Airplane!’s Creators Reveal the Origins of ‘Don’t Call Me Shirley’

New York Magazine ^ | 2/1 | Abraham Riesman

[Sans-Culotte]

The first episode of Police Squad! was hysterical.

It wasn't until many years later that I finally saw M-Squad via DVD. That first episode follows M-Squad's "More Deadly" episode quite closely. Kathryn Lee Scott in a blond wig plays the part Ruta Lee originally played, and the opening murder takes place in a check-cashing place in both shows. Alan North's dry delivery as Frank's boss is based closely on Paul Newlan's sleep-walking performances on M-Squad. Leslie Nielsen's Frank Drebbin stands in for Lee Marvin's Frank Ballinger.

The great thing that came out of the Airplane! saga was that Leslie Nielsen became established as a hilarious deadpan comedian after years of playing leading men and heavies.

[T-Bone Texan]

There are only two types of people in the world:

Those that group everyone in the world into two groups, and those that don’t!

[dfwgator]

There are only 10 groups of people, those who know binary and those who don’t.

[Lizavetta]

“Scientologyyyyyyyyyyyy .....”

[T-Bone Texan]

I can tell that you know a thing or 10 about the subject!

[Fast Moving Angel]

The guy pulling the plug on runway lights is still one of the funniest things I have ever seen in a movie.

I loved it when one of the air traffic controllers opened up the primary radar screen and pulled his laundry out. Still cracks me up.

[Sensei Ern]

Oh, puh-lease! Although it is among my favorite movies, most of the jokes, including, “Don’t call me Shirley,” were old jokes at the time. Except, “I picked a bad time to stop...” and “What can you make of this?”

[Fledermaus]

Yeah, they were a married couple and started arguing. It’s hilarious.

[ColdOne]

;)

[Political Junkie Too]

You could tell what kind of show Police Squad would be because it began with the old NBC Peacock announcement "In Color!"

-PJ

[Travis T. OJustice]

Please add me to that ping list.

[Travis T. OJustice]

There are two types of people who post on the internet.

[martin_fierro]

Angie Tribeca is another current cop show spoof that's pretty good. I only heard of it a week or two ago.

[Political Junkie Too]

Even the teaser for this movie before it came out was hysterical.

You saw the top of a blanket of clouds on the lower part of the screen. Then the Jaws daa-DUM... da-DUM... theme started playing. Then in the distance you saw the tail rudder slowly cut through the clouds from right to left. The daa-DUM... da-DUM... gets louder as the tailfin now is closer going from left to right. The music hits a crescendo as the plane jump up out of the clouds from bottom to top!

Airplane! Coming soon!

-PJ

[BlueMondaySkipper]

Me too!!

[eddie willers]

The autopilot sight gag. The Jive scene. The lineup to commit mayhem on the panicking passenger. And on, and on...

The "drinking problem".

[Larry Lucido]

"Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum!"

Oh, wait. Wrong flick.

[Larry Lucido]

It's a remake of Zero Hour, very, very closely - lines and scenes.

With a generous sprinkling of "Airport," also by Arthur Hailey.

[Hot Tabasco]

you have to go through and replace all the apostrophe marks with apostrophe marks.

Since this site was able to remove all the Italians, it shouldn't be too hard to get rid of the apostrophes..........

[Tired of Taxes]

Since this site was able to remove all the Italians,

Not all of us. ;-)