Airplane!

Growing up I had a HUGE affinity for Leslie Nielsen. I remember watching “Police Squad” with my brothers on Nick At Night and just thinking it was hilarious. We absolutely LOVED “The Naked Gun” and it’s sequels. And probably more than anything else, we thought “Airplane!” was possibly one of the funniest movies of all time, even though as kids we only got half the jokes.

I was lucky enough to have the AMC Theater near my house be one of the theaters participating in showing “Airplane!” on the big screen this past weekend. My wife thought I was stupid for paying eight bucks to see a movie I knew by heart and owned on DVD. But she didn’t need to understand. It was likely my only chance in life to see one of my favorite movies of all time on the big screen and I wasn’t going to miss it.

There were probably about a hundred other people in the theater with me. We all were giddy with anticipation when the tail fin of that 747 came through the clouds. And when that plane came out toward the screen you could feel the whole theater smiling. It was really a great experience to be a part of.

The type of comedy in “Airplane!” really had a lot of influence on my growing up. It’s the one lingers, delivered straight, that just killed each time they came up. The same thing carried into movies like “The Naked Gun,” “Hot Shots,” and “Top Secret,” all favorites on me and my brother’s watch lists. To this day one liners like the ones in those movies are a staple of my personal comedic repertoire.

But something I wasn’t aware of until much later in life was that three men were basically responsible for the movies that impacted my own comedic stylings: Jim Abrahams, and Jerry and David Zucker. Looking back now it’s amazing I didn’t realize that sooner, but hey, they didn’t have IMDB back then, and as a kid I never really paid attention to the credits.

Anyway… turns out AMC Theaters show older “classics” like Airplane from time to time. Not all theaters participate each time, but a good amount do. The next movie on the slate is “Sixteen Candles,” another one of my favorites, and it’ll be showing on Feb 13th and 14th in honor of Valentine’s Day. The wife has already stated she will not be going to see that one, so it looks like I’ll be flying solo on a Sunday matinee yet again… not that I honestly mind all that much. Sometimes it really is better to be able to watch one of your favorite movies all by yourself.

Until next time, keep writing!
-Steve

One thing I didn’t realize un