucker — the three guys known as ZAZ at their Hollywood height — the memoir covers the early years of the friends, who grew up together in Wisconsin and founded a theater troupe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Kentucky Fried Theater, that later led to 1977’s “The Kentucky Fried Movie.”

But the heart of the book is the story of "Airplane!,” which cost a mere $3.5 million and raked in nearly $200 million at theaters 43 years ago. It became a cultural phenomenon that drew fans back for repeated screenings, in part to hear jokes they missed the first time because of audience laughter.

During the Dearborn event, Abrahams and Zucker will share backstage stories about the unexpected success of the film, which is a a nonstop parade of silly jokes, visual gags and playful jabs at the earnestness of the big-budget disaster films like "Airport," "The Towering Inferno" and "The Poseidon Adventure" that were prevalent in the 1970s.

As Adam McKay, a “Saturday Night Live” writing alum and director of films like “The Big Short” and "Don't Look Up," says in the book, “Airplane!” perfected a formula of casting and dialogue that involved “using old-school film stars and having them deliver those lines in deadpan — nobody did that.”

The film featured hilarious co-starring roles by rugged leading men of film and TV like Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves and Robert Stack and even changed the career of Leslie Nielsen, whose performance as Rumack gave him a new life as a comic actor.

“He was actually a comedian in the body of a leading man, a closeted down,” says Jerry Zucker in describing Nielsen in the book. (Nielsen, who died in 2010, went on to star in the “Naked Gun” franchise.)

He continues: “(Nielsen) later admitted that when he read the script, he called his agent and said, ‘Don’t tell them, but I’d pay them to do this movie!'”

“Surely You Can’t Be Serious” also offers insider details on why basketball legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar took on the role of co-pilot Roger Murdock (and pulled off the genius scene where a little boy insists Murdock is Jabbar) and explores the deeper meaning of the “jive scene” where “Leave It to Beaver” mom Barbara Billingsley translated a slang-riddled conversation between two Black passengers.

As Abrahams told NPR recently: “Our intention from the beginning was to subtitle the Black guys with stupid white guy interpretations. And I think that comes across. And maybe, perhaps, if we don't get too serious, it kind of speaks to 400 years of white ignorance ... to the Black experience in the United States."

The pages also are peppered with fun facts about David Letterman's audition for the Ted Striker role (Robert Hays got the part) and Nielsen's use of a fart machine to keep things light on the set. And among the big names who share the impact that “Airplane!” had on their lives are Bill Hader, Molly Shannon, Trey Stone and Matt Parker of “South Park,” Keenen Ivory Wayans, Weird Al Yankovic, director Quentin Tarantino and the late novelist and intellectual Gore Vidal, who counted himself a fan.

Those interested in the event are required to register at the library’s website. Autographed copies of "Surely You Can't Be Serious" will be available before, during and after the talk.

Oh, and what kind of aircraft was used in the movie? Let's leave that to Johnny, the scene-stealing air traffic controller played by Stephen Stucker, a Kentucky Fried Theater alum of whom Jerry Zucker notes in the book: "We dropped this outrageously flamboyant gay man into a sea of cardboard straight men and let him wreak havoc."

Says Johnny: "Oh, it's a big, pretty white plane with red stripes, curtains in the windows and wheels and it looks like a big Tylenol!"

Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.

'Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!'

By David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker

St. Martin's Press, 352 pages, $35

6:30-7:30 p.m. Nov. 7

The virtual conversation with David Zucker and Jim Abrahams hosted by Dearborn Public Library (16301 Michigan Ave.) is 6:30-7:30 p.m. Nov. 7. Those who register at https://dearbornlibrary.org have the option of attending the event at the Henry Ford Centennial Library auditorium or watching it on Zoom from a personal device. The meeting link will be emailed to registrants.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Airplane!' creators to dish on surprise movie hit at Dearborn event