Posted on 02/01/2016 1:40:02 PM PST by nickcarraway
There are few movies as quotable as the 1980 disaster-movie parody Airplane! â and of the movie's many memorable gags, arguably the most enduring is the moment when reluctant pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) tells Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen), âSurely you canât be serious,â and Rumack replies, âI am serious â and donât call me Shirley.â
As part of our weeklong 100 Jokes That Shaped Comedy series, we dug into the origins and execution of that exchange â as well as the overall comedic mechanics of Airplane! â with the trio who wrote and directed the film, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker.
What was the origin of âDonât call me Shirleyâ?
Jerry Zucker: The origin of that joke is similar to the origin of a lot of jokes in the movie: While we were writing, we used to watch a lot of old, serious movies that had a lot of this overly dramatic dialogue. Weâd say, âWait, wait, wait. Stop the tape,â and weâd go back and weâd put in our punch line or our gag in the background. That was one of those lines where someone actually did say, âSurely you canât be serious.â
David Zucker: The other person might have even said, âI am serious.â But we added the âDonât call me Shirley.â
So youâd do that for lots of the dialogue?
Jerry Zucker: A lot of it, yeah.
Jim Abrahams: Constantly. Thereâs a line in [1957 airplane thriller] Zero Hour! that says â how does the line go?
Jerry Zucker: âStewardess, can you face some unpleasant facts?â And then, in Zero Hour!, she says, âYes.â But in our movie, she says, âNo.â David Zucker: Or âWe need somebody who can not only fly this plane, but who didnât have fish for dinner.â
Abrahams: Thatâs an actual line! That was a line from Zero Hour! Written by Arthur Hailey.
David Zucker: The whole plot of Zero Hour! is that everyone on a plane who ate fish, including the pilots, got sick. Jerry Zucker: We just put that line in, verbatim.
What do you recall of filming the âDonât call me Shirleyâ gag?
Abrahams: Well, Paramount Pictures was apprehensive about three first-time directors working together on a movie. David Zucker: Our contract said they could fire us after one week.
Abrahams: As it turned out, the âDonât call me Shirleyâ scene was filmed on the first day of shooting. When Paramount Pictures watched the dailies and saw that joke and the way it played, they were relieved. They finally understood the concept and were much more comfortable dealing with us.
Jerry Zucker: We got the call and it was kind of like, âOh, now we get it.â I think they previously said, âOkay, fine, you can have [Robert] Stack, [Lloyd] Bridges, [Leslie] Nielsen, and [Peter] Graves,â but I donât think very many people understood what we were doing by casting these serious, straight-men actors until they saw it.
David Zucker: It was a radical concept. We were doing a comedy without comedians. I think the studio most likely green-lit it thinking this was Animal House on an airplane, and it turned out to be totally different than what they imagined.
Jerry Zucker: Itâs a line that a lot of different people could have said, and it wouldâve been funny â people wouldâve gotten it. But I donât think it would be remembered in the same way if it hadnât been said the way Leslie Nielsen says it.
David Zucker: Thatâs a good point. We love Bill Murray and people who do comedy well, but it wouldnât have been the same if a comedian had said that line.
What direction did you give Leslie for that scene? Jerry Zucker: I think we had shown him Zero Hour! previously because we wanted him to see the style. We told everyone that âplaying it straightâ doesnât quite do it, because they think they have it, but theyâre still winking. We told them to play it like they donât know theyâre in a comedy. Like no one told them. Just the way Leslie would have played this in The Poseidon Adventure, or any other of the films or television shows he had done. Leslie, more than anyone, really got that and relished it. He loved it. For the whole movie, Leslie didnât need a ton of direction on performance.
David Zucker: He just jumped into the water and swam. He knew what he was doing.
Abrahams: You can intercut scenes from The Poseidon Adventure with his performance in Airplane! and you canât distinguish, performance-wise, between them.
That line is followed almost immediately by another wordplay gag, the bit where Ted says, âIt's an entirely different kind of flying altogether,â and Rumack and Randy repeat that line, all together. Most of the movie is like that. How did you keep it from getting too joke-dense?
Jerry Zucker: It took us a while to sell the movie, and we just kept putting in jokes and putting in jokes. If a joke lasted for all that time between the time we wrote it and when we finally shot it, we figured it was probably a pretty good joke. But that was part of our idea of the kind of movie we wanted to make: We wanted the jokes to come really fast.
David Zucker: For ten years before that, we had done a live comedy show on Pico Boulevard called Kentucky Fried Theater, and that show also had a fast pace. We found that it was easier to keep an audience laughing than to start them up all over again. Thatâs where we got the pace of Airplane!
Jerry Zucker: Also, in this movie, we knew we werenât going to be able to rely on just a funny character to make a mediocre line delightful because theyâre making a face. So we better have another joke.
How often do you go back and watch the movie?
David Zucker: More often than youâd think because theyâre constantly having screenings. Thereâs the 25-year, the 30-year, the 35-year anniversary. A lot of film festivals. Weâve literally been all over the world showing it.
What gag tends to get the biggest laughs, on average?
David Zucker: Some of the gags, like âDonât call me Shirley,â itâs almost like when you see a concert and the musicians start playing a song and the audience recognizes it and they applaud. Some of the things I enjoy are the really simple things that got laughs 35 years ago and will get laughs 35 years from now. Like when the stewardess says, âIâm 26 and Iâm not married,â and the other lady comes in and says, âYeah, Iâm scared, too, but at least I have a husband.â That joke always works! Itâs so simple!
Abrahams: Iâve had many different favorites over the years. In recent years, the one that sticks most with me is âYou can tell me â Iâm a doctor.â Thatâs because, when we wrote that, who knows what we were thinking, but as life has gone on, my family has absolutely been subjected to medical arrogance. Whatever that mentality is that allowed Leslie to say in the movie, âYou can tell me â Iâm a doctorâ has become satiric in my later life instead of just a parodic point of view.
David Zucker: The easiest, hugest laugh used to be the reporters running into the phone booth. But I think, with the passing of decades, I donât know if people know what phone booths were! Jerry Zucker: Sometimes I like some of the odd stuff. Like Leslie saying, âWhat the hellâs going on back there?â and then you see the womanâs in stirrups and heâs holding a speculum. Not because itâs the funniest joke in the film, but itâs just odd, in a way. Itâs not a clear play on words or anything. âEveryone get in crash positions,â Iâve always been fond of.
What do you think the comedic legacy of Airplane! is?
Jerry Zucker: One of the great things about DVDs is every new generation, everybody sees it. Itâs easy to see it more times. It has more of a legacy now than it did when it just came out and kinda vanished, like all movies.
David Zucker: I love going to parties and not having to put out any effort to be funny. I did Airplane!, I donât have to be funny. Theyâll laugh at anything.
Abrahams: Itâs impossible for us to answer these kinds of questions seriously because the whole point is to not take things seriously. Thatâs what Airplane! is about. Thatâs what I hope the legacy of Airplane!, if there is any, is. Even in that line, âDonât call me Shirley,â we pointed out that there are things in culture and media that we all take seriously that we donât need to take seriously. I like to think, even today, when you hear in the news somebody say âsurelyâ this, or âsurelyâ that, I like to think that thereâs a whole bunch of people around the world who hear that and kinda chuckle to themselves because they remember the line and they know they donât have to take that seriously.
Jerry Zucker: And then, of course, thereâs, âHave you ever seen a grown man naked?â Why didnât that make your top 100 jokes? Shouldnât that have been in one of the hundred?
We tried to allocate only one joke per work of art. David Zucker: Donât you think some works of art deserve three or five mentions? Jerry Zucker: I would think, if youâr
Yeah, you have to be prepared and ready to insert an Airplane! line into daily conversation. Someone always gets it though.
So many times I have had to hold one back because it was an inappropriate setting. Damn shame.
Here, here. Can't believe nobody has mentioned "Young Catholic Girls in Trouble". Of course I was a teen when I first saw it so I loved it.
What am I going to believe, these guys or my lying memory?
“Don’t call me Shirley,” goes back at least as far as the TV series, “Police Squad.”
Another great moment in Police Squad is where Frank Drebin breaks into the dressing room of a partially-clad woman who, expecting a police raid, says, “Is this some kind of a bust?”
Drebin looks at her scantily covered breasts and says, “Yes. Very nice.”
Filmed in “Feel-O-Rama”.
Threadwin! LOL
I waited for years before the context was right for this bit from the Three Stooges, but the time came and I nailed it.
Moe: Oh, you think so, do you?
Curly: I don’t think, I know!
Moe: I don’t think you know, either.
Or whenever Drebin rolled up on a crime scene in his police car, he inevitably took out a few trash cans with him.
I love/hate it when things like that happen.
I said it before, I’ll say it again:
” ....followed by uncontrollable flatulence.”
Bfl to your link. Thanks.
Good to know... Thanks!
LOL!
The first episode of Police Squad! was hysterical.
Cover me!
(Partners throw a blanket over him)
The interrogation room scene was a classic.
That is great. My sister and I almost have a competition to see who can find a way to work than line into conversations when it is even the least bit apropos. Our kids just look at us like they have no clue.
LOL!
One of my favorite scenes ever.
I bought the complete Police Squad DVD collection and I’m not the type to ever buy dvds.
Every episode ended with a laughing freeze frame but one guy was always left mobile.
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