Funniest Movie In History on BBC Now

[WillMunny]

Surely Airplane! isn't the most hilarious movie ever made? Yes, it is and quit calling me Shirley!

I LOVED that scene with the two black guys speaking "jive" with English subtitles. Like when one said, "Dat honk muhfuh no beh messin muh ole lady mon" and the subtitles read "That white gentleman should stay away from my wife." And who would forget that red zone/white zone airport loudspeaker argument at the beginning? All in those robotic loudspeaker cadences: "Don't you tell me which zone is for loading and which zone is for stopping." "Why pretend it's about the zones at all? You just want me to have an abortion." Or how about badass Robert Stack beating the living shit out of all those obnoxious religious solicitors that always harrassed the shit out of passengers at LAX back in the '80s and '90s? And let's not forget the bar scene flashback with the girl scout fight leading into that whole "Stayin' Alive" craziness.

What made Airplane! all the funnier is how all the actors played it so straight and dead serious, like the sheer comic insanity happening around them was a normal, everyday thing they didn't really notice.

They just had the scene where the insane air traffic controller "Johnny" spoke to the reporters and when they asked him what type of plane this was (obviously an old 707) he said, "Well, it's a big, pretty red and white plane with wheels and curtains in the windows; it looks like a big Tylenol!"

 

[miketx]

Barbara Billingsley.

 

[WillMunny]

Barbara Billingsley.

"Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive." I think it takes a mixture of both comic genius and insanity to imagine Leave it to Beaver's mom speaking jive. At one point she drawled,. "Jive-ass dudes ain't got no breeens anyhow."

 

[SassyIrishLass]

Airplane was funny but Monty Python and The Holy Grail gets my vote.

"No! now go away away or I shall taunt you a second time!"

 

[shockedcanadian]

A Fish Called Wanda

 

[miketx]

Barbara Billingsley.

"Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive." I think it takes a mixture of both comic genius and insanity to imagine Leave it to Beaver's mom speaking jive. At one point she drawled,. "Jive-ass dudes ain't got no breeens anyhow."

The one subtitle for whatever one of those guys said - "Golly" lol.

According to what I read those two guys wrote and created that whole scene.

 

[miketx]

A Fish Called Wanda

A roach called Tex.

 

[WillMunny]

Barbara Billingsley.

"Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive." I think it takes a mixture of both comic genius and insanity to imagine Leave it to Beaver's mom speaking jive. At one point she drawled,. "Jive-ass dudes ain't got no breeens anyhow."

The one subtitle for whatever one of those guys said - "Golly" lol.

According to what I read those two guys wrote and created that whole scene.

Yes that's true Mike, I remember seeing a documentary on Airplane! and in real life those two black guys were actually highly educated and well spoken so the white Zucker brothers left it to them to write their own "jive" ebonics and English translations. What makes it extra funny for me is that I was only 7 or 8 when I first saw the movie so being such a young child I assumed "jive" was a real language so I didn't get the joke at the time. So now when I look back on my innocent, naive childhood confusion over it, as an adult, it somehow makes me laugh all that much harder!

 

[WillMunny]

Airplane was funny but Monty Python and The Holy Grail gets my vote.

"No! now go away away or I shall taunt you a second time!"

Fair enough, but you have to admit that there are few scenes in movies that are funnier than watching two airport loudspeakers badgering each other over the traffic red zone and the white zone. While passengers are calmly going about their business and not noticing. SO DON'T GIVE ME ANY OF YOUR WHITE ZONE PARKING SHIT! DON'T YOU TELL ME WHICH ZONE IS FOR LOADING AND WHICH ZONE IS FOR NOT STOPPING! THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANY STOPPING IN A RED ZONE!

 

[SavannahMann]

I would say the movie is very funny. But I would be hard pressed to say it was the funniest. The Princess Bride.



Spaceballs.



Blazing Saddles.

I won’t post any clips as all of them would get me in trouble. Enough said.

There are a lot of funny movies, and some are timeless like Airplane.

 

[TroglocratsRdumb]

"Lady's Man"
Jerry Lewis

 

[WillMunny]

I would say the movie is very funny. But I would be hard pressed to say it was the funniest. The Princess Bride.



Spaceballs.



Blazing Saddles.

I won’t post any clips as all of them would get me in trouble. Enough said.

There are a lot of funny movies, and some are timeless like Airplane.

I enjoyed both movies, Mel Brooks did have some whacky comic similarities to the Zucker bros. They're not gigantically different. But in personal style, the Zuckers comedy packs a bit more punch to me, usually in a more surprising way.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

My favorite comedy movie

 

[WillMunny]

What's also funny about Airplane!'s historical context is that it was a deliberate zing on that string of cheesy, 1970's so-bad-it's-good Airport disaster movies. Which were sooooo bad that at their best/worst moments (depending on how you look at it) were almost as funny as Airplane! itself.

Thank of the scene in "Airport '79" in which pilot George Kennedy put on an oxygen mask, casually popped open the side window of a Concorde at Mach 2 and god knows what high altitude, stuck his arm out, and shot a heat-seeking missile out of the sky with a flare gun (!!!). Really, I swear! Seriously, now matter how much of a sick fuck some people may think I am, even I can't come up with shit like that!

 

[blastoff]

I always liked the accompanying background noise of piston airplane engines as the jet zoomed along.

 

[WillMunny]

I always liked the accompanying background noise of piston airplane engines as the jet zoomed along.

I remember noticing that even as a small child. The plane was clearly a Boeing 707 yet it sounded like a turboprop. They thought of every ridiculous thing they could do with a modern airplane flight.