Comedy Team Paired Absurd Situations With Deadpan Lines

Jim Abrahams, part of the comedy team who made some pretty funny laugh-inducing – and some intentionally groan-inducing – movies in the 1980s and 90s including Airplane!, passed away November 26 at his home in Santa Monica, California. He was 80 years of age.

Along with the Zucker brothers David and Jerry, the writing-directing-producing team of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, often referred to as “ZAZ,” started in 1977 with the less well known The Kentucky Fried Movie.

But then they hit the jackpot in 1980 with Airplane!, a shameless parody of 1970s disaster flicks with Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, Robert Hays, and Julie Haggerty, along with several cameos of 1950s and 60s TV stars like the hilarious jive-talkin’ Barbara Billingsley, stoic military veteran Robert Stack, ATC supervisor Lloyd Bridges, and Graves’ co-pilot “Roger Murdock” (a supposedly incognito Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).

Airplane! was a commercial and critical hit movie that made The New York Times’ 2003 list of Best Movies Ever Made. It received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Screenplay, Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Comedy. In 2010 it was also selected for the National Film Registry where it will live forever.

Along with the absurd situations, deadpan deliveries, and the almost non-stop, unapologetic sight-gags were some of the most memorable funny and face-palming lines such as:

“We have clearance Clarence.” “Roger, Roger. What’s our vector, Victor?”

“Surely you can’t be serious.” “I am serious – and don’t call me Shirley.”

“There’s been a little problem in the cockpit.” “The cockpit, what is it?” “It’s the little room in the front of the plane where the pilots sit.”

“How soon can we land?” “I can’t tell.” “You can tell me, I’m a doctor.”

The team also made such comedy gems as Police Squad!, The Naked Gun, Top Secret!, and the Top Gun spoofs Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux.

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