¿Y dónde está el piloto?

Quite simply one of the best laugh-out-loud movies ever made. The unapologetic Dad jokes and dry satire are eternally enjoyable and the movie has not lost any of it's bite over the years. Eminently quotable and amongst the best in its class.

Parodies or Spoofs are one particular segment that I have rarely got the opportunity to venture into. Partly due to the comparative absence of such features in the current scenario where black comedies are the talk of the town.

Nevertheless, I have made my decision to explore this relatively uncharted territory after watching some hilarious clips that I found on Reddit last week and I'm glad I listened to my conscience.

It is extremely slapsticky but at the same time, the writing oozes brilliance. It's witty, it's clever and it knows how and when to deliver the lines. Now, for some of you the performances may come across as hammy, a bit over-the-top, but as this was all intentional, it all come to be just fine. Not all jokes land but the ones that did lay the foundation for some comedic golds.

Rumack: Captain, how soon can you land?

Captain Oveur: I can't tell.

Rumack: You can tell me. I'm a doctor.

Captain Oveur: No. I mean I'm just not sure.

Rumack: Well, can't you take a guess?

Captain Oveur: Well, not for another two hours.

Rumack: You can't take a guess for another two hours?

This is voted as one of the funniest comedies of all time, and it deserves that honor! The film is filled with hilarious gags! Sure, in every one of these campy farces, there's usually a few gags that are way too silly. In this case, it was the "drinking problem" gag and that annoying gay man who works on Lloyd Bridges' staff. But when I can actually count on my hand how many gags didn't work, that's a good sign. The majority of the film sent me into a frenzy of laughter! One of my favorites is when the blow-up auto-pilot runs out of air and Julie Hagerty blows it back up again. You'll have to see the movie to find out why it was so hilarious! I also got a great kick out of the running gag in which every passenger who listens to Robert Hays ends up killing themselves. This is definitely the Zuckers and Abrahams in top form! Unfortunately, I haven't seen a great spoof in years. The "Scary Movie" films were pretty good, but incredibly lewd and crude. And obviously the Zuckers and Abrahams have much better eyes for satire than the Wayans brothers. I caught "Scary Movie" on cable and watched it a second time, and I didn't laugh nearly as many times as I did the first time. I can watch "Airplane" 200 times and still laugh like there's no tomorrow! The film was made back when comedies didn't go strictly for sex and toilet gags to make an audience laugh. This was back when writers used to employ this quality called "wit." "Kentucky Fried Movie" had some racy gags, but even those were witty for the most part. There is a certain rhythm in every gag that helps make the film work. For example, Lloyd Bridges starts out by saying "I think I picked the wrong day to quit smoking." Then he says he picked the wrong day to quit drinking. And when he finally says "I picked the wrong day to quit amphetamines," I was laughing my head off! So basically, you watch a film like this and feel the urge to mail a copy of the video to the Wayans Brothers and whatever crackheads wrote "Not Another Teen Movie," along with a note saying "THIS is how to make a spoof!"

There are so many other gags worth mentioning, including the "Saturday Night Fever" sendup, which is definitely one of the best comic moments caught on film! That scene also contains my favorite line: "I told the guy next to me to pinch me to make sure I wasn't dreaming." After that voice-over, we see the guy next to Robert Hays repulsed and walking away from him. Another great example of perfect comic timing and delivery!

If you want to get some authentic belly laughs--I'm not talking chuckles, but actual LAUGHS!--you must check out "Airplane." Trust me, movies don't get much more original or funny than this!

My score: 9 (out of 10)

Still one of funniest spoof movies ever made, Airplane is one of the first and one of the best around.

Hot Shots, Loaded Weapon even Naked Gun have tried to follow in its footsteps, but they have failed to hit the mark. That's not to say that they are bad movies, just that its difficult to follow a movie of this calibre.

Spoof movies definitely have there place in everyone's collection, but this is probably the best you'll ever see in the genre, if you have never seen it and you fancy a laugh, I can't recommend a better film, even though it has dated; it's still hilarious 9/10

In a tense moment where Ted Striker (Robert Hays) needs to land an airplane where the pilots (Peter Graves and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) have fallen sick, and several passengers need to get off the airplane for various reasons, all Striker can think to himself (with an echo in his mind, of course) is "I've got to concentrate... concentrate... concentrate... I've got to concentrate... concentrate... concentrate... Hello?... hello... hello... Echo... echo... echo... Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon... Manny Mota... Mota... Mota..." That pretty much sums up the seriousness of Airplane!, the lampoon of the 1970s Airport movies, and pretty much every other disaster movie pumped out by Hollywood. The same guys who pieced together the Naked Gun movies write and direct this silly movie. Most of the jokes need to be seen to be properly experienced, the first rate actors are what brings the laughs. Robert Stack plays it straight, over-the-top straight, as a problem solver for the airline who happens to wear 2 pairs of sunglasses at all times. Stack's comedic timing and deadpan delivery bring out some of the biggest laughs of the film. Lloyd Bridges is the over-worked, over-stressed traffic controller who has picked the wrong week to stop drinking, smoking, and sniffing glue. And Leslie Neilson plays a doctor who has an acute sense for the obvious, surely one who could save the passengers and airline crew if they land safely, just don't call him Shirley. A few cheap laughs, a few misses, but over all, a pretty funny movie. If you like The Naked Gun, you'll like Airplane!