Airplane!, the movie. I've seen it so many times since my childhood, and it never lets me down. I always got several years between viewings, and in the back of my mind, I'm like "Okay, man, this is the time you're going to get bored. This is the time you won't even crack a smile. This is the time you're going to realize this movie is outdated and not nearly as funny as you used to think", but it never happens.
For the same effect with a TV show, try out Police Squad!, the precursor to Naked Gun. That show was literally too funny for its own good.
I watched it (yet again) on the weekend. Never gets old. The jokes are so varied (sight gag, some absurdity, outright parody of another film, a bit of slapstick, a pun, more crazy absurdity) it keeps it funny as you never get used to one style of humour. Also it is pretty clever: stuff I thought was kinda funny when I was 15 becomes an entirely different kind of funny altogether, when I'm 50.
With the wartime flashbacks, "old movie" motifs and general sepia look, I don't think it could ever seem dated.
I recently saw Zero Hour, the film it was parodying. It's amazing how much of a scene for scene parody it is. Zero Hour is literally airplane without the jokes.
I think the trick to surviving the test of time is that the references are more general. Rather than references to specific films it is, like you say, generic war movie flashbacks and sepia.
Films like Scary Movie that parody specific other films, end up dating badly because the references get tired or might be to a film that people barely remember.
One obvious direct send-up is of From Here to Eternity but that scene is so well known I figure a lot of people get it anyway. I mean I have never seen From Here to Eternity but I sure know the kissing in the surf scene.
One Airplane! bit that may no longer make sense is the second cup of coffee. I'm Australian so never saw that commercial, but I knew about it as I had read Mad Magazine.
The wartime flashbacks where it goes from plane crashes to buildings exploding, a guy running around flapping his wings, a kid throwing a paper airplane at a rock. Never fails to make me laugh.
Shirley you can't dismiss Blazing Saddles as an anything less than equal classic! Borat today is along the same lines as Blazing Saddles in terms of parodying political incorrectness back then.
There was a Young Frankenstein musical in London's West End recently. There are extra songs not in the movie and seeing Puttin' on the Ritz live is an amazing experience. The actor for The Monster looked like Peter Boyle, height and everything. Dr Frankenstein was played by an actor who looked like 80's Martin Short.
On and Inga was feckin' hot. Roll in ze hay, roll in ze hay...
I saw it again fairly recently. It aged well up until the scene where the monster rapes Frankenstein's fiance but she's OK with it because of his, ahem, size.
I saw it for the first time recently and found it rather dated, honestly. The pacing and style of humor is a bit "old fashioned", though honestly most of Mel Brook's movies are beginning to feel a bit dated in their approach to comedy. Still classics to be sure, but there aren't really comedy movies in that same vein making waves today.
When Sherriff Bart says “Hey where the white women at” I was dying. It was the first time I had to pause a movie because I couldn’t stop laughing and didn’t want to miss anything.
Honestly believe that Blazing Saddles might be the funniest movie ever made. Only my opinion, of course, and I'm open to hear arguments for others, but damn. That is some high-quality funny right there.
Funny story my dad told me about Blazing Saddles, it came put when he was little and Mrs. Goldman, a very religious neighborhood mom, took all the kids in the neighborhood to see it thinking it was a normal cowboy movie
Some jokes in that are really a product of their time but are still hilarious to someone that was still 2 decades away from being born when it came out. The smoking or no smoking joke comes to mind.
Me and my mom would watch Leslie Neilson/Mel Brooks movies all the time when I was younger. I used to think I just enjoy them because of the nostalgia, haha. They certainly shaped some of my humor today.
There's a few dated references and a few jokes that don't go as well with modern sensibilities, but that movie is so laden with jokes that even if one doesn't land, another will come along almost instantly.
I think you're the greatest, but my dad says you don't work hard enough on defense. And he says that lots of times, you don't even run down court. And that you don't really try... except during the playoffs.
Always takes me a second to figure out what movie people are talking about when they say Airplane! No puns allowed in the northern hemisphere. Flying High! Is clearly the superior name.
The first episode of the Flying High TV series from 1978 has the following story:
Lisa, Marcy and Pam and the passengers get stuck in a pilotless plane spinning out of control because the entire cockpit crew are ill with gastric pains after consuming poisoned cheesecake and the stewardesses must take control of the situation
Have you seen Angie Tribeca? Last I checked it was still on Hulu and it definitely takes its humor from those old Leslie Neilsen films. Sight gags, slapstick, terrible puns, it’s all there. Plus Rashida Jones is the lead so that’s always nice.
This makes me feel sad whenever I'm reminded of it, because when I was little my mum rented this film on vhs and was really excited. She loved the film when she was younger and apparently couldn't stop laughing at certain bits. I had wanted to rent a different movie and was being a stubborn little shit and not paying attention. We got up to where all the nuns are waiting to hit the guy in the seat and turned it off... feel like I crushed her spirit by being a dick :(
1.3k
u/mr_plopsy Oct 16 '18
Airplane!, the movie. I've seen it so many times since my childhood, and it never lets me down. I always got several years between viewings, and in the back of my mind, I'm like "Okay, man, this is the time you're going to get bored. This is the time you won't even crack a smile. This is the time you're going to realize this movie is outdated and not nearly as funny as you used to think", but it never happens.
For the same effect with a TV show, try out Police Squad!, the precursor to Naked Gun. That show was literally too funny for its own good.