Airplane!, 1980

Directed and written by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker
Starting Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Stephen Stucker, and a lot of other people

The first time I saw this movie, I insisted to my mother that we stay and watch it a second time. Loving and supportive of her son's unbridled love of comedy, she agreed.

When we first got cable, HBO showed this movie over and over. I believe I watched it 14 times.

Since then, I cannot tell you how many times I have watched this. Laughing at the same great jokes over and over again.

In one sense, it's hard to know where to start with this movie. It's so funny, so goofy, so willing to do anything for a joke, such a complete encyclopedia of comedy, that it's completely irresistible. Of course it's dated in stretches (the From Here to Eternity reference and Ethel Merman cameo most notably); of course watching Peter Graves ask the boy Joey about Turkish prisons is unbelievably politically incorrect; and so on -- but this is a really funny movie. It's worth it to have to explain the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar section because it makes me laugh out loud just thinking of it.

I had a friend who told me I couldn't marry my fiance until she saw Casablanca. One might legitimately consider the same standard for Airplane!

Of course it's in the Pantheon.

Airplane! at IMDB.

The Naked Gun, 1988

Directed by David Zucker
Written by Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Pat Profft
Starting Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, Ricardo Montalban

This is a silly, funny movie. It's not as good as Airplane, or even as good as I remembered it being, but it's pretty good, just the same -- lots of good sight gags, cheap jokes, and bad puns. Leslie Nielsen's in fine form, the rest of the cast is just fine, and there's not much OJ Simpson, who is a little tough to watch, given history since then. It also has once of my favorite lines in a comedy, "It's Enrico Palazzo!"

For the record, 1988 was good year for comedy movies, with this, A Fish Called Wanda, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! at IMDB.