Airplane! - Full Length Reaction
Added 2025-04-07 14:00:13 +0000 UTCtoday we're watching the winner of the recent comedy movies poll - Airplane!
Comments
Hey Camilla, I know hindsight is 20/20 but I just noticed today that Airplane is free to watch on YouTube. I remember you said you rented it from Prime. Is it in the public domain now? Perhaps that may be an option for future Older Movies to save a few dollars. Just a thought.
Tax Man
2025-04-12 00:03:34 +0000 UTCOne that lots of people miss.... The stewardess named Randy... A slang term for the extremely enjoyable anticipation of the attempt to make a zygote. The stereotypical state of all stewardesses and flight attendants. :)
Sterling LaLoge
2025-04-10 20:54:08 +0000 UTCIn the 70s airport terminals were full of religious groups soliciting donations: Moonies, Krishnas, Jehova Witnesses, etc. So Robert Stack punching them all out would resonate at the time.
richard wilkinson
2025-04-08 21:49:15 +0000 UTCHaving mentioned "Bridge on the River Kwai" -- it still stands up very well if you ever want to react to an even older movie, almost 70 years old now. Several reactors have done it. No pop culture knowledge needed to understand it. British star Alec Guinness won the Oscar for best actor. One of his many great performances. He is now sadly forgotten except for playing Obi Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.
xunegrapse
2025-04-08 17:54:01 +0000 UTCThanks for this reaction. A lot of topical references are dated and forgotten, but there's still plenty of hilarity going on. Lots of fun!
Alan Jones
2025-04-08 12:09:56 +0000 UTCThanks for the reaction.
Clay F
2025-04-08 07:25:47 +0000 UTCI can't stop myself -- The dance scene in the sleazy bar is taken straight from "Saturday Night Fever" (1977), staring John Travolta, whose career soon faltered but was revived by "Pulp Fiction" (1994).
xunegrapse
2025-04-08 06:45:16 +0000 UTCOne other bit of trivia -- I'm pretty sure the Japanese character in WWII uniform was a callback to the classic movie "Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957). Also, the sudden pointless nude shot was typical of the 80s, as for example in "Sixteen Candles" (1984).
xunegrapse
2025-04-08 06:39:52 +0000 UTCThis movie is a parody of the franchise of “Airport” soap-opera-flavored movies of the 70s. The long-forgotten pop-culture references in this movie are legion. There are movie cliches going back to the1930s/40s – especially re newspapers & reporters. A TV commercial in which an insecure wife worries that her husband never asks for a 2nd cup of coffee at home (she’s using the wrong brand, obviously). The beach love scene in “From Here to Eternity” (1953). Reference to a Ronald Reagan movie a year before Reagan became president. The singer Anita Bryant, anti-gay activist. Religious cults of the 1970s. A pun based on knowing that early microwave ovens were called “radar ranges”. The eggs-out-of-a-mouth bit was a classic magic trick. WWII-style air combat scenes which don’t fit the timeline. Reference to an era when gas station attendants always cleaned a customer’s windshields and checked the oil. The “singing nun” – based on a Belgian nun who recorded a hit song in French in the early 60s about St. Dominic; her story was made into a movie starring Debbie Reynolds, mother of Carrie Fisher aka Princess Leia. The old-fashioned credit card roll-over device which made carbon copies of the receipt. The Jaws theme in the beginning – this is only five years after that movie gave rise to the summer blockbuster and changed movie marketing forever. The one key to the humor that young folk (anyone under 60) can never get is the casting. The lady who “speaks jive” was famous for playing the most conventional & unassertive TV sitcom mom of the 1950s-60s. Many of the older guys in this farce were famous for playing tough guy roles. Worthy of note: Robert Stack, star of the show “The Untouchables”; Peter Graves, star of the “Mission Impossible” series; Lloyd Bridges, star of “Sea Hunt” (and father of Jeff Bridges). Also Kenneth Tobey, star of the sci-fi movie “The Thing from Another World” (1951). [Remade in 1982 as ‘The Thing”, a version much more faithful to the original 1938 story "Who Goes There?" (and far more terrifying).] The actor who benefitted most from the success of the film was Leslie Nielson (the doctor). He played a starship captain in the best sci-fi movie of the 50s – Forbidden Planet (1956). Later he starred in a police detective series. After that, numerous TV episodes, mostly serious drama, but no great career success until this role re-invented him as a popular comic actor. My wife utterly hated this film, saying it was nothing but bad puns and other “guy humor”. But her sister had a friend who went back to see it in the theater numerous times.
xunegrapse
2025-04-08 06:24:17 +0000 UTCAt the very end of the movie the guy was still waiting in the taxi!
Tax Man
2025-04-08 01:03:35 +0000 UTCI remember when Lew Alcindor changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I was in the 3rd grade.
Clay F
2025-04-08 00:01:21 +0000 UTC"PULL A LEVER! PUSH A BUTTON!" on a great reaction to a great movie. You absolutely need to do Airplane 2. Personally I think that is the better one, but maybe that is just me.
Sterling LaLoge
2025-04-07 23:24:09 +0000 UTCThe co-pilot was literally Kareem Abdul-Jabbar lol
JB
2025-04-07 23:05:57 +0000 UTCHappy Monday, Camilla. Airplane! (1980) is one WILD flight at the movies. I get a good laugh from all of the scenes with Otto Pilot.
Alex Tan
2025-04-07 16:06:30 +0000 UTC" A hospital what is it, it's a big building with patients but that's not important right now" dad word jokes 😆
James
2025-04-07 15:37:54 +0000 UTC
