Airplane!/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Airplane!, being the funniest thing ever, has quite a few. The most famous one is:

Ted Striker: Surely you can't be serious!
Rumack: I am serious...and don't call me Shirley.

  • "Excuse me, stewardess. I speak Jive."
    • When Barbara Billingsly recently passed away, almost every online news source and blogger posted her "I speak Jive" clip. Definitely a Crowning Moment.
  • Any mention of Ted's "drinking problem".
    • Or his mind-numbingly boring stories of life after the army.
  • "Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue." *sniff*
  • Just about everything Stephen Stucker, as air control employee Johnny, said or did:

"Johnny, what do you make of this?" *hands him a computer printout*
"This? Why, I can make a hat, or a brooch, or a pterodactyl..."

    • "And Leon's getting laaaaaarger!"
    • "The tower? Rapunzel! Rapunzel!"
    • (after he has plugged back in the runway lights, which have gone out in the middle of an emergency landing) "Just kidding!"
    • (to Mrs. Over) "Where did you get that dress, it's awful, and those shoes and that coat, jeeeeez!"
    • "Me John Big Tree".
    • "Your husband and the others are alive, but unconscious." "Just like Gerald Ford."
  • "Okay, boys. Let's take some pictures."
  • "We have clearance, Clarence." "Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?"
  • "It's a big building where the generals meet, but that's not important right now".
    • Later thrown back at her: "It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now."
    • "It's the little room in the front of the plane where the pilots sit, but that's not important right now."
  • "No thank you. I take it black, like my men."
  • Rex Kramer beats up some guys.
    • "Stop nuclear power?" *whack* "How about Buddhism?" *pow* "Scientologyyyyyyyy!"
      • Using arguably the most beautiful back-flip kick-throw ever.
  • "...free to live a life of religious fulfillment."
    • Bonus points for the Pinocchio Nose
  • "He's a menace to himself and everything else in the air. Yes, birds too."
    • "Alright, he's a risk. But what choice do we have?"
  • "Keep it at 24,000. No, feet."
  • "You ever seen a grown man naked?"
  • "Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"
  • "Do you like movies about gladiators?"
  • "It's an entirely different kind of flying, altogether."

All, Together: "It's an entirely different kind of flying."

  • "...He thinks he's Ethel Merman."
  • "Ladies and Gentlemen there's no reason to be alarmed and we hope you enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, does anyone on board know how to fly a plane?"
  • The beating heart on the desk at the Mayo Clinic.
  • "I just want to tell you both good luck, we're all counting on you.
  • The Red Zone Has Always Been For Loading and Unloading of Passengers...
    • Listen Betty, don't start up with your white zone shit again.
  • "This is WZAZ in Chicago, where DISCO LIVES FOREVER!" (Airplane knocks the beacon off)
  • The opening credits where the fin of the airplane doubles for a shark fin, complete with appropriate music!
  • "The hell I don't! LISTEN, KID! I've been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I'm out there busting my buns every night. Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes." (the look on Joey's face is priceless!)
  • "We could just try ignoring it, sir."
  • "I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you."
  • "Oh, cut the bleeding heart crap, Stryker. We've all got our buttons, lights, and knobs to deal with. I mean, out here, I am literally surrounded by hundreds and thousands of buttons, lights, and knobs. They're blinking and they're beeping and they're flashing and they're BEEPING AND THEY'RE FLASHING!"
  • "No, the white phone."
  • "First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came but they got too big and fat so they died and turned to oil. Then the Arabs came and they were driving Mercedes Benz's. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's clothes. I couldn't believe it"...
  • Otto the Autopilot. The look on his face when Elaine has to re-inflate him? Priceless.
    • And the bit where the doctor walks in, sees her inflating him, and turns around and walks straight out...
  • Ted buying a ticket for the plane and taking the smoking option. He's then handed a ticket that is literally smoking.
  • "10 more minutes?! They could be miles off course!" "That's impossible, they're on instruments!" And then we see that, yes, indeed they are....
  • The scene where the boy is reading a "Nun's Life" magazine, a few seats from the nun reading a "Boy's Life".
  • "When Kramer hears about this, the shit's gonna hit the fan." (And it does. Literally.)
  • "Modern Sperm" magazine...a one-off image gag, but still amusing to think about.
    • Which is in the "Whacking Material" section in between "Fiction" and "Non-Fiction".
  • Elaine tells the passengers that they're half a million miles off course, missing a navigational system, and being bombarded by asteroids. The passengers remain calm.

Random Passenger: Miss, are you telling us absolutely everything?
Elaine: Not exactly. We're also out of coffee
The passengers begin rioting.

Murdock: You want me to check the weather, Clarence?
Oveur: No, why don't you take care of it?

  • "No, that's what they'll be expecting us to do".
  • "Christmas, Ted. It was a living hell. Have you ever been kicked on the head with an iron boot? Of course not. I'm sorry that's a dumb question. Skip that".
  • Mrs. Oveur and her horse.

Ted: We're bombing the storage depots at Daquiri in 1200 hours. We're coming in from the north below their radar.
Elaine: When will you be back?
Ted: I can't tell you that. It's classified.

  • In Airplane II, When Ted escapes the asylum in with spotlights searching for him, he passes singer Jack Jones in a spotlight singing The Love Boat theme into a mike.
  • "I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you."
  • You open doors on the moonbase by going 'Hssst' at them.
  • This rather unfortunate exchange:

Rex: Our only hope is to build this man up. We gotta give him all the confidence we can. (into microphone) Striker, have you ever flown a multi-engine plane before?
Ted: No. Never.
Rex: (with microphone still on) Shit! This is a goddamned waste of time! There's no way he can land this plane!

    • Ted's deer-in-headlights reaction from the cockpit really sells this one.
  • The parade of emergency vehicles dispatched at the Chicago airport includes a cement mixer, a farm tractor, and a truckload of Budweiser.