What I learned from watching the movie "Airplane!" on DVD

 

What I learned from watching the movie Airplane! on DVD:

Audio Commentary

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Long Haul Version

• The hijack scene was cut because it wasn't funny which was why everything got deleted. There's nothing on the cutting room floor that's funny. In the hijack scene, a married couple sees a man getting taken away by security guards.
• Back in the 1970s, there was an enormous religious movement who by the Hardy Krishnas who all wore these Saffron robes and they all had their head shaved except for a little ponytail on the back which they called "top nock". They were always at the grocery stores or at the corner of Westwood Blvd or at a lot at the airport where they always picking up whatever it was for a donation where all the money went to police or a church and it always something "would you like to pick up a flower and some propaganda?". It got to be bothersome thing in the whole world. Every time you went to airport, you got hit with these religious fanatics. In the film, they refuse the donation since they gave it to the office which most business people say when you get hit up at your house. Later on, Robert Stack shows up at the airport as a no-nonsense guy where he keeps attacking everyone when offered a donation. It was a brilliant movement.
• Lee Bryant had known Nicholas Pryor for years. Lee Bryant hadn't been in the business all that long when starting the movie as she had only done two movies beforehand. The two were excited to be working on the film together. Nicholas Pryor hadn't done anything that was a big hit beforehand although he did a TV movie called Smile which was very good. So he wanted to be in a big hit, but both he and his agency thought it wouldn't be any good, but it did and it worked.
• Airplane! was Robert Hays' first feature film. He thought it was great and he enjoyed working on it. Before that, he was on a TV show called Angie which was a mid-season replacement and it was the fifth-highest rated show of the season. In between in the summer, he filmed both that and Airplane! which overlapped by two weeks. So he was doing both at the same time. However, Jim Abrahams came to the set of Angie and found him to see what he was like on the show. They thought they made a big mistake at first since a sitcom is different from a movie.
• In the big shot of the airplane crashing through the window, they built a huge 3/4 replica of a 747 and mounted on the back of a truck which then backed in on one take. When their producer Howard Koch learned about it, he asked how much they spent on it and why they didn't use a miniature, they responded that they were making sure. John Frazier pointed out it was the first time that in a movie that temporary glass was used in a stunt where you could go through real glass that'd break away and go into little pieces. Pilots commented stuff like "Oh, I've been so close to that" or "Yeah I've touched the glass before."
• In the first scene with Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty, you can see a grip is laying cable on the far corner of the screen which was unintentional. It was shot in a portion of the airport that wasn't being used.
• In the scene where Peter Graves is reading a magazine called "Modern Sperm" and picks up the red phone by mistake and you hear a chuckle after hearing the voiceover, the script supervisor laughed. He thought they'd remove it, but it was kept in the film.
• The filmmakers did a lot of the vomiting sounds.
• They spent a lot of casting actors for the film since they didn't know any better and they wanted to see everyone. They saw a lot of actors and screen tested a lot of them for the roles of Ted and Elaine. They shot a screen test for David Letterman. Robert Hays called Julie Hagerty one of the sweetest people he's ever met. He blew a line when doing one of their scenes and they said "cut" while Julie said I'm sorry". Robert said "No, don't worry about it Julie, it wasn't you, it was Bob."
• The role that Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch does in Zero Hour! inspired a role for an athlete in Airplane!. So they wrote the role for Pete Rose which was specific to him. However, they filmed in August when the baseball season was ongoing so they rewrote the role for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They went to his agent or manager who was handling his stuff and sent him the screenplay where he'd work for only like three days as they wanted him in the film. His agent came back and told them that he was interested, but he wanted $35,000 so he could buy an oriental rug which was how much it cost. They thought it was the greatest line they ever heard from an agent. After all, they were more excited to have Kareem in the role instead of Pete Rose. Three weeks later, Kareem purchased the oriental rug which was featured in a Time magazine.
• Robert Hays worked with three directors which was easier than working with only one. The angle by keeping them all together in the same place was necessary when filming. They did a really great job directing as a team.
• The whole notion for Jive dialogue was when the filmmakers saw the movie Shaft where they didn't understand what they were saying. The first two people who read for the roles were prepared for it and they got the part right away while the filmmakers apologized for what they had written. The Jive actors knew what the filmmakers what wanted. They thought it came out humorous and funny. They were old friends from high school. It even helped that they were both black.
• The filmmakers had to keep telling the actors consistently to not play it straight and act like it's a comedy. Most of the actors had to mind that. The filmmakers had to do it almost with a heavy hand in a sense and keep it that way.
• When Peter Graves read the script for Airplane!, he didn't want to do it at first and thought it was crazy with the comedy.
• They couldn't afford any 2nd Unit Crew at the time. When they had to film planes landing at LAX, they just went out and shot the footage themselves with the 1st Unit cameraman, but they don't remember. They don't remember the whole notion.
• When Lorna Patterson got the role of Randy at first, it wasn't a singing part. It caused a problem when there's a part with a singing nun which was a problem as it parodies airport movies. So she drove over there as quick as possible to the Paramount offices which was like a dorm office, answered that she got sing where she had a tape of singing, and then went into Jerry's Volvo where they put the tape in the car as they listened to her singing while the filmmakers were on their knees.
• Jim Abrahams was a great surfer. Today, they'd photoshop the surfing nun instead of having to film one in the ocean.
• Before the film was made, Paramount assigned them Howard Koch who had been president of the studio in earlier years who was extremely popular. He walked them through the process and was with the filmmakers during filming as they had never been a studio lot before.
• Jerry Zucker is bad at singing that he can't hum. 
• In the bar scene where Ted & Elaine dance, it's called a "Texas Switch" when Ted does a big flip. 
• Peter Pam inspired John Frazier to put wires on Robert Hays during the dance scene.
• In the deleted scene where the two kids have coffee and talk, they want to discuss education, business, and economy while they learn each other's names.
• In the beach scene, there was a portable tank with 10,000 gallons of water and had a pump which pumped the water up. The water got all around Robert Hays during filming as the water came really huge after pouring and stopping for the first time as Robert & Julie were holding on for dear life. They built a platform which was several feet high for Robert after filming the close-ups of Julie.
• When it came to filming the first scene of Joey in the cockpit where they talk, Peter Graves was looking for the exit of the soundstage at the first, but they got away with it during his first line in the scene. He was plain scared during it.
• Rossie Harris who played Joey was made fun of his scenes by others at an airport one time.
• The filmmakers were on a TV show with Peter Yarrow where he was there singing "River of Jordan" which they videotaped and they thought it was a nice song. Years later when filming Airplane! when they needed a song, they remembered "River of Jordan" which they went back to and thought would work for it. Later on, Peter Yarrow had second thoughts and wasn't happy to have the song in it since he had written and performed it for a friend's wedding. They haven't spoken to him since.
• A technical visor had a problem with the script where the pilot and co-pilot have the same meal, but the filmmakers replied if it's not like that, then it's not a movie. Today, a pilot and a co-pilot can't have the same meal on a flight of over eight hours or more.
• When they originated Kentucky Fried Theater, they put a show on the weekend with one in particular who had too much information for virtually everything he said. They made a skit within Kentucky Fried Theater where they'd talk about a different thing every night. It became an aspect of Ted Striker.
• Lorna Patterson didn't get the joke when making the movie. They knew that they wanted, did what they were told to do and they all had a good time. The masterminds of the film were not the actors. Peter didn't want to attend the Director's Guild for the first showing of the film initially, but his wife insisted and they went. When the film began, the audience were laughing which made Peter think that it was going to be funny.
• When Peter Graves and Leslie Nielsen interact, the former thought that it was enjoyable to interact with the latter once he saw it and the audience reacted.
• Lorna Patterson remembers who they were going to stick the pie in as opposed to decide. They were jammed in the cockpit a lot even though the plane was cut in half which was small as people was shoved in very small spaces for long periods of time. During the falling, they put a sandbag there so Lorna could do the fall.
• There's a scene where after Kareem-Abdul Jabbar suffers food poisoning where Lorna Patterson pulls him down the middle of all the passengers. She was in the rehearsal pretending to pull him down the aisle where nobody thought that Kareem was enormous while Lorna was small. It came to the point where she couldn't move as her body was moving backwards and nothing was happening while Jerry said "Go", but Lorna replied that she couldn't go. So they had to stop everything and build a wheeled platform so she could pull him while someone pushed him from the side in the process. She thought it was unbelievable.
• For years and years, when Peter Graves traveled at any airplane and fell into pieces,  the stewardesses would remind him to not eat the fish as nobody liked the film. One time, he was in a supermarket where a mother has a 12-year old son who recognizes him from the film. So he leaned over to him, reused a line from Airplane! and his mother grabbed him by the collar and fled.
• Jerry & David's mother was an actress before having children in New York and when later when she moved to Milwaukee as she did a bit of acting where she loved the theater and didn't pursue it because she had three children. It gave them an opportunity have her do acting which they thought she was great in all of them as they paid her back for something she loved.
• John Frazier thought that they had fun working with the inflatable autopilot named Otto.
• When they were renovating a warehouse in Milwaukee which would become the Kentucky Fried Theater, they brought an old piano from Madison was among the thing they brought with them which was covered with tarp. 
• Leslie Nielsen took a look during the only improvisation of the film.
• The filmmakers have always liked bizarre camera tricks and strange visuals. People didn't get the mirror shot which you can play back now and laugh. For the laugh shot, they took out the mirror and the wall behind them so the man could walk through it.
• There are a bunch of shots in the movie that the filmmakers that find hysterical and nobody really laughed at such as the spirit on the watermelon. Another is when the cigarette is thrown at the window and an explosion occurs which they couldn't stop laughing at.
• There was another deleted scene, but the filmmakers don't remember which film it came from where they keep drinking cups over and over again where they drink fast to the point where they were barely drinking.
• The gag with the air that's violently air rushing was supposed to blow the beard off a man. However, it just didn't blow off so they had to move on.
• Billy Koch who plays a child in a newspaper, used a picture of himself when he was in second grade for the newspaper picture. He thought that his haircut in the photo was the worst haircut of all time.
• Lorna Patterson remembers Jerry not to worry as long as she played one of the scenes honesty where she really was more upset not being married instead of the threat on the plane. She didn't get it while the others did.
• David Leisure had no qualms about getting into the film unlike Leslie Nielsen.
• They all grew up watching Peter Graves on Fury and Robert Stack on The Untouchables. Howard Koch worked with the latter on The Untouchables. They grew up with Lloyd Bridges when they watched Sea Hunt.
• In the scene where Randy is instructing the passengers to put on their lifejackets as the plane going to make an emergency landing, the scene was rehearsed, but the gag wasn't since they couldn't afford to it more than twice. They didn't know what made it explode into the duck and come out quickly was the CO2 cartridges which was put directly onto Lorna Patterson's body where the blouse was thin and on her skin were these really horrible devices which nobody thought about it since they were doing it on a dummy. When she pulled the thing, she had the instant horrible sensation of being cold which caused her to scream as she wanted to get it off the body. The whole first one was gone so the one that's in the film is the second time it was done.
• Dr. Rumack was built up to the point when he wishes Ted & Elaine good luck that they were counting on them. It required only one take.
• They gave the illusion that the plane was moving by using a miniature plane and putting it on a conveyor belt since the CG technology for it didn't exist at the time. One of the grips got caught on the conveyor belt and it took him up onto it, took him down it, under the airplane and out the other end of it. However, that didn't make the movie.
• They were still on the soundstage where the airplane was cut in half at the end of the film. All the people who were jumping down were all laughing and smiling. Jerry says to them "What are you guys doing? This is an emergency landing!" At the time, they were at the bottom and pointed up to Lorna that were she was making them laugh. Jerry questioned that Lorna was being funny again and ordered her to stop it. Lorna pointed out there was no sound when they were goofing around. When they asked her what she was saying, she was saying "Thank you for flying Trans Americans! Have a nice day!" So that was put into the film.

Trivia Track

• The spoof of Jaws, with the original score by John Williams was written in during production to let the audience in on the joke.
• The airplane tail is a model, and the clouds were made with foam and cotton.
• The film was originally titled Kentucky Fried Airplane! It came from Kentucky Fried Theater, the sketch comedy group formed by Jim Abrahams and David & Jerry Zucker.
• David and Jerry Zucker’s sister and brother-in-law both appear early on.
• Gregory Itzin, a college buddy of the filmmakers is the one who tries to give Elaine the flower at the start of the film.
• The “White Zone/Red Zone” announcements were done by a married couple who did the actual airport announcements in LA. They also sold the equipment that played the announcements.
• David Leisure went on to play Joe Isuzu in a series of popular ‘90s television commercials.
• David Zucker and Robert Hayes went to college together in San Diego, California.
• While the film parodies several different airline disaster films, it’s most indebted to the 1957 film Zero Hour!.
• Character names, costumes, even whole scenes and dialogue were taken from Zero Hour! and put into Airplane!
• One piece of dialogue was taken from a cheap, dime-store novel.
• Howard Jarvis (1903-1986) (the one who waits in the cab forever) was the author of California’s Proposition 13, which cut property taxes in the state and caused a nationwide tax revolt.
• The joke where the plane crashes through the window got its start as a sketch at the Kentucky Fried Theater. The two ground crewmen in the scene were played by David & Jerry Zucker. The one on the right directing the plane is Jerry while the one on his right is David. If you notice closely, you can also see a woman tossing a baby.
• The nose of the 747 was a 3/4-scale mockup. It was installed onto the backup of a pickup truck and backed into the window.
• The film’s opening scenes were shot in actual terminals at Los Angeles International Airport.
• Some of the “extras” in the background were actual passengers heading to/from their flights.
• If you listen carefully, after Peter Graves picks up the wrong phone, there is an audible chuckle in the background. 
• The voice on the phone is the script supervisor. Her impromptu laugh at Peter Graves’ reaction was left on the film’s soundtrack.
• Lisa Davis was a member of the Kentucky Fried Theater.
• Wires was used for when the heart jumps around.
• The “sick little girl” storyline was a parody of a similar storyline in film Airport 1975.
• The screenplay for Zero Hour!, and the book Airport, on which the series of Airport movies were based, were both written by Arthur Hailey.
• The airport has been completely renovated since the making of Airplane!. If the film were shot today, one scene would have ten Starbucks Coffee shops in the background.
• Louie Netz was a high school friend of the filmmakers.
• Conrad Palmisano, a stunt coordinator, attempts to give Ted a flower of religion concusisness.
• David and Jerry’s mom Charlotte appears when the passengers are boarding the plane. 
• Jimmie Walker from the 1970s TV series Good Times appears cleaning the front of the plane exterior. He’s the only comedy cameo in the film. He kept getting annoyed with Jerry Zucker for referring to him as JJ. Jerry, who didn’t watch much TV at the time, just thought it was Jimmie’s nickname.
• Paramount wanted the filmmakers to utilize comedy cameos by the studio’s current TV stars. Producer Howard Koch, knowing the filmmakers didn’t want these cameos, called the TV actors’ agents and told them it wasn’t a very good film.
• One gentleman was a stand-in for one of the other actors. He was so helpful that the filmmakers give him the part.
• Susan Breslau - David and Jerry’s sister appears as a silent ticket agent.
• Malloary Sandler - a member of the Kentucky Fried Theater in Los Angeles and 2nd cousin of the Zuckers played the ticket agent who gives Ted a ticket.
• In 1980, the approximate cost of an airline ticket from Los Angeles to Chicago was $200 while the approximate cost of waiting in a cab for 87 minutes was $20.
• Smoking was banned on flights in 1990.
• The “Trans American” jet is a repainted TWA jet. Along with TWA, which were operating in 1980, have since gone bankrupt such as Braniff, Eastern Airlines, Pan Am, Western Airlines, Piedmont, National Airlines, and PSA.
• The dictionary defines “jive” as the language of hipsters. 
• The “Jive Guys” took different jive words and put them together into sentences, creating their own dialogue.
• For the exterior shots of the plane, the filmmakers used a working Boeing 707. The interiors were shot on a soundstage at Culver City Studios in Culver City, California.
• Joyce Bulifant starred on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as the wife of Murray Slaughter, played by Gavin MacLeod who also starred as Capt, Stubing on The Love Boat, where his daughter was played by Jill Whelan.
• One scene was inspired by one in the 1944 film Since You Went Away. The shots and dialogue almost identical, though in that film, the soldier was on a train. If you look closely in the cone, you can see the actress “just” miss hitting the second post.
• Jim, David and Jerry all did the shots of planes taking off and landing. Since it was their first “big budget” Hollywood film, they didn’t know hat a smaller craw (called the 2nd unit) could’ve done it for them.
• The airplane sound you hear is not the sound of a jet engine. That’s because the filmmakers wanted the film to take place on a prop plane, while the studio insisted that it take place on a jet. For the compromise, they used a jet with a propeller sound effect.
• The nun on the magazine isn’t a real one since the filmmakers went down to the beach and found a surfer willing to dress up as a nun.
• Ann Nelson didn’t begin her professional acting career until she was 61. Airplane! was only her second film. 
• The bar scene in a flashback was the only one shot on the Paramount lot. It was filmed the same day as the upcoming scene on the beach, but the cast and crew almost didn’t make back. After inflating a rented airplane emergency ramp, the cast and crew used it as a giant raft and almost got washed out to sea.
• The Girl Scouts don’t enforce gambling, drinking or fighting.
• Safety pads were used for when the Girl Scouts are fighting and during the dance.
• When the Girl Scout slide across the bar in one of the shots, she accidentally hits Robert Hays’ arm, knocking his glass into his face.
• When Stayin’ Alive by The Bee Gees plays, the version you hear was slightly sped up by the filmmakers. They had to get permission from The Bees Gees before doing so.
• Bill West, a member of the original Kentucky Fried Theater in Madison, WI appears in the dance scene.
• The same summer when Airplane! was shot for 34 days, “Disco Demolition Night” occurred at Comiskey Park where a near riot occurred when a radio DJ blew up thousands of disco records.
• The soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, which includes “Stayin’ Alive,” is the biggest selling disco album in history, selling over 15 million copies to date.
• Robert and Julie rehearsed the dance sequence for a month before it was actually shot. If you look closely at Robert’s shirt in the dance, you can see the wires that are holding him up. Also, when Robert is thrown, a stuntman is used, and you can still see Robert in the aftermath.
• Robert said he could juggle during filming. Because of that, he was thrown some juggling balls, and it was added to the scene.
• In the last moment of the dance scene in the bar, the screaming Girl Scout who gets thrown was in fact played by a dummy.
• In the next shot after the first flashback, Ann Nelson was put into a harness and suspended over the set.
• It’s true that airlines actually used to serve food on flights.
• The coffee scene with the kids is a parody of the film Crash Landing, where two adults have the same conversation. Much more of the scene was shot, but it was left on the cutting room floor. Though they were added back into the film for airline on TV.
• The beach scene was shot near Zumba Beach in Malibu which is the same location where Charlton Heston finds the Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet Of The Apes. The scene isn’t actually inspired by the famous scene in From Here To Eternity. That’s because the filmmakers claimed they hadn’t seen that film when they wrote Airplane! It was their own original idea.
• Catfish isn’t a salt water fish.
• Elaine Dickinson is the same name as a former girlfriend of one of the filmmakers.
• David Letterman read for the role of Ted Striker by reading the scene where Ted is in the U.S. Army Psychiatric Hospital.
• Geline was the name of a childhood neighbor of David and Jerry.
• Marcy Goldman (who makes a cameo in the U.S. Army Psychiatric hospital scene in a flashback) was a high school classmate of the filmmakers.
• The moans in the U.S. Army Psychiatric hospital scene were created by producer Jon Davison.
• Hurwitz was the name of a friend of the filmmakers from Milwaukee.
• Ethel Merman (1908-1984) - star of stage and screen, she was best known for her roles in Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, and Gypsy. She couldn’t be on set until after noon because it took all morning just to do her hair.
• One coffee scene is a parody of a famous coffee commercial from the 1970s.
• The nun was originally supposed to sing River of Jordan, written by Peter Yarrow. It was a little too similar to the singing nun in Airport 1975, so the filmmakers rewrote the scene so that stewardess Randy sang it. The filmmakers met Yarrow on an episode of the TV show Razzle Dazzle Rock & Roll, where they first heard the song. Yarrow agreed to let the filmmakers use the song, but after seeing how it was used in the film, he was sorry that he did.
• Jerry Zucker taught Jill how to pucker her lips and cross her eyes for a scene.
• Airline food isn’t actually made of cardboard. It’s actually made of plastic.
• The “African village” scenes were filmed in Griffith Park in LA.
• Griffith Park is also home to the Griffith Observatory which was made famous in Rebel Without A Cause.
• Supperware parodies a famous brand of food-storage containers which is famous for being sold at “parties” where women get together to peruse and buy the various containers.
• There’s a continuity error where earlier, Ted mentions he and Elaine “during the war” but later on, it’s said that they met “before the war.”
• Jim Abrahams providing the vomiting sound effect twice.
• Louise Yaffe, Jim Abrahams’ mom played the woman who introduces Elaine to Dr. Rumack.
• For the scene where a woman feels sick, the filmmakers used a little sleight of hand. Leslie pretended to take the egg out of the woman’s mouth. In fact, it’s the same egg in her mouth the whole time. The bird is hidden in the cup too. If you look closely, you can see the bird affecting a passenger in the back.
• As Victor collapses from food poisoning, he makes sure to cushion his head from the fall.
• Before Airplane!, Leslie Nielsen and Peter Graves had done very little comedic work. They had mostly played serious characters beforehand.
• Anita Bryant was a popular singer and Florida orange juice spokesperson in the 1970s.
• Kareem Abdul-Jabber was so big that a wheeled platform was built to assist Lorna Patterson in dragging him.
• Rumack was the name of a childhood neighbor of the filmmakers. The real Rumack eventually became a doctor himself. In a care of life initiating art, the real Dr. Rumack was on a flight several years after the film’s release where he had to assist a sick passenger.
• Leslie Nielsen was known around the set of Airplane! for his “farting machine,” a small piece of plastic a doctor friend had given him. His joking around the set with the machine became so popular that he began selling them to the cast and crew.
• Charlotte Zucker played another character named “Make Up Lady”. David and Jerry would go on to cast her in most of their films in roles such as "Bank Officer,” “Banquet Lady,” and “Woman With Program.”
• The automatic pilot Otto was built by special effects supervisor John Frazier.
• The first scene with Lloyd Bridges is all one take, meaning it had to be perfect from start to finish. Unfortunately, one of the actors in the scene kept screwing up his lines, meaning that it had to be reshot over and over again.
• Stan and Terry were the names of the filmmakers' lawyers at the time.
• Rex Kramer was the name of a high school friend of the filmmakers.
• Lloyd Bridges starred in the 1970s TV series San Francisco International Airport.
• The filmmakers were worried that the censors might take offense to Elaine’s “manual inflation” of Otto. So three versions of the scene were shot. In each, the valve was placed higher up to be a little less offensive. The first take, with the valve in the lowest position, ended up being used.
• The breasts are real in the scene where Elaine asks if anyone knows how to fly a plane.
• Robert Hays’ Ford Mustang appears in the film which Howard Koch rented for two days, for $35 a day.
• Paul Carey was the name of a college roommate of the filmmakers.
• One of the visual jokes is one the filmmakers would use more frequently their next film, 1984’s Top Secret!
• In one of the shots, Rex Kramer, played by Robert Stack, stands in front of a mirror. This was done by taking the mirror and put the camera on the other side of the wall, making it seem as though Stack’s reaction is walking toward the camera.
• Jesse Emmett was a member of the Kentucky Fried Theater.
• The dialogue in this scene where Jesse pours gasoline on himself had to timeout perfectly so that Jesse blew out the match before it burned him. Unfortunately for him, the take used in the film was the only one where he didn’t get burned.
• 11330 Regent Street was the address of the Kentucky Fried Theater in Madison, WI.
• Jim Abrahams plays the man who get thrown off a bike.
• The car shots were done on a soundstage in front of a rear-projection screen.
• During rehearsals, Leslie only slapped Lee Bryant once. Thus the second slap took her completely by surprise.
• Jim Abrahams makes another cameo in the airport when people are being attacked.
• The sunglasses gag was started at the Kentucky Fried Theater.
• You can notice the wires that are used to pull Otto out of his seat.
• The vulture is said to circle over the dying, waiting to feed on their rotting flesh.
• Barbara Billingsley played Beaver’s mom on the TV show, Leave It To Beaver.
• Macias was the name of a high school friend of the filmmakers.
• A specially designed bed had to be created to accommodate the horse sleeping with the lady.
• When the wind is blowing inside the plane, one actor’s beard was supposed to fly off during the scene but the gag didn’t work.
• Jonathan Banks played one of the bad guys in Beverly Hills Cop.
• Gunderson was the name of the filmmakers’ high school coach.
• The line “Got a cigarette, Niels?” was taken directly from Zero Hour! It was used whenever they wanted to get Sterling Hayden’s character off screen.
• “Counter Point” was a parody of a 60 Minutes segment.
• During the first take of the shot of when the shit hits the fan, the “doody missed the fan and hit actor Stephen Stucker, who was sitting in the background.
• The filmmaker wrote everyone’s dialogue for them except for Stephen Stucker. For him, they’d give him the previous line of dialogue, and he’d come up with his own lines on the set.
• The pep talk is a parody of one given in the film Knute Rockne, All American.
• Another speech is a parody of John Byner, who used to do an impression of Robert Stack.
• Neubauer was the name of a high school classmate of the filmmakers.
• Roberts, Colosimo, and Gratz were all names of high school friends of the filmmakers.
• Hinshaw was a local TV/radio announcer in Milwaukee.
• WZAZ is a take-off on the filmmakers’ names.
• Robert Stack used the line “This is just what they’ll be expecting us to do.” dozens of times on the TV show The Untouchables.
• Another continuity error is when the gear’s not down.
• The bark the Dalmatian makes actually belongs to a hound dog.
• The filmmakers don’t endorse sniffing glue.
• In one of the shots, Lloyd Bridges was hung upside down. The filmmakers said he could stay there for minutes on end and not pass out.
• The runaway lights going out was not created for the film. It was actual stock footage the filmmaker found. When they saw the footage, they wrote a joke into the film.
• The wobbly footage of the plane landing was shot by the filmmakers from a helicopter.
• Mark and Diane Neubauer, friends of the filmmakers appear in the airport at the end of the film. David Zucker is present too.
• When the plane lands, it’s a model plane being pulled by a conveyer belt along the runway. During the shoot, a crew member got stuck to the conveyer belt and was pulled up along the runway.
• A picture of David and Jerry’s dad Burt Zucker appears at the end of the film in the airport after the plane stops.
• When Airplane! first came out in 1980, it opened in 700 theaters across the United States, grossing $80 million against a $3.5 budget, making it the highest grossing comedy at the time.
• After the second Airplane! film, Otto spent the rest of his years as a bitter inflatable pilot in Jerry Zucker’s garage, until he finally disintegrated in 1997.