The Funniest
Airplane Ever!

I can't trust your humor if you don't find the 1980 comedy classic, Airplane!, funny. And if you haven't even watched it yet, forget about it! Look it up and watch it before you become my friend. I want the people around me not just to have seen it, but also to know the jokes by heart!

This might be an unpopular opinion, but Airplane! is the funniest movie ever. I get that it's not for everybody, and the gags can be a bit much at times, but God, it's hilarious! It's unabashedly and unapologetically funny, and it doesn't care who it offends.

They don't make movies like that anymore, do they? A lot of comedies today play it safe. Some can get a giggle out of me, for sure, but I rarely laugh out loud in the movie theaters anymore.

I think movies have lost some of the creativity and ridiculousness that made movies like Airplane! not just possible, but a hit, too. Can we please go back to those times? Can we bring back that kind of out-there comedy in movies today? Is that too much to ask?

I wish I were there in 1980 when the movie premiered. I wish I were already alive and an adult when the film first hit theaters. I would've reveled in the laughter that I'm sure filled the entire theater when it played. I would've also loved to see the cast in person.

Sadly, many of the cast are gone now: the late Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, Barbara Billingsley, Robert Stack, and more. And many of those still with us rarely appear in public. This really bums me out as an autograph-hound. If there's one movie cast that I'm desperate to meet, it's this one.

By luck, I did still meet a handful of them. I met the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar when he did Dancing with the Stars in 2018, and two years later, I met David Zucker, Robert Hays, and Julie Hagerty at the Airplane! 40th anniversary panel at the 2020 SF Sketchfest, held at the Castro Theatre on January 19.

Abdul-Jabbar is a giant in person, but he was very personable when I asked him to sign my Airplane! poster. It was right after he danced his heart out on stage, too, so it was really awesome that he still gave me his autograph that night.

My 2020 meeting with Zucker, Hagerty, and Hays was better since it was an entire panel at the festival. I loved hearing them talk about making the movie, how funny it was to shoot, and their memories of their late co-stars. It was a great time!

I do, however, feel slightly frustrated because I missed my chance to get David Zucker's autograph. I managed to ask Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty to sign the same poster Abdul-Jabbar did, but not Zucker. I don't know what happened. After getting Hagerty's autograph, I just didn't see Zucker again.

Still, three out of four is not bad, especially for the cast of a movie that old. I may still regret it, but seeing the others' autographs helps me forget about it in the end.