What fake dog poop?
I recommend “Surely You Can’t Be Serious”. It puts the film in context. Did you know - it was written before Kentucky Fried Movie? I never knew there was a Kentucky Fried Theater, and how Stephen Stucker came to be part of the group. Lost of quotes from the actors, including Leslie Nielsen commenting about, of all his work, he’s remembered most for “surely you can’t be serious”.
Maybe this isn’t the best place to say this, but I loved Airplane II as much as the first. At lest one of the ZAZ trio has said they’ll never watch it, I think they’re missing a funny movie, but…I can see their point.
3 Stooges? Mostly slapstick. Not a big Fan.
Abbott and Costello? Ok a few good bits.
Marx Brothers? Definitely in comic genius territory, but every scene/ storyline with Zeppo was a comedy killer. I don’t think had Airplane had a single serious character.
The closest example I could think of is “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World”. Not as funny as Airplane, but is filled with silly humor. But Spencer Tracy is the Zeppo.
They actually addressed Airplane II in the Q&A session I saw with them, too. Paraphrasing what they said, back in '84:
After Airplane! became a huge hit, Paramount executives came to them. “That was great! We want you to make a sequel!”
The ZAZ trio said, “no, we’ve now done all of the good disaster-movie jokes; we want to spoof something else next.”
Paramount: “No, no, really, we want an Airplane! sequel, not something else.”
ZAZ: “Really, we don’t want to do a sequel.”
Paramount: “Well, you see, we own the rights, so we’re going to make a sequel, with or without you guys.”
ZAZ: “Have fun with that, we’re out.”
I enjoyed it when I was a kid, before I had any idea about writers or directors or film production, and until I was in my teens I just assumed it was the same people who made the sequel. Ken Finkelman, who wrote and directed it, would later go on to create the brilliant and seminal Canadian sitcom The Newsroom (no relation to the Sorkin one), so he had talent, but Airplane II was really a product of its dire time.
If nothing else … (a minute):
I’m another who liked Top Secret but not Airplane II. ZAZ were the secret sauce. Accept no imitations.
Kentucky Fried Movie had a contemporary competitor called The Groove Tube, which spawned Chevy Chase’s newsman persona. Both are products of their time, watchable only to see what taking off the blinkers of comedy would lead to. But you weren’t a proper collegian without adding them to your repertoire.
Olson and Johnson’s Hellzapoppin’ is somehow even more forgotten. The team turned the Marx Brothers up to 11 for a triple-speed Broadway show that involved the audience and every part of the theater. It ran longer than all three Marx Broadway shows combined. The director had an impossible task to take a show built around breaking the fourth wall and turning it into a movie, but he did a jaw-droppingly good job. And your jaw will drop at some of the sight gags.
It’s available on YouTube. If you liked ZAZ, you have to give Hellzapoppin’ a try.
I was underwhelmed by It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. But I quite liked Rat Race, which is often compared to it, and which was directed by Jerry Zucker (though AFAIK with no involvement by Jim Abrahams).
Let me know if there is any change in his condition.
It’s also available on a bootleg DVD, the quality of which is very good. I agree, great movie, and you also get to see what made Martha Raye a star.
I have another O & J movie, which is awful. I’ve looked for the follow up of Hellzapoppin’, Crazy Street, I think, also with Shemp Howard, but haven’t found it so far. It used to run on NY TV.
As for Airplane, don’t anyone listen to the commentary track. ZAZ make it sound like every joke bombed and the movie was terrible. Even while you laugh.
Oh, c’mon. I have three words for you:
BIG JIM SLADE
I’m sure Teenaged Mustard laughed his a$$ off at that one, and I think it holds up. Yeah, the racial stereotypes in “A Fistfull of Yen” don’t hold up, but it’s more about making fun of Hollywood and movie tropes. I get what you’re saying - many of the individual jokes don’t hold up well, but the concepts are still hilarious.
An absolute failure. I’ve never understood the praise it gets.
Ditto. My one buddy had parents who weren’t so strict with patental controls on their Blockbuster card and we watched KFM time & again in 7-8th grade. It was absolutely sidesplitting, laughing so hard my tummy hurt.
I will be eternally grateful that – when “Kentucky Fried Movie” and “The Groove Tube” came to the theater near me as a double-feature – I had pot.
Amen.
A toy robot?
Crazy House (1943) is indeed awful and plotless. Obnoxious Olson and slimy Johnson are painfully unfunny as low-budget A&C amid bad shtick, predictable pratfalls, terrible songs, dreary dance numbers and pointless cameos (Rathbone/Bruce among others). Shemp Howard is used as a running gag and there are a few surreal bits (e.g., O & J fired by cannon into the movie studio via animation) – plus a bizarre ending inspired by Oscar the Wilde’s Salome - but it’s hardly worthwhile viewing and arguably less entertaining than Airplane II.
I’ve read a number of reviews and accounts by critics who’ve said the biggest laugh when they saw IAMMMMW in the theater was when the Three Stooges appeared on the screen as firemen for about 5 seconds.
If “some years ago” is 20-25 or so years ago it was TCM. That’s when I saw them back to back. Airplane! is my 2nd favorite move. Zero Hour! after Airplane is just as good.
I remember TCM doing that more recently, I believe within the past ten years, because I watched them. And yes, I did have trouble not reciting Airplane jokes while watching Zero Hour.
I knew I got the title wrong. Thanks. Not on YouTube - they only have the trailer.
However, I still want to watch it. I hadn’t seen Hellzapoppin’ for 50 years or so when I got it for Christmas. I exiled everyone from the living room when I watched it for the first time, sure it would stand up to my memories. It did. I invited people in to watch the opening, and everyone stayed for the whole thing.
Anyhow, off to search for it.
ETA found it! Will give a review.