The Naked Gun is my favorite, and I’m a sucker for obvious puns and sight gags:
The opening sequence where OJ is creeping around the docks is great. He attempts to bust in on the gang, but he leg goes through the door, giving them all time to draw and cock their guns. When he finally struggles into the room, he informs them they are under arrest. One guy drops his gun and puts his hands up, until they all look at him and he sheeplishly picks it up again.
I love the scene where Lt. Drebbin is searching the office. While rummaging around in a desk he finds something, smiles, and says, “Bingo!” He then displays a an actual bingo card.
When Drebbin returns to his apartment one night he suspects there is an intruder. He then launches into a series of gymnastics moves as he searches the apartment as if he were in a kung-fu movie.
From the same film: I still laugh when I think of Drebbin telling the crowd of onlookers, “There’s nothing to see here!” while a fireworks factory explodes behind him.
“They bought the tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say, 'Let ‘em crash!’”
My favorite sight gag in Airplane! is the guy delivering the news on drum – the camera changes and it takes him a second to look at the new camera. Genius.
Second goes to “They’re miles off course!” “That can’t be, they’re on instruments!”
From Police Squad!:
“Where were you last night?”
“We went to see a movie. On the Waterfront.”
“There are no theaters on the waterfront!”
My other favorites have already been mentioned. (Best is still “Who are you and how did you get in here?” “I’m a locksmith. And I’m a locksmith.”)
Nitpick: that was Captain Oveur’s wife. Just makes it a little funnier when you realize that while he’s up in the air asking little boys about gladiator movies, she’s at home in bed with a horse. And then, later, hitting on Rex Kramer.
KRAMER: “Have you ever flown a multi-engine plane before?”
STRYKER: “No, never.”
KRAMER: “Ah, this is a goddamn waste of time! There’s no way he can land that plane! Route him into Lake Michigan, at least it’ll avoid killing innocent people!”
Why is that my favorite quote?
Because those lines single-handedly convinced me to add a multiengine class rating to my Private Pilot certificate. Now, if I’m ever on board an airliner where both pilots have gotten sick from eating fish, and they ask me if I’ve ever flown a multi-engine plane, I’ll be able to tell 'em “yes!”
tracer “… and didn’t have fish for dinner”.**
After all, if you ate the fish, that would put an end to your piloting heroics right then and there.
Incidentally, the above quote is word-for-word what they say in “Zero Hour” but it’s a lot funnier in just a slightly different setting.
Same thing with “we wish you luck and we’re all counting on you”.
Of course it is only spoken once in “Zero Hour” whereas they use it 3 times in “Airplane”.
5 Time Champ
From that very scene about “birds too”, there was something I missed (did you catch this on first viewing ?). After Ken Tobey hangs up the phone you see he was talking to Lloyd Bridges also on the phone, but right across the table !!! It took me quite a while to catch that.
I loved this movie as a kid, Police Squad was my favorite show.
If you watch Oveur when he comes into the airport, right before he takes the phone call (Hamm on five, hold the Mayo) he walks to a magazine rack, and from a section marked “Whacking Material” picks up a copy of “Modern Sperm” with a whale on the cover.
I had a top loading VCR with a real cool wired remote that included a really nice slow/stop motion control.
Incidentally, during the preflight check in Airplane!, a ground crew worker can be seen popping the plane’s “hood” and checking the oil. He was played by Jimmie “Dyn-o-mite!” Walker.
And I’ll throw in one of my fave bits (egregiously misquoted, I’m sure) from ZAZ’s earlier work Kentucky Fried Movie, which incorporated the short film Fistful of Yen:
Dr. Klahn: [while giving tour to visitors to his island lair, leads them to the underground cells] These are drunken men who don’t know where they are. [moves to next cell] And these are drunken men who don’t care where they are. [next cell] And these are men who don’t know or care where they are, but don’t drink!
Prisoner #1: I know where I am.
Prisoner #2: And I don’t drink.
Klahn: What! You, get out of there, you go there, move! [rearranges prisoners by cell until order is retored, then haughtily leads vistors away]
Guard: What do you want for dinner?
Prisoner #1: I don’t care.
Sigh. I couldn’t resist seeing if the scene’s dialog was recorded at imdb.com, and this is their (probably more accurate) version:
Loo: And who are they?
Dr. Klahn: Refuse, found in waterfront bars.
Loo: Shanghaied?
Dr. Klahn: Just lost drunken men who don’t know where they are and no longer care.
Prisoner #1: Where are we?
Prisoner #2: I don’t care!
Loo: And these?
Dr. Klahn: These are lost drunken men who don’t know where they are, but do care! And these are men who know where they are and care, but don’t drink.
Prisoner #3: I don’t know who I am?
Prisoner #4: And I don’t drink!
Dr. Klahn: Guards! (move prisoners) Do you care?
Prisoner #5: No.
Dr. Klahn: Put this man in cell #1, and give him a drink.
Guard: What do you drink?
Prisoner #5: I don’t care.
I actually went home and watched Top Secret! last night because of this thread. I can’t believe that I had forgotten the German officer with the large rubber stamp that said “FIND HIM AND KILL HIM.” I actually shot chocolate milk out my nose.