Posted on 02/08/2024 4:00:05 PM PST by DoodleBob
It's the best joke from a film almost springloaded with them, but what is the origin of Airplane!'s famous "Don't call me Shirley" gag? Airplane! was written and directed by Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker, with the comedy being heavily inspired by the 1957 b-movie Zero Hour!, which featured Sterling Hayden (The Godfather). The plot of Zero Hour! featured a World War 2 pilot forced to land an airplane after the pilots become ill with food poisoning.
Zero Hour!'s combination of unintentionally hilarious dialogue and taking the silly events of the plot deathly serious made an impression on Zucker, Abrams, and Zucker, who retained a lot of the dialogue and key sequences from the movie in their script. Airplane! pioneered a new type of genre parody where the actors play the movie straight in spite of the ludicrous events unfolding around them. The filmmaking trio would perfect this type of comedy with 1984's Top Secret! starring Val Kilmer (Batman Forever) and The Naked Gun franchise.
The movie also relaunched the career of veteran actor Leslie Nielsen, who appeared in classics such as Forbidden Planet and The Poseidon Adventure. Airplane! cast Nielsen as Dr. Rumack, with his deadpan performance being the highlight of the movie. This is especially true of the movie's most famous joke, when Rumack brings troubled war pilot Ted Striker to the cockpit and reveals he'll have to fly the plane. Striker states "Surely you can't be serious?" to Rumack, who replies with “I am serious — and don’t call me Shirley.”
This joke has been oft repeated in the years since Airplane!'s release, making appearances in The Office and video game Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It turns out this joke has a simple origin, with the Zucker brothers and Abrahams revealing in a Vulture interview it was born out of their practice of watching old, serious b-movies with very dramatic dialogue and then crafting gags around them. In this case, they saw a movie where a character exclaims "Surely you can't be serious?" and inspiration struck when they added the now famous punchline.
While Airplane! was a huge success, the trio sat out the inevitable follow-up Airplane II: The Sequel. The sequel reunited most of the cast - excluding Leslie Nielsen - and took place on a space shuttle. Striker finds himself having to fly the shuttle too, and William Shatner (Star Trek) makes a surprise appearance as the commander of a lunar base. While the sequel isn't terrible, it tends to just repeat most of the original jokes to weaker effect, and the movie underperformed at the box-office, killing plans for Airplane III.
Airplane! has a lot of great jokes but "Don't call me Shirley" is easily the most quoted. It's doubtful the Zuckers and Abrahams realized how popular the line would become, and it has gone on to adorn t-shirts, memes, and even became the subtitle of the film's DVD release.
In the sequel I laughed when Shatner and the lunar base folks would go “swoosh “ when the doors opened.
It’s a gag from the vaudeville act of Henny Youngman.
Milton Berle used it, too.
Get it right.
Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges were absolutely brilliant in that movie.
Can you even imagine that now?!?!!?
I’ve used that gag more times than I can remember.
... with the comedy being heavily inspired by the 1957 b-movie Zero Hour! ...The movie used the same screeenplay, almost verbatim, with comedic variations. The main character has the same name albeit with spelling altered (Ted Stryker/Striker).
I, of course, like Lorna Patterson in this movie.
That was hilarious!
Cute girl
later
The genius of that movie was playing something that silly with serious actors playing it straight. Bridges, Nielsen, Peter Graves and Robert Stack — four older guys who had always played serious/tough-guy roles — made that movie.
If you’re a fan of the movie like I am, you owe it yourself to buy the new book that they ZAZ guys just put out last year. Tells the whole story from the inside - fascinating. It’s on Amazon - Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!
I ran into Leslie Nielsen at my gang’s Sunday brunch bistro venue on Sunset Blvd sometime in the late 80’s. After the Airplane films came out. He looked unmistakenly, immutably like Leslie Nielsen, I can tell you that. I remember that he was the police department captain in innumerable TV detective episodes, always the straight man. I just shook his hand and said I hoped he made 500 times the amount of money he made on Airplane than he had on all those endless TV series. He just smiled and thanked me.
Or when they would make the Star Trek “Shhh” sound when the doors were opening.
“Shirley, you jest” (with or without a comma) is common on FR.
Thank you for pointing that out. I knew it was older than Airplane! It’s a great movie, so why claim something that isn’t true?
The movie took from another movie “The high and the Mighty”. Robert Stack was a pilot. John Wayne was in that flick also.
Lots of parallels.
Never heard of that and it's likely they didn't either.........
Thanks for the trivia tho......
Thanks! I’ll have to check that out!
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