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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Deep Thoughts about Airplane!
We picked the wrong week to give up horse tranquilizers…
The Guy Girls have fond memories of the 1980 comedy Airplane!–specifically, they remember their dad helplessly snort-laughing at this three-gags-a-minute parody of 1970s-era disaster films. The movie still delivers solid belly laughs, but not everything is as funny four decades later. Tracie examines how jokes about pedophilia, misogyny, racism, and homophobia in the movie punch down instead of skewering the powerful and absurd, and the sisters lament the fact that the Zucker brothers (and Jim Abrahams) question everything–except the idea that a woman is a prize. But credit where credit is due–Tracie is able to make Emily lose it with laughter just by describing some of the movie’s funniest moments.
Surely you’re going to listen to this episode.
I am going to listen–and don’t call me Shirley.
Mentioned in this episode:
The commentator with gag analysis: https://covell.ca/airplane/
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
You snort, laughed at my retelling of the all together joke. Yes, yes, so they were doing something right. What others might deem stupid shit. You know matters. You know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. We're sisters, tracy and Emily, collectively known as the Guy Girls. Every week, we take turns re-watching, researching and reconsidering beloved media and sharing what we learn. Come overthink with us and if you get value from the show, please consider supporting us. You can become a patron on Patreon or send us a one-time tip through Ko-fi. Both links are in the show notes and thanks. I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? Today, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1980 comedy classic Airplane with my sister, emily Guy-Burken, and with you. Let's dive in. All right, airplane. What do you remember?
Speaker 2:Vignettes, basically. So I remember Shirley, you can't be serious. Yes, I'm serious, and don't call me Shirley. I regularly say I picked the wrong week to give up horse tranquilizers week to give up horse tranquilizers. That is something that is just part of my lexicon. The oh gosh, it's that actress who played someone like very wholesome talking jive. Yeah, florence Henderson, florence.
Speaker 1:Henderson, that's who it was the mom from the brady bunch, yes, um, so I remember that.
Speaker 2:Um, I remember the drinking problem he's just throwing water at himself and yeah, I just, I just remember it as being like silly fun. I also remember learning that it's like I vaguely knew this, but that it was a parody of a movie called Airport, I believe, kind of which I've been thinking about recently because of good omens, right, because apparently people will go watch, go back and watch omen and be like, oh my God, this is good, right, and I was like, well, no, that that was intentional, this was supposed to be a parody, that's why it was called that. So I find that really interesting, the idea that you could create a satire that is so beloved on its own that you don't need to know the source material to love the satire. And then it's the zucker brothers, isn't it?
Speaker 2:um yeah, so that's basically the uh, the, the extent of what I, what I remember about airplane. I am a little worried that this is going to be a childhood ruining episode, rightfully, and probably good to know before I show it to my kids. If I should, maybe not, gotcha.
Speaker 1:Maybe not. Well, we'll see. We'll see. Maybe just the vignettes, not yet, maybe not yet Okay Not yet.
Speaker 2:So tell me, why are we talking about airplane today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've done a few in recent weeks. I've brought a few that reminded me of dad, or the little mermaid with our stepdad, that were a little more serious or heartfelt or whatever. And so when we were planning last, I was like I really want something that's like a comedy, I want to do some comedies and so like this one, for whatever reason, like popped in my brain as like a comedy that I remember dad laughing out loud to and just like kind of like you is just in my brain, is just really, really funny. And that was pretty much all I had, um, except for, like there were specific moments as you have um vignettes from from the film that I remembered um, but but mainly just like it, I just remember laughing. So you know, figure, let's, let's take look.
Speaker 1:So, and this film remains like when people vote on like funniest films of all time, it often shows up in the top 20 or even the top 10. Like it is a beloved comedy, so so I thought it was, you know, worth worth looking at. And yeah, there's a lot to unpack. We don't have time, even if we go over our usual time, to unpack everything, so I want to talk a bit about sort of what you named and the ways in which we can be very topical and sometimes it remains funny and sometimes it just doesn't make any sense anymore when the original topical thing falls out of the sort of common lexicon I want to. We'll talk about gender and race and actually homophobia.
Speaker 2:And I was thinking that there's probably quite a bit of homophobia in it. And just consider a bit.
Speaker 1:There's some, and also just like like what is acceptable to make a punchline and how that has changed, rightfully so I think. So we'll talk about some of those things and I think we may get into sort of meta conversations about comedy as a result of this film, I think. But yeah, so there's a few things to talk about. But let me start by giving you a brief rundown of the plot of this thing Such as it is this shouldn't take as long as it often does.
Speaker 1:So I will say from the very beginning we, we, they set the stage that this is absurdist. The very first scene it's we're looking at like clouds and then like the tail wing of a plane kind of moves through the screen to the Jaws theme and it goes back and forth across the screen like times before. Then this, the plane kind of um goes over the camera so that you get the full size of this airliner. So from the beginning, like we know, this is basically a cartoon, a caricature and it's just silly. So the film actually you named airport. It was meant to kind of spoof those disaster films like Poseidon, adventure and Airport and Towering Inferno, yeah, like those sort of disaster films of the 70s. So this came out in 1980. So definitely viewers in 1980 would have gotten the reference to Airport even with the title. But the actual plot is a sort of remake or a retread of a movie called Zero Hour, which I guess is where the exclamation point came from in the title. But so the plot is basically there's after the Jaws plane opening, we're at an airport, plane opening, we're at an airport. We're hearing ridiculous like announcements over the intercom that are just just ridiculous, where there are two people making announcements back and forth and they end up arguing with one another. We see it's not initially harakrishna's, it's like some other, like the church of universal consciousness or something like that, who are giving flowers out and asking for donations. And we see a stewardess come into the airport and interact with these Church of Universal Consciousness or whatever it was. And then we see a cab pull up abruptly, like up halfway onto the curb, and a businessman gets in and tells the cabbie where he wants to go, but the cabbie gets out and says I'll be right back, turns on the meter and runs into the airport.
Speaker 1:So this is Ted, the cabbie is Ted and he's chasing after Elaine, the stewardess we initially saw. They catch up with one another and it becomes clear Elaine is leaving him. Him they've been together for a while and she's leaving him. That's just not the same anymore. He doesn't have any ambition, he just needs to get things together and like it becomes clear he basically the guy has ptsd though it wouldn't have been called that in 1980 from the war and the original movie. That was the case as well. The original movie was made closer to the end of world war ii. So it was about world war ii, this movie in 1980. They keep talking about the war and in the flashbacks it seems to be world war ii, like um uniforms, but it's really unclear what war he's talking about.
Speaker 1:He buys a ticket to get on the flight that she is about to work so that he can try and convince her to stay with him. Meanwhile his cab is still just the meter's still going. Like we cut back to the guy in the cab several times. In fact there's a post-credit scene where the dude is still sitting. At one point we see the meter is up to like $1,300 or something. Well, the guy's just sitting there. That's pretty much how Dad laughed at the post-credit scene in 1980. Okay, so we're on this flight and we meet a host of characters and there are so many gags like so many jokes, I can't possibly convey them all. In fact, I will link to this in the show notes. Somebody, for some sort of dissertation or thesis or something like, counted the gags. There are 220 gags in 88 minutes running time.
Speaker 1:And like there's a like sight gags as well as like Sight gags wordplay, like there's a lot, a lot going on, like just it's like so fast, it's absurd and just so quick, and there's a couple of different types and I'm sure I won't capture them all, but I'll get into that. But anyway, back to the plot. Back to the plot. So Ted and Elaine are on this flight.
Speaker 1:We learned that Ted is a former pilot. He was in charge of a mission where seven men in his squadron died and he blames himself. And he hasn't been near a plane since. So even getting on this flight is a difficult thing for him. He's having to sort of push through resistance because, you know, he has all of this guilt and, like I say, ptsd though that's not what they would have called it then. So he's on this flight waxing poetic about Elaine. We see several flashbacks of their time together. He's boring his fellow passengers like to the point that they are harming themselves to get out of speaking to him about this. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. They served dinner on the flight, which I guess. I don't remember this, but like people had a choice between the steak or the fish. Every passenger who has the fish gets ill, including the captain, the co-pilot and the navigator all three of them.
Speaker 2:So there's no one on the plane. That's actually that is. I don't know when this was instituted, but if there is a flight where there is going to be served a meal, they specifically even if they don't have choices for the passengers they specifically have different meals for the captain and co-pilot to make sure that. That's just in case.
Speaker 1:That doesn't happen. Yep, yep, yep, yeah, so okay. So Ted is the only person who has any chance of landing this plane. So he does basically like it, with help from the ground crew. And, of course, the ground crew is like a guy who used to, who used to serve with him, and they hate each other. And we get scenes from the tower and the like. The guy in charge of the tower is the one who says I picked, I picked the wrong week to quit smoking, drinking, sniffing glue, horse tranquilizers like it. Go it, get it just builds like that gag goes over and over again, um, so they do end up. He lands the plane and and everybody, um, everybody's okay. That's the basic plot. It doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because the vignettes we remember were the point yeah, yeah, that's. That's just the, uh, the skeleton that you hang the funny on, exactly exactly, exactly and the different kinds of gags.
Speaker 1:There's wordplay like like surely you can't be serious. I am serious and please don't call me Shirley, like those kinds. Nielsen, he says to them I'm the wrong person to fly this plane all together. And then they say back the two of them in unison, you're the wrong person to fly this plane and like yeah me too.
Speaker 1:Me too Like that was. The funniest moment for me was when he said the word all together and then the two of them repeated back what he had said. So that's one of the sort of recurring kinds of gags. Then there there's a lot of gags where something absolutely ridiculous and like off the chain happens and characters don't respond right. So like a guy comes to the house to pick up the ground crew guy who used to serve with ted, who's gonna help talk him down, and the golden retriever like attacks him. He's like on the ground with the family dog, like snarling and like chewing on him, and he and his wife are just talking as if it's like not happening it. It's as if he's in there. It's as if the plane is in a gas station and there's like an attendant who like cleans the windshield and like opens up the nose cone like to check the uh oil or whatever, and like he, when he closes the nose cone he kind of slips and falls like because he's it's up on a ladder at the top of this plane and the pilot and co-pilot just keep talking like nothing's happened. So that's like a recurring thing where something outrageous that should elicit some sort of reaction elicits no reaction. That's a regular gag. Then there's also sort of the like. There's a lot of breaking expectations. So in a past, in one of the memories, in one of the sort of flashbacks, the two protagonists, ted and elena, are in this seedy bar. It's where they met, like while he was stationed overseas, and a fight breaks out and it's between two girl scouts and it's like a really fierce knock down, drag out, fight. Yeah, but they're both girl scouts. Um, and then he dances. He's wearing like a white, he says he's in the Air Force, but he's wearing like a white Navy uniform, like a few good men, the dress uniform, and he goes out onto the dance floor and, like, pulls off the blouse of the uniform and is now wearing like the outfit from Saturday Night Fever, with the black shirt and the white and and dances like saturday night fever. So that's sort of like unexpected, which was also a topical reference which you know, even today I got it. That got a chuckle out of me.
Speaker 1:Um, there are gags where someone says something that their identity doesn't match with. So like the Florence Henderson talking jive is an example of that which does not hold up. I'll come to that. But there's another moment where there are two children, maybe 10, and very formally dressed, and the girl is sitting by herself in the row in the plane and the boy comes up and he says may I offer you some coffee? And she says, yes, I'd love some. And he sits down next to her and they're drinking coffee and he says do you need any cream? She says no, I take it. I like it black, like my men, and these are two white kids.
Speaker 1:So like moments like that, where the thing the person said is incongruous with their identity based on, you know, expectations of their identity, and it's funny and it's 220 gags in 88 minutes and some of the gags I don't, they're not funny and I don't. I don't think they were funny in 1980. So, like an example, apparently in the movie Airport or maybe in Zero Hour I'm not sure which one at the moment I knew before we hit record, but now I've forgotten which one A boy visits the cockpit like a passenger. A young boy who's a passenger visits the cockpit uh, just to see the plane, like they, and like they do little kids like they do right, and they give him wings or whatever, and the pilot like welcomes him with a hug.
Speaker 1:Well, in this movie the pilot is like straight up a pedophile. Like he's like, oh, let him stay. And then at one point like that's where. Hey, joey, have you ever seen it? Have you ever seen a grown man naked? And like, have you ever visited a turkish bath? Like it's, that is the joke. He is a pedophile. I don't think that was funny, even in 1980.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, the joke with the, um, the guys, the, there too, there aren't a whole lot of, there's not a lot of racial diversity in the movie, except where it's a joke, right, so these two black men who are on the plane, who speak in jive that's the word that is used in the movie and requires subtitles, and that's part of the gag they'll say a thing and then the subtitles say like golly, gee, if that white man doesn't do blah, blah, blah, I'm going to hurt him. And, like you know, it's like the. The juxtaposition of what is said in the subtitles is part of the gag, but the men's identity is the joke, which I don't think is funny. Yeah, yeah, right. And and then. And then florence henderson says oh, I speak, I speak jive like, but that's the joke over and over again is that white people don't understand these two men. Um, that's so.
Speaker 1:That's another one that I think just isn't funny, even in 80. I don't, I just I mean anyway. Um, there's a scene, so there are things are bad, like it's stormy, it's not just that they don't have a pilot, it's also like really stormy, and there's everybody's sick, like they need to get to the hospital because they're sick. And so at one point, leslie nielsen, who's the doctor, who prior to this role had only played dramatic roles, so that was another sort of part of the that was something I remember.
Speaker 2:When I learned that I was really surprised because I only knew him in parodies um and he became a comedic, yeah, talent, like name, like a comedic icon almost.
Speaker 1:but prior to this movie he had only been known for his dramatic chops and that's part of the reason why he he plays such a straight yes, and that's why he was chosen to play this straight, straight man in this, in this piece. So so there's a scene between him and randy, one of the stewardesses, um, and she's crying and he says I don't remember what he says, but he sort of asks after Randy's well-being and she just says I'm so scared, I've never been so scared and I'm 26 and I'm not even married. And that's part of what she's upset is, she's missed out on being married. So then another female passenger, he's comforting her. Another female passenger comes over and is chatting with them and he says how are you holding up? She says I'm just so scared.
Speaker 1:I've never been scared of this scared in my whole life, but at least I've got a husband and like, I don't think that's funny. I don't think that was funny in 1980, you know. Uh, that same female character actually earlier in the film she's like really freaking out, like having having like what one would term hysterical, like she's having a panic attack and it's loud. Oh is that when there's the whole line of people.
Speaker 2:Yes, slapper, yeah Right. And some of them have like a pipe.
Speaker 1:Baseball yeah, yeah, pipe. Baseball bats yeah, yeah, pipe, yes. And so well, first we see Leslie Nielsen, the doctor kind of shake her, like take her shoulders and shake her and say, get a hold of yourself and like slap her face. And then he's called away because somebody else needs him. And so the nun who's on board shakes her and slaps her and then like somebody sort of pushes her aside and then the camera pans back and, as you say, there's like a whole line of people lining up to abuse this woman. Not funny.
Speaker 2:Not funny. I have a question, though, because I remember that At least I'm married one and I did remember the slapping one, and I remember taking those as making fun of the idea that we like making fun of the misogyny is. I remember how I took it. Now, that doesn't mean that's how the Zuckers meant it, but I just remember I took it. Now that doesn't mean that's how the Zuckers meant it, um, but I I just remember it being like this is bullshit.
Speaker 2:Isn't this bullshit? Um, about like the idea that whether or not you're married matters when you're in a life or death situation, particularly for women. And then the idea that, like you know, the way that you deal with someone who is panicking is to commit violence. It's like so ridiculous that we consider this normal and so, like you know, the way that you deal with someone who is panicking is to commit violence. It's like so ridiculous that we consider this normal and so, like it's reductio ad absurdum kind of thing. I don't know, that's, that's the way that I took it. I have not seen it in probably 25 years.
Speaker 1:In situ, I'm not sure that's, I don't know, mean maybe, but except that, like they skewer, everything right, everything but the fundamental chassis of this relationship between ted and elaine remains. You know, he has to prove that he's like man enough yeah and then she comes back and there are moments there's a lot more sexual content in this movie than I remembered as well. I'm sure that went over our heads.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So like when they're talking about their, ted and Elaine are sort of reminiscing about their time together, like, do you remember this, do you remember that? And I won't. And she says I remember sitting on your face and wriggling until the sun came up. And then there's this automatic pilot which is like a, an inflatable, I don't know, like this human shaped egg, but um, it starts to deflate and and that's a problem, and so she has to manually reinflate it with this tube that's at the belt level. So when leslie nielsen like comes into cockpit, it looks like she's given the autopilot a blow job. And then they like lean on that because after he's re-inflated, they both are sitting there, they're both smoking cigarettes. Why would she need one Exactly?
Speaker 2:um, my exact point about the baked in misogyny. You got it on one ma'am, yeah here's. Here's, um, something that I think would be interesting, because I am curious if there is a like I've never been so scared before and I've, and I'm, and I never got married and a hysterical or panicking woman passenger who is slapped in either airport or zero hour or zero hour because that and To your point, it doesn't make. It doesn't matter if there is or not, because the misogyny is baked in, is baked in, but if there are those things in the original, like part of what I take this film as being, is like making fun of skewering, like the disaster movies, like showing how over the top the drama is in those disaster movies. So I'm not, I'm not going to say that this is excuses, those, those, those, those guys, but it does kind of explain where they came from Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know the answer to that, and that is an excellent question, and that may well be the case. Yeah, it may well, because in Zero Hour the Ted character his name is not Ted has a drinking problem, and so they skewer that by the drinking problem. You remember where every time he's got a glass in his hand, like he can't reach his mouth, so he ends up just like throwing liquid at his face over and over and over again because he has a quote unquote drinking problem. So, yeah, you might be right, you might be right, and that would that actually would contextualize it in a way that would make it feel less Neat andirited. Yeah, that's a great word, that's a great word, that's a great word.
Speaker 1:So another mean-spirited piece is in the tower. In the control tower there's the guy who runs the place, then the former what's the word I'm looking for, comrade, that's not the word I'm looking for the guy who served with, and then the guy who served with ted, who they brought in, and then there's a bunch of sort of nameless guys who work in the control tower and then there's johnny, and john Johnny is flamboyantly gay I remember that character and apparently only exists to give flamboyantly gay non sequiturs in the background, in a way that is ridiculous and mean spirited on the part of the movie makers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not on Johnny's part. Yeah, spirited on the part of the movie makers, yeah, not on johnny's part. Yeah, and that's I'm. I'm trying to think, I like, I think that johnny is the only sort of like, in a surprising sort of way, he's the only kind of specific moment that I can think of of, of of abject, explicit homophobia, which there could have been a lot more in 1980. Yeah, right, it was something, it was something that people traded on for humor quite a lot, and I don't, and it's not there much, but Johnny's pretty darn mean spirited, you know, as a as a figure. You know as a as a figure.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I want to name that is complicated in flashback, after the war, elaine and ted joined the peace corps and they are assigned to a tribe somewhere, I suppose in africa or I don't know. Um, but the, the tribe is all black, black folks, and Ted is like teaching them about physical fitness and so teaches them to play basketball, and the joke is that like, ted, like, like, sets up a basket and like, tosses the ball toward the basket and misses, and then the tribe, like, almost immediately, are like the Harlem Globetrotters, you know, like spinning the ball on their finger and, like, every single shot they make goes in, and of course he takes credit for that, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And it's death, oh my.
Speaker 1:God.
Speaker 2:So it's terrible in every direction. So we got the white saviorism and the idea of inherent ability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're meant to think he's ridiculous for taking credit for it. We're meant to see that he didn't. He did not have anything to do with the fact that these these men are good at basketball, and but part of the reason why that's ridiculous is because, of course, they're good at basketball.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So it's like the, the layers of racism like baked into that sort of flashback scene are like are almost difficult for me to unpack because there's just so many of them. Tribe, um was I mean I'm not gonna say it was good, but it wasn't like as horrible as I was expecting. When I, when I'm I'm watching this two nights ago and he says we were, you know, assigned to this tribe and I see you know him and elaine walking with a bunch of black folks in, like you know, traditional I'm putting quotes around that traditional African garb I was like oh no what and it was bad. But in terms of their actual physical features and dress.
Speaker 1:It wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating, mm-hmm. So I guess I'd like to like unpack with you a little bit what the Zuckers could have done differently maybe, because I think in some ways, like I don't know, if you remember I'm sure you remember actually, so listeners, when we were kids, sometimes we would like some somebody would say a joke at the dinner table and like it might even be mean-spirited or cut too close to the quick, and we we would say, like like part of how we would apologize would be like you gotta go for the for the joke, go for the joke, go for the joke. Like go for the joke was like an explanation for why we had cut too close to the quick. And I think that I can say that about the Zuckers in this movie Go for the joke, right, that's their mistake. So, and 220 gags in 88 minutes and a lot of them I mean I think in 1980, probably most of them were really, really funny to the people watching. And even today, all these years later, 44 years later, it's still like you snort, laughed at my retelling of the altogether joke. Yes, yes, so they were doing something right, you know. So one of the things that occurs to me, and then I want to like unpack this with you.
Speaker 1:One of the things that occurs to me that they could have done differently when I think about some of the specific jokes that bother me now are diversify their writing team. Yes, right, it was three white dudes, it was the Zucker Brothers and one other person, who's sorry dude, I don't remember your name. I looked it up, I don't remember Sorry. So it was three white dudes who were producing and then the writers were all white. Like so I think you know, diversifying the writing cast, the writing team, is one like obvious thing, not just racially, ethnically, but just you know lots of different ways. Like you're gonna make jokes about, uh, women in marriage, like, do you have a woman on the writing team? You know you're gonna make like well, don't make jokes about pedophiles. I don't care what the context is or what you're spoofing like, just don't, just don't do it, it's not funny. But you're gonna make jokes about the way black folks speak to one another. You better have a black person on the writing team or a sensitivity reader before you. You know, like something.
Speaker 2:I do want to push back real quick. Not that, not that I'm, like, married to pedophile jokes, but I think that there are things that it is very, very difficult to joke about, like pedophilia, like rape. But I don't think that it is impossible, and what it has to be is that you have to be making fun of the awful person and not making fun of a situation where someone is in peril, which is what the problem. Problem is here Like there's, this child is in peril, and it is not. The humor is not in the fact that, like, look at this horrible loser and whatever and I don't, I don't have one off the have punched up in the way that they should.
Speaker 2:So John Mulaney, for instance, talks about how he, in his late 20s and early 30s, would forget that he's a grown man. And so he was at a subway in New York and there was one other person there. It was a woman, and he was walking behind her and she was walking quickly, and he was like, oh no, am I going to miss the train because it was late at night. And so she started walking quicker. So he started walking quicker, so she started running. So he started running, like maybe she can hear the train coming and then, as he's running and she's like busting it, he realizes like, oh yeah, I'm an adult man who's six feet tall and adult men do horrible things to people. She's afraid of me and like so the humor is entirely at his expense because he's the one who's acting inappropriately and so that there are, and he's the one who is so naive, so there are ways to tell these jokes, but this is not it. So I just wanted to. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:That's. That's helpful to to to nuance that, because the the way that it happens in airplane, this the pilot is in every other way. I mean, he's not a hero but he's not a villain, yeah, yeah, and in fact when he falls ill, that's actually like the last straw, that really indicates that this plane is in big, big danger, because he's the last of the crew, of the flight crew, the cockpit crew. He's the last of the cockpit crew to fall ill. So, yes, yes, and good point. You know, I bet, bet, I'm sorry, I'm just thinking about your idea about whether or not there were like somebody slapped a woman in in the other in the source material. I bet they did, because one of the other big gags is that the co-pilot is kareem abdul-jabbar.
Speaker 1:The actor um is the basketball player kareem abdul-jabbar and he's his the. The character's name is roger murdoch um, but the kid, the same kid who's in peril from roger over captain over, is the um says I know who you are, you're kareem abdul-jabbar. And says something about his game and and it. In the end he is like when they pull, when he gets sick and they pull him out, he's wearing like basketball shorts. And that was because in the in zero hour. One of the flight crew was like a former professional football star, but he was just being an actor and so like that the. The joke was in reference to this earlier movie.
Speaker 2:So I bet that you're right that those two were written and how. That tells us that there there was no diversity in the writer's room, which obviously we can see that. But so I'm very literal, as we all know, and so what I liked about this film when I was a kid is that its humor is literal, so like I'm the wrong person altogether and then you're the wrong person.
Speaker 1:No, the wordplay is very much Amelia Bedelia kind of wordplay jokes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. They say, oh, the shit's going to hit the fan, and then we watch we actually see shit hit the fan, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then we watch. We actually see shit hit the fan yeah.
Speaker 2:And even the kind of like the gags that you're talking about, where the way someone presents is not who they are, is also a kind of literal sort of looking at the world, in that that conversation between the little kids sounds like a very specific thing, but it doesn't have to be. This feels like it was written by people who were neurodivergent enough to take things literally but neurotypical enough to know when it was absurd and when it was not supposed to be taken literally. And I feel like the way that you were talking about the characterization of Black folks and the homophobia and women and all of that, is that there were things that they took as given or literal that aren't just because they were cultural and they did not examine them.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's well said, Because I think that the fundamental relationship between Ted and Elaine, which is unexamined, which they take as given, didn't have to be Like Elaine is nothing, she's really nothing and like not that Ted is like a you know complicated character, but there's more to him than there is to Elaine, and like in the end, like the other men want to shake his hand and buy him a drink, like it's and she's really just a prize, that's really all she is. So which you know I'm not. I know it sounds like I am skewering the Zuckers for this, and to an extent I am, but really I'm skewering our culture, because the same can be true for Marion in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and she's potentially a huge badass, but in the end she's just a prize for Indy, because that was what women were in our stories.
Speaker 2:Because only men were writing our stories, the ones that got wide appeal Right.
Speaker 1:Right. So I'm disappointed with the Zuckers, but I'm more disappointed with our culture. I guess is what I want to say, but the way you just phrase it is, I think, exactly right. That part of what is so disappointing is that they were examining everything and then, when they didn't, it stands out yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's such a missed opportunity because there is so much humor that one could find in these, like even just the relationship between Ted and Elaine, like the only thing that she does.
Speaker 1:that's subversive is like when she says, like what you were saying, like I remember sitting on your face and that's not, I mean she leaves him. Yeah, she leaves him in that sense. But even that like she leaves him because he's like not man enough. I'm putting quotes around that Like I don't know how that read in 1980, like reading it now, like it just makes her all the more shallow, seeming that. You know like we airmen call each other, I don't know. Anyway, he's racked with guilt at the death of these men whom he led and that's why he is having a hard time finding himself and finding like his next profession and has no ambition because he's he's still hurting, he's traumatized. Yeah, it's only been six years, according to the film itself, since all of this happened.
Speaker 1:So you know she's even like, even within the context of the film, like she's just nothing. So the most subversive thing she does is leave him.
Speaker 2:But even that is really just a plot device to force him onto the plane and I have absolutely no doubt that that is directly from Zero Hour or Air Force.
Speaker 1:Oh no, it is it most definitely. Is it most definitely?
Speaker 2:is so. I mean, that's not even.
Speaker 1:The difference is she's not a stewardess, she's like they're both on their way someplace or something, but no for sure. The plot is directly from Zero Hour and then it made more sense because it was closer. It was made closer in proximity to world war ii. So it actually was, like you know, and like some of the jokes, like in flashback, when when we see ted kind of like freaking out, like having a bit of a panic attack, and we see that the same like old footage of like a, a plane hitting a mountainside which was meant to be the mission, and then there's other film of like even older planes, and then there's that, that like historic film of that plane with the like six wings that's kind of flap up and down and it falls over and like like all of this old, like clearly clearly not him, yeah, you know like the Bright Brothers and Kitty Hawk kind of looking film of flights, so it's all absurd, like even his trauma is sort of absurdified, you know.
Speaker 1:And in some ways that's like a skewering of films themselves where we see sort of the flashback overlaying over someone. We have another moment like that where this, the film, the medium is made fun of, where the guy, the poor guy who gets attacked by the golden retriever and the guy who served with ted are in the car and there's like a screen behind them and the car does not like what he's doing with the wheel doesn't match up at all. Yeah, with the screen behind them it's just like totally disjointed, which is visually very funny, you know, and that's, I think, making fun of the convention of that screen.
Speaker 2:Well, this kind of brings me back to what I was saying, which is that they took the time to think like what's expected and how can we skewer that? What's expected and how can we turn that on its head. But they didn't ask themselves what's expected and how can we turn that on its head with this central relationship? Right, Because, like and you know some of it is because there are some things that you have to have in order to have a movie, and so they're like starting with like okay, well, it needs to be about 90 minutes long, it needs to have the like a skeleton of a plot that hangs together, Like there are certain things that they're like we need to have this bone structure in order to make this parody, and they assume that this is part of the bone structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they treated the woman as prize, as part of the bone structure. Yes, that's exactly right. That's exactly right, yeah, so all right, this film.
Speaker 2:Let me just say quickly this film does actually pass the Bechdel test way to go zucker brothers, bechdel test and third guy, so bechdel test.
Speaker 1:As a reminder from alison bechdel, we ask ourselves three questions about a movie. Does it have at least two female characters with names? Do they talk to each other? And do they talk to each other about something other than a boy or a man? And so Randy, the stewardess, plays guitar for there's a girl who is on her way to Chicago to get a heart transplant and Randy plays the guitar for her. She has a name which I don't remember, but she definitely has one. And so they talk about music and the song and um and the guitar.
Speaker 1:So it does pass Bechtel. It's pretty low bar but it does pass it. So way to go. And I, you know it's funny when we do research for these. I don't know how you do it, em, but like I actually often will just Google the name of the movie and then the word analysis, or sometimes feminism, or sometimes like race and gender or whatever.
Speaker 1:When I was searching for this one, when I was researching for this one, I came upon the Common Sense Media review. Yeah, which, and Common Sense? I think they do important work, right, they help parents, kind of judge. I think they missed the mark on this one. They were like there's a little bit of nudity, because you see boobs at one point, um, and like some some minor violence because they have, like these fistfights and stuff, but on the whole it's just a screwball comedy or something like that. And I was like, uh, I disagree. Comma sense. Yeah, like I don't. I certainly wouldn't want, I certainly won't want your kids to be watching this without you, you know, without you there to like talk about some of the things yeah so anyway that there's not much else there.
Speaker 1:That's that's pretty much what I've got. Do you have any?
Speaker 2:um final thoughts on this before we before I see if I can wrap up but we would like to talk, like just a little bit meta, about the, the oh yeah um the way that the parody survives and the original work has fallen out of public consciousness. That is a very weird thing.
Speaker 1:I think, when we zoom out even further from that, that's actually a symptom of the ways in which a piece of media can completely captivate the zeitgeist and then not, and like knowing what piece which is everywhere is going to stay somewhere and what isn't. I is, I I don't, I don't know, I don't know how you know that in the moment, because that's ultimately what is happening when the parody has a longer life than that which it parodied, right, like the omen in the example that you brought in was a really big horror movie, was like the horror movie, right, it's not anymore. I've never seen it, of course, I haven't seen many horror movies, but it's, it's. It doesn't have the same sort of cultural cash that it did when it was new, which makes sense that it doesn't have the same kind of cultural cash. And also there are others. There are other things that were, you know, similarly large, which still do like.
Speaker 1:I would probably name the shining as one, right, and that was also the horror movie when it was new, and I think a parody of the shining that was made, I expect it would. We would know like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Right, the long hallway, the big wheel, the twins, like.
Speaker 2:What? What's interesting to me is both in this example and in good omens. Now I've seen parts of the omen. It is a good movie, it's well done. I have not seen Airport or Zero Hour, but I have seen like, tower, inferno, poseidon, adventure and I'm not going to say they're badly done movies, but the genre is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's over the top. I'm not sure Zero Hour was intended to be known Like. I think that was where they got the plot. Okay, okay, but I don't know that people, I could be wrong about this, um and so, listener, if you remember or if this is one of your movies that you want to like, correct me here. But, based on my research, I was under the impression that airport would have been known to all of the viewers in 1980. Okay, zero hour would have been invisible to them. It was just where the plot came from, gotcha, okay so here's.
Speaker 2:here's what I find interesting is that, um, with good omens, that is a very well-written story, in part because, um, as angry as I am at Neil Gaiman right now, um, he and Terry Pratchett and I have no anger towards Terry Pratchett, um, or masters of their craft, yeah. And so they're making a parody and it's more than just a parody. There is more in there than just a parody. So it's longevity makes sense to me, because, damn, um, airplanes longevity compared to its source material is harder to understand, because I'm not saying Zuckers are not gifted. Compared to its source material is harder to understand, because I'm not saying Zuckers are not gifted, they are. But what like? And I guess it's the, the, the 220 gags in 88 minutes, I guess. I guess that's what it is Like, like some of which still make us snort less.
Speaker 1:I actually think that that matters yeah um, I mean another great, I don't know great, another example of sort of the parody like outliving, like I would have no idea who liberace was, I think, if it weren't for bugs bunny. Right, like bugs bunny, sitting down at the piano, light it with the candelabra saying I I wish my brother George were here. It was a parody of Liberace which I only know because I was like, what is Bugs Bunny talking about? And I'm a nerd and I looked it up, so. But when Bugs Bunny was new, everyone knew what he was talking about.
Speaker 1:Yes, when those shorts were being released, all the viewers knew exactly who he was talking about when he sat down at the piano and so, but there's, so there's something about, I think, the humor aspect. Same with Good Omens, actually, right, like Good Omens, like the book alone, right, like rereading it in the past two years, the other four horsemen of the apocalypse, gosh, so funny, right, I was laughing so hard. Yeah, you know. So I actually I'm guessing, I'm like crafting this, thought as I'm speaking, thought as I'm speaking, but I think that the humor and the ability for the joke to continue to elicit laughs is a factor that can contribute to longevity. For you know, examples like this, where there is a spoof happening and the original not funny, that was being spoofed kind of fades into obscurity.
Speaker 2:Do you know that that fits a little bit with what I've been thinking a little bit lately about Bloom County, the Burke-Bretthed comic strip.
Speaker 2:I'm taking an illustration class right now at MIAD Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design class right now at MIAD Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and I don't remember how we got into it, but I was talking to the instructor about how I feel lucky that I grew up in what felt like the golden age of newspaper comics, because every single day we had a new Bloom County, we had a new Farside and we had a new Calvin and Hobbes and I've talked about, I've introduced my kids to all three of them and I had remembered Bloom County having political jokes that went over my head, like I had no idea who Jean Kirkpatrick was and she was a regular, regularly showed up in Bloom County.
Speaker 2:No idea who she was, but it was still very funny. Like even eight and nine year old me could enjoy the animals being goofy, even though, like Leia, coca jokes made no sense but I had Coke is a funny name, and so I wonder if that has something to do with it too, where, like if you reach that that sweet spot of funny where it doesn't matter that you don't know what it's being referenced um that allows for longevity. Um, because I still look back on bloom county fondly and, like would will happily go back and reread them even though 40 years on, like, whatever he's talking about that was topical at the time is gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that definitely is a factor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's right, I think I think humor and and I think that absurd, but kind of it's like walking that line, that line of absurdism that, like the absurdity itself is just it remains funny, not so far that it's just like what well, you know it's uh, it's very neurodivergent friendly humor um because especially.
Speaker 1:I mean if, if re-watching is one of the hallmarks of neurodivergent friendly, which we have suggested, it is, uh, you know, rewarding, uh, repeat viewings. This movie for sure, because there's all there's stuff going on in the background at all times. That's the only way you could get 220 gags into 88 minutes. Yeah, yeah, so all right, um, let me see if I can. Yeah, yeah, certainly not his last um, and it was a movie that lampooned the whole genre of disaster films that were popular at the time, including airport, which is why it was named what it was named. But also there was the poseidon adventure and towering inferno, um, and and other sort of disaster movies. So this movie lampooned those films. It borrowed the plot from a movie called zero hour exclamation point, which may or may not have been well known to viewers in 1980 I suspect not, but I could be wrong about that.
Speaker 1:This was a gag, more than a gag a minute, and it was very much following, like our family's like go for the joke mantra, even if it was borderline mean spirited or straight up mean spirited showed up and the person who counted the 220 names some of them. I will link to that article in the show notes, folks. If you're like really deep into, like, the mechanics of humor, you might enjoy that. Um, some of the ones that I named in particular were the word play, which are sort of in the same vein as amelia bedelia. So the kind of thing like, uh, when Ted says to the doctor, surely you can't be serious? And the doctor responds I am serious and don't call me Shirley. So those sorts of like literal wordplay. Or the one that made both Emily and myself snort, laugh, which was I'm the wrong person for this altogether, and then the other two people talking repeat back the original phrase as if he was asking them to say it all at once.
Speaker 1:Other gags included, sort of visual slapstick that the other characters play as if it's not happening. So examples of that when the mechanic falls off the nose cone of the plane and the pilot and co-pilot do not react, like when the golden retriever is attacking the driver, he comes up, who comes to the house to pick up the pilot who's going to talk, the talk Ted down from the ground and the pilot himself and his wife act as if nothing untoward is happening. So moments like that we also saw that. I didn't name this, but we also see that in flashback, when Ted and Elaine are like kissing on the beach and like huge waves crashing over them so that there's like seaweed and stuff all over them and they're just like acting like it's not happening. So things like that happen.
Speaker 1:We also see moments of subverted expectation, which is how humor works we have said that repeatedly but specifically around someone doing or saying something that is incongruous with our expectations of their identity. So examples of that include Florence Henderson saying she speaks fluent jive, and the two kids, the the little girl who looks to be about eight, says she likes her coffee black the way she likes her men, you know, um, I'm actually wondering if that's what they were going for with the pedophile jokes.
Speaker 2:If they were going for, like, the subversion of, like you expect this, like pilot, to be, you know, a hero, um, and so this is the subversion, because in that at the time it did not, it might not have occurred to the zuckers that, like, there is no specific version of what that looks like possibly, yeah, possibly, before we realized this, how, unfortunately, how prevalent it actually can be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe, maybe some of the jokes that don't hold up are ones in which the person's identity becomes the joke, right? So the two, the two black guys who speak jive and we need subtitles to understand what they say, the um johnny, the flamboyantly gay um tower operator, who is just a non-sequitur, the racist depictions of the tribe that ted and elaine worked with in the peace corps, with the sort of inherent basketball abilities, these things that that just just don't, just don't hold up. And some of the things that do are like ones with that they keep coming back to where they committed to the joke, like the guy in the taxi that it's one of the very first things we see after the jaws open, um, and there is a post credit Easter egg where the dude is still sitting in the taxi which I have strong memories of, dad like snort laughing at after the credits when we were kids, so, um, after the credits when we were kids, so um. So those are the some of the things that, um, that we noted. I think you named this very articulately in that. One of the things that's disappointing about the sexual politics in this film is that this movie like really over and over and over again says what do people expect and how can we lampoon it and how can we look closer at it and like subvert it, but it treats the sexual politics between ted and elaine and her as a prize for him, as just kind of furniture that they don't even see it enough to subvert it, to look more closely at it, and that's disappointing and that's where, like, I'm angry at the Zuckers but I'm more angry at the culture that made it so deeply ingrained.
Speaker 1:We also spent some considerable time talking about the sort of bigger cultural phenomenon of examples where a piece of media exists in reference to another piece, an older piece of media, and as an iteration of, as a spoof of, and then the original piece of media sort of falls into obscurity and we're left with the parody and how we see this happen. We've seen this happen several times and one of the things that I think together we came to is the fact that when the parody reaches a level of humor that understanding, the original references become unnecessary in order to find it funny, that's when we may see this greater longevity for the parody. I'm thinking now of, like weird all yankovic songs. Yes, as examples of that, um, potentially the other ones that we named were good omens off of the omen. And um, I named bugs bunny and his references to liberace, and liberace, who, now, I don't think folks in general he's, he's not someone who's like big in the cultural consciousness, he's not chilling in the zeitgeist, uh, anymore, as it were. Though those moments when we do see looney tunes and and bug sits down at the piano and wishes his brother george were there, like we still enjoy those moments. So, um, this film does pass back dell. So good on you there, uh, and I think, something that I guess the last thing that I'll say, and then anything that I missed you you can lift up, is one of the things that I, that I noticed.
Speaker 1:You know, this film remains beloved and and, as I mentioned, like, is often voted on like top, you know, in the top 10 or the top 20 funniest movies of all time. And, in fact, common sense media, which is a group that I mean. I think they're mostly volunteers, but they're out there trying to help us parents, like be responsible in what media our children see, and they didn't seem too bothered by this film in ways that make me a little uncomfortable. It is very, very funny, and I'm not saying you shouldn't ever show it to your kids, and if you do, you should probably watch it with them to help talk through some of these moments of racism and sexism and especially the moment of the pedophilia that's. You know, it ain't funny. So that's where I'm landing. What did I forget him?
Speaker 2:Um, we talked a little bit about how, um, like I liked it as a kid, in part because I take things literally, and so does the movie, um, and so I I really appreciated that. It felt like mine in a way. Um, and that kind of shows me the neurodivergent, friendly nature of this film, which also fits with why it would be beloved. Like it's beloved because people watch it over and over again and they find, like they find, something new to laugh at. There's a lot of movies you watch at once. You don't need to see it again ever, yeah, and this is one where, like, you are rewarded for rewatching. So there's that. And then something we didn't really mention, but I think is is important to me, is like how many there were and what kind they were.
Speaker 2:And something that you always hear is like, yes, the best way to understand a joke is to talk through it, just to explain it in detail.
Speaker 2:But I actually just want to really quick lift up the fact that we tend to think of many things as inherent, including a sense of humor, and so when we say, like, if you have to explain a joke, it's bad, which I don't think is wrong, if someone doesn't laugh at a joke and you have to explain it, then, yes, the humor did not work, but we take that to the point where it's like you're either funny or you're not, and so I think it's really interesting and important to think about the fact that these gags were written like that. These were things that they thought about, and this is a skill that can be learned and I'm sure that you know that's not news to anyone who's a comedian but this is something where, because we tend to think of like either you're able to make that joke in the moment or you're not, and there's no way of like analyzing what's funny and figuring out how to make it work in your own writing or humor or speaking or whatever.
Speaker 1:I think we could probably zoom out for creativity in general, like I think our culture treats creativity as something that you've got or you don't, yes, and so to do some analysis around humor, or creativity, to say, like, what works and what doesn't, and how can we do more of what works is is a, and treating it as a skill like any other. Well, as opposed to, as opposed to something that, like you've, you've got the muse or you don't. I feel like we've talked about that on the defense before we have.
Speaker 2:Well, and in fact, the fact that this is a parody and they took the plot from zero hour. You know, I was very explicitly taught don't copy other people, right? Whereas, like I don't think the people who taught me that would argue that the Zuckers aren't creative, right, and it's like, know what you can do. Like they knew we're not going to be able to create a plot to hang all these gags on, so we'll take somebody else's, but you know, it's still our movie because we are doing all of this stuff and so recognizing, like you don't have to be all things to all people in creativity Like we talked about this with the princess bride like William Goldman recognized he's not gonna be able to write a love story, so he skipped it.
Speaker 1:Like he figured out a way to write around it. Yeah, yeah, it's great, cool, all right. Well, that was fun. I actually did enjoy returning to it and I really did laugh out loud a couple of times. Especially I laughed the loudest at the altogether joke. But there were a couple of other moments that I laughed out loud and a lot of you know smiles, one or two groans. So, um, yeah, so are we back?
Speaker 2:to you next weekend. Yes, next week, in honor of Thanksgiving, we are going to be talking about planes, trains and automobiles. This is another, uh, kind of pattern. Interrupts, because I haven't actually seen it.
Speaker 2:I've seen, oh I didn't know that interesting, never seen it it's one of the ones where, like so people will be surprised that I've never seen the godfather, because I love movies and I'm like, yeah, I'm not interested in the godfather, it's a good movie. I know, I know it is, it's, it's, uh, it's been mansplained to me how, how important it is that I, as a a movie lover, that I see it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, you know, I haven't seen Titanic and at this point it's like a thing, like I can't see it. Yeah, because it's like I've made it a thing yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, this is like when you were bat mitzvahed as an adult and every single one of our family members turned to me. It single one of our family members turn to me is like when are you doing it? Never Now, thank you, you've made it impossible. So there are films like that where I don't really feel weird about not having seen it Planes, trains and Automobiles because it came out when I was like a kid in the 80s and like part of the zeitgeist. I've always felt a little odd that I don't know it and like it's one of the few like quotable 80s movies that I can't quote. So I was hoping to take a look at it and I thought looking at it with completely fresh eyes could be interesting.
Speaker 1:Cool, all right. Well, I'll look forward to that. I'll see you then. See you then. Do you like stickers? Sure, we all do. If you head over to guygirlsmediacom slash, sign up and share your address with us, we'll send you a sticker. It really is that easy, but don't wait, there's a limited quantity. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?