From: mleeper@optonline.net   
      
   Back in 1976 Paramount made a clever satire on high-budget disaster   
   films.  The film was THE BIG BUS and dealt with the maiden voyage   
   of the world's first nuclear-powered super-bus.  This film (which   
   incidentally should not be confused with its highly re-edited TV   
   version) took all the cliches of films like AIRPORT and packed them   
   together, giving each a satiric twist, much as AIRPLANE! would do.   
   It is a shame that the film did not get more publicity than it did.   
   Now Paramount seems to have learned their lesson.  They have made a   
   similar film called AIRPLANE! and this film they are giving a big   
   publicity campaign.  If they have learned their lesson, it seems   
   like it was in time.  If THE BIG BUS deserved the publicity,   
   AIRPLANE! deserves it even more.  Whatever was good about THE BIG   
   BUS is at most little worse and usually better in AIRPLANE!   
      
   After seeing AIRPLANE! I can imagine that the script-writers went   
   over the script for months trying to find new places to stick gags   
   or new ways to turn scenes upside-down (sometimes literally).  The   
   publicity says that the film averages a joke every seven seconds.   
   Unfortunately, so much is happening on the screen that the audience   
   often has their attention distracted away from the funniest thing   
   that is going on, and audience laughter drowns out some of the gags   
   in the dialogue.  I would estimate that I saw a joke about every   
   twelve seconds, on the average, and only about half of them struck   
   me as funny.  Still, one funny gag every 24 seconds is nothing to   
   sneeze at.   
      
   To be honest, there is nothing in the film that is all that   
   hysterically funny (well, maybe a few things).  But the   
   writer/directors depend on a sheer barrage of humor to break down   
   the viewers' resistance.  And the strategy works flawlessly.  They   
   used the same strategy in their previous film KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE,   
   a movie of dubious taste but nearly as funny as AIRPLANE!  The   
   absurdities of AIRPLANE! come thick and fast from brawling girl   
   scouts, to a story so sad that people hearing it keep committing   
   suicide, to the co-pilot (played by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) being   
   recognized as Kareem and having to defend his basketball strategy.   
   At least a dozen films are satirized in the course of AIRPLANE!,   
   including some clever gags at the expense of JAWS, SATURDAY NIGHT   
   FEVER, and FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.  There are cameo appearances of   
   such notables as Howard Jarvis and Ethel Merman.  All in all,   
   AIRPLANE! is a lot of film packed into its all too scant 88   
   minutes.   
      
   --   
   Mark R. Leeper   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)