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.
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.
later
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.
“Shirley, you jest” (with or without a comma) is common on FR.
To me, one of the very funniest scenes was when 2 black dudes are jive talking to the stewardess and she doesn’t understand. Up jumps none other than June Cleaver (mother in Leave it to Beaver). She says “I speak jive!” and proceeds to translate. It’s a scene I don’t believe would be permitted in today’s “woke” films.
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My favorite “Airplane” inspired moment of quick thinking came when a coworker entered the room and asked, “what’s the deal?” I immediately replied “it’s where you sit down and they put cards in front of you but that’s not important right now.”