Airplane! Trivia - Airplane! Information and Facts
In a 2008 interview on the Today Show, 'Peter Graves' said he was initially insulted and offended by the script for 'Airplane!', but was convinced by friends and colleagues to do the movie.
According to the soundtrack album cover (Regency Records, 1980), Johnny's last name is Hinshaw.
The film's title in Germany was "The Incredible Trip in a Crazy Airplane".
The argument between the two P.A. voice-overs about an abortion comes from "a cheap, dime-store novel" according to the trivia track of the DVD version. That "novel" is actually Arthur Hailey's "Airport" (which inspired the movie Airport (1970)).
To get the film green-lighted by Paramount, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker pitched it as "Animal House (1978) on a plane"--which, of course, was far from the truth, but the only way they could get the studio execs to understand it was a zany comedy.
# # Director Cameo: (Jerry Zucker and David Zucker) appear as the ground crew at the beginning of the film (they're the ones that direct the plane into the window of the terminal).
When Striker takes control of the airplane, among the "voices" he hears is the announcement "Now batting for Pedro Borbon, Manny Mota... Mota... Mota..." Manny Mota was a pinch hitter for the Dodgers and Pirates - and was never on a team with Pedro Borbon.
A disco station in the film is called WZAZ, a reference to filmmakers David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. The same initials appear on one of the microphones in the scene with the reporters in the control tower.
In the scene with Johnny and Steve McCroskey, McCroskey says "Get me someone who won't crack under pressure." Johnny responds "How about Mister Rogers?" If you look carefully that was dubbed in after. 'Airplane!' was shot in August 1979. Stephen Stucker (Johnny) actually said "How about Mamie Eisenhower." The former First Lady died a few months later (in Nov. 1979) so the producers corrected it by dubbing in "Mister Rogers" out of respect for the Eisenhower family.
The picture of the boy in the spinning newspaper that has the headline, "Boy Trapped In Refrigerator Eats Own Foot", is Billy Koch, the grandson of producer Howard W. Koch. His grandfather called him up one day and asked him for a photo of himself, so Billy grabbed his second grade school photo. It was only after the film came out that he found out why his grandfather wanted the photo.
In the scene where the husband turns on the air for his sick wife, you see in the background a man wearing a large beard, it was supposed to fly off in the wind, but the adhesive they used wouldn't let the beard come loose. The man can be seen moving his face back and forth and scrunching his face trying to help it come off.
# # The Mustang used in the scene where Rex is being brought to the airport was owned by Robert Hays. He got paid $35 a day for its use and they used it for two days.
Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.
The movie's dialog between Stricker and Rumack ("Surely you can't be serious" "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley") was voted as the #79 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
The music for the love scenes with Elaine and Ted was taken from The Hunters (1958) where Robert Mitchum plays a fighter pilot and May Britt his lover.
