AIRPLANE! & Its Many Children

"Life's like a movie, write your own ending"
- Kermit the Frog (THE MUPPET MOVIE 1978)

So we at film babble have been going nuts over the sequel summer to come as evidenced in our last post. Every genre represented and every cliche exploited - it is going to be a long hot summer. One genre that we babble bloggers all agree must end is represented by the arrival on DVD of SCARY MOVIE 3. You know the genre - the AIRPLANE-MAD-MAGAZINE-DERIVED-JOKE-A-MINUTE spoofs (see list below)that seem to appear every several months and have inane scatalogical humour in place of real satire.

AIRPLANE! AND ITS MANY CHILDREN:

For those of you just tuning in - fellow comedy writers/performers Jerry and David Zucker along with Jim Abrahams created a franchise around a bunch of cheap jokes and lame sight gags. It started when the Zuckers and Abrahams (ZAZ for short) took their stage show from the Kentucky Fried Theater in Milwaukee to Hollywood to make THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE. KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE begat AIRPLANE! which begat :

POLICE SQUAD (TV SERIES-1982) After his straight-man to a perfection performance in AIRPLANE! Leslie Neilsen stars as Detective Frank Drebin in a dead-on parody of '60s and '70's cop shows. Unfortunately this blueprint would later be bred dry.

TOP SECRET (1984) - File this under "what were they thinking?!!?" I mean the idea was to mix Elvis movie musical fluff with Nazi spy dramas, right? RIGHT?!!? I dunno but Val Kilmer does his ernest best to fend off prison anal sex jokes and a misguided BLUE LAGOON take-off. At least it has that one surreal sequence with Peter Cushing, otherwise what a dog patch!

THE NAKED GUN (1988)/ NAKED GUN 2 1/2 (1991) / NAKED GUN 33 1/3 : THE FINAL INSULT (1994) Detective Drebin (Nielsen)returns from sitcom cancelation pergatory in 3 movies that get progressively worse and are most notable for having O.J. Simpson as his cop partner punching bag. Priscilla Presley, Ricardo Montalban, Anna Nicole Simpson, and Robert Goulet chime in with pop culture icon plug-aways and the jokes - the very definition of hit or miss - just keep coming. First Film recommended only.

HOT SHOTS (1991)/ HOT SHOTS PART DEUX (1993) While the Zucker Brothers did other less jokey projects (GHOST, RUTHLESS PEOPLE) Jim Abrahams never left the always go for the funny fold. His Charlie Sheen fronted TOP GUN spoofs also took on RAMBO, NO WAY OUT, BASIC INSTINCT among countless other targets to better success than a number of later day Zucker efforts. Surprisely both flicks hold up today - on a silly stupid level mind you - the Saddam Hussein look-alike alone but add a clueless war-time President played by Lloyd Bridges and you'll get sucker punched into the next decade.

HIGH SCHOOL HIGH (1996)- Hip hop high school dramas like DANGEROUS MINDS get a beating in a movie that actually lets Jon Lovitz take the lead - a romantic heroic lead at that. Problem is among the cheap throwaway gags herein - who was even paying attention? Only David Zucker of ZAZ was involved here.

Some of the ZAZ team appear as writers or producers of the following offspring of AIRPLANE! but some titles are unrelated hangers-on or copycats. Most notably AIRPLANE 2 : THE SEQUEL which ZAZ not only had nothing to do with - they made a pact never to see it. It was a blatant cash-in you see. Much like the majority here :

YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE (1982) - One of the first to use lame slogans like "in the tradition of..." or ad copy along the lines of "does to soap operas what AIRPLANE did to disaster movies". Wishful thinking - this Gary Marshall directed hospital farce didn't een come close despite the talents of Michael McKean and Sean Young.

JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY - This time out it's '30's-'40's gangster movies getting the joke-a-minute treatment. Try joke every 30 minutes more like.

CAVEMAN - Dawn of man comedy starring Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach. Dennis Quaid and Shelly Long hold up the rear. And what a rear it is.

I'M GONNA GET YOU SUCKA! - The Wayans Brothers pre-IN LIVING COLOR take on Blaxploitation movies from the '70's using the ZAZ mold.

FATAL INSTINCT : The less said the better.

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S LOADED WEAPON I : Ditto

JANE CHAMPION'S MAFIA!: Jim Abrahams should have known better. The genre has barely 2 breaths left.

BASKETBALL (1999) This ill-fated collaboration with the Stone brothers of South Park fame is barely a blink on the comedy radar. Remember it? I didn't think so.

WRONGFULLY ACCUSED

SPY HARD - Leslie Nielsen cashes in on his ZAZ-created non-persona. Why not?

Coming up the Wayans steal from the Zuckers and the Zuckers get their revenge - SCARY MOVIE style when FILM BABBLE BLOG continues.

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