Airplane! vs. Zero Hour!

[solidmario1]

I just watched Zero Hour the other day. My dad kept laughing at all the lines and scenes used in Airplane. He likes old black and white movies. I saw Airplane first. However I've seen both now.

[HardKore5250]

Was Zero Hour a parody too?

[ghostfanX2]

@HardKore5250

No, it was serious -- and based on a book called Runway Zero 8 by Arthur Hailey (who wrote Airport and tons of other books) and John Castle.

[NatedogO33]

Airplane! was based on an actual movie? Surely you can't be serious!

[Bryan514]

Yes, birds too.

[rgontero]

Great job of editing with the goal of seeing the parallels !!! I watched both movies and missed many of your comparisons! Thank you for a superb job.

[Dachusblot]

"It's an entirely different type of flying. All together!"

lol took me a while to get that.

[ShawnRavenfire]

"I haven't felt this sick since we saw that Ronald Reagan movie."

[taffysaur]

@ flipflomas at the end you should put leslie neilson coming in again when they're crashing and saying "i just wanted to tell you good luck, and we're all counting on you."

[LazyCoder]

Wow I never realized this before, but Airplane! seems like it was written as smart-ass remarks made by people watching Zero Hour... CLASSIC!!!!

[adamzanzie]

I personally much prefer "Zero Hour!" to "Airplane!", not least because Hall Bartlett turned out to be a much better director than David Zucker, Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams combines.

[hokiethug]

@adamzanzie Wow, really? Zero Hour is worthy of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but not much else.

[dstruck0622]

I just realized something; The actor who played Rex Kramer in Zero Hour, is the same guy who played General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove.

[johnnystewart]

This is a great job. Thanks for compiling this. I laugh even more knowing the original was played straight.

[anachronofspace]

crazy under the radar. thanks!

[kjr291]

When TCM showed "Zero Hour" this past summer, I could not stop laughing at the movie. I had no idea that the "Airplane" producers used the "Zero Hour" screenplay almost verbatim. Whe the doctor in ZH asks the stewardess what the passengers had to eat, and she says meat or fish, I lost it. Funny stuff!

[johnboy2729]

You forgot one.

"Pour every light you got out on that field."

[MegaObserver1]

ZAZ says they had a hard time getting through the line: "We've got to find someone who can land this plane - and DIDN'T have fish for dinner!" It was so unintentionally hilarious, they all were cracking up, even Leslie Nielsen.

[straightedgesteveo]

The serious scenes in zero hour! make Airplane! seem even funnier haha.

[bonzoo88]

great job man !!! macho grande!

[mitchstringer]

@bonzoo88 Over Macho Grande?

[kdraper2007]

@mitchstringer No, I don't think I'll ever get over Mucho Grande... those wounds run pretty deep. LOL!

[mpontheair2]

Hey, that's Sterling Hayden, who would go on to play Gen. Ripper ("precious bodily fluids") in Dr. Strangelove.

[humbleradio]

Very well done. Nice work.

[alexthelizardking]

the exclamation point made zero hour even funnier

RIP lloyd bridges, robert stack, peter graves and leslie nielsen

[humbleradio]

@alexthelizardking don't forget Ken Toby!

[SheDevil002010]

@alexthelizardking All of them were wonderful actors especially Leslie Nielsen, He always had my sides hurting from laughing at him. May they all rest in peace.

[SupernautG]

In Junior High school our English class text book for a quarter had a collection of movie scripts and one of them was Zero! Hour. I knew this movie from that reading only. Never saw the originial.

[befalas]

RIP Leslie Nielsen, 1926-2010.

[bpar73]

2:34 where Leslie Nielsen gives her a second slap is pretty priceless!

[ghostfanX2]

I just saw this movie tonight - (Zero Hour) haven't seen Airplane! In many years but it all came back to me. The book (Runway Zero-8) by Arthur Hailey is also good, though his pilot was just a guy who had flown in the war - no wife/girlfriend - stewerdess turned into the co-pilot.

I have often wondered if it is still a requirement that the pilot and co pilot aren't allowed to eat the same meal!

[TheEspiritin]

what a masterpiece!

[airmaus]

@TheEspiritin what a pisser!

[VentMultimedia]

Seeing the dead serious scenes played congruent to Airplane! just made the movie more hilarious. It's a perfect example of an unintentional comedy being re-imagined as an intentional comedy, something that's still being tried today with very little, if any, success.

[humbleradio]

@VentMultimedia Yup. Good call. John Landis also knew to use standard scoring music NOT comedy music for his masterpiece Animal House. Both Airplane and Animal House rewrote comedy filmmaking forever, and both are still on top.

[kief0120]

billy have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

[bakerco502]

Wait, so the planes he flew in the war(Zero Hour) were German 109's??

[nyc14gauge]

Oh shit, in Zero Hour, that's General Jack D. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove! It was those commies trying to sap his purity of essence that caused this mayhem!

[jimball009]

Nice work, thank you, I always new of the connection with Airport 79 or 80 but I've never seen this movie.

[yellginlaguay]

Bill Burr

[xsited1]

Wow! Zero Hour is just like Airplane!

[Rattrap007]

@xsited1 Actually they are one in the same so to speak. The Zucker Bros recorded Zero Hour late late one night and decided to turn it into a comedy. They bought the rights to it, rewrote the story into the movie Airplane. Then it became one of the all time comedy greats. And a lot of the jokes like that are fitted from Zero Hour

[petey8887]

Great job on this video! I can't believe how similar the movies are, and how few people know about the original. That was amazing.

[bennjr]

That was FANTASTIC! I knew these Movies were similar, but I didn't know that they were THAT similar, LOL!

"Airplane!" also spoofed: "Terror In The Sky" (a remake of sorts of "Zero Hour"), "Airport 1975" and "SST- Death Flight", that I know of.

I MUST try and get "Zero Hour" on DVD.

[berkeleyfish]

Awesome - had no idea about where Airplane came from until I read the article all about the 30 year anniversary in yesterday's NY Times. Great job, really illustrated the similarities. Thanks for this!

[rafalweb]

The genius of Airplane was that I didn't even know the connection between the two movies, and Airplane was still hilarious.

[IoEstasCedonta]

I was expecting you to cut to the cab driver at the end.

[scarycolin]

i read that airplane was based on terror in the sky? lol if there was already 2 very similar films did we need airplane to be released at all?!?!

[suir52]

@scarycolin Terror in The Sky was a remake of Zero Hour. In Arthur Hailey's original play and book Flight into Danger, the main character was named George Spencer, when Hailey wrote the screenplay for Zero Hour he changed the name to the slightly melodramatic Ted Stryker. In Terror in the Sky, they reverted to the George Spencer name as played by Doug McClure. Airplane! is a spoof of both movies.

[suir52]

@scarycolin I ran out of space! Airplane! also used actors who had played the pilot in previous airplane in jeopardy movies, Robert Stack (The High and The Mighty), Lloyd Bridges (Lost Flight) and Kenneth Tobey (Terror in the Sky) In the original story, the hero wasn't shell shocked or suffering from Post Traumatic Stress, as they call it now. He also didn't, as in Terror in The Sky, have his wife and child on board the plane.

[humbleradio]

@suir52 Yes, exactly. So many references and so many great actors who had an association with these films.

[mangodebango]

.. He's a menace to himself and everything else in the air... yes, birds too!

:D

[confinedspace2006]

2:16 is one of the funniest scenes ever

[yiftach18]

God bless you for posting this. Brilliant job, mate.

[chadfrey]

Once watched these movies side by side. Airplane! basically remade Zero Hour shot for shot....they just put jokes in and added a sense of humor. Now I can't watch ZH with a straight face.

[blancolirio]

Ain't that Col. "Jack D. Ripper" on the blower @ 6:10? (Dr. Strangelove)

[tvmonte]

Watched this after finding out Peter Graves died so it's nice to see his among clips shown first...especially when he says the line, "Have you ever seen a grown man naked?" LOL and R.I.P. Mr. Graves

[TJOPootertoot]

RIP, Peter Graves..

[craigp2008a]

I saw them the other night on TCM too and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had no idea it was patterned so much after this movie. Incredible and Hilarious.

[sommerTN]

I saw it last week on TCM too, right after watching Airplane! I was amazing to see how much of the dialogue was taken word for word from this old picture!

[maraypaz]

awesome job! thanks for this great video! makes me want to watch airplane again! is Zero hour also a comedy? or is it a drama?

[thneed]

thanks!! I just watched the two of them on TCM the other night and was assuming someone made this video!!

[8cantrell5]

lmao "he's a menace to himself and everything else in the air...yes, birds too" haha

[alexforever411]

I saw Airplane! tonight. Couldn't stop laughing.

"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."

[Teflon65]

Thanks for that. Didn't know "Airplane!" was a remake of sorts.

[Calnickel]

The producers of Airplane actually bought the rights to Zero Hour.

The original movie was 'Flight into danger'..

Thanks for the show!

[offrampt]

Brilliant ! Really well done! Thanks a lot.

[up0]

i enjoyed watching this. Just recently found out about Zero Hour and couldn't believe that it was basis of airplane! down to the line. awesome.

[chm97chm97]

Great job!

[pmcguireumc]

awesome editing job! Thanks so much!

[freakyafronaut]

uhm... it's a spoof...

[theeddielang]

you ever seen a grown man naked? Amazing comparison. I wanna go see Zero Hour now!

[littylovebug]

this is great, thank you.

[PhillipCreeper]

Zero Hour was more serious. It is too bad most of the viewers didn't get to see it first.

[dukeyflyswatter]

@PhillipCreeper

[dukeyflyswatter]

@PhillipCreeper

More serious? It was completely serious.but a good old school Hollywood drama. That's what made Airplane! so good,even if you didn't see the original it works because it was pattered after a well made model with a classic pattern.

[mastgrr]

@dukeyflyswatter The fact that the jet engines sound like propellers ought to tip people off! I didn't even think about that until I heard it mentioned on the DVD commentary!

[palehorse864]

I wish you would have posted the Zero Hour scene though where they mention the fish and it takes the pilot about half a minute to realize he had the fish too. I love both films, but that one bit of Zero Hour was as funny as almost any single joke in Airplane.

[mattcl23]

awesome. Airplane is my favorite movie and I just heard about this Zero Hour. Great job man!

[Jarudn]

I meant ...where we know what comes next.

[Jarudn]

Thanks for putting this together, great job! There's also the scene in Zero Hour in which a hard drinking passenger offers the prissy older woman seated next to him a drink and she replies "Certainly Not" and the corresponding scene in Airplane where we no what comes next!

[nevitsnidur]

I only caught the end of zero hour on TMC today, but they don't seem at all concerned about getting out of the plane. After all, it is still filled with aviation fuel which is probably leaking all over the runway. In the middle of being congratulated on how great they did I could just see it now: Kaboom!

[TheMhayc]

Thanls for sharing this; I didn't realize how closely "Airplane!" follows the plot of "Zero Hour!" Right down to Sterling Hayden's and Lloyd Bridges's line "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking." Both movies also feature athletes in the role of co-pilot: Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch in "Zero Hour!," Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in "Airplane!"

[Knightmessenger]

They wanted an athlete for the copilot role in Airplane specifically as a reference to Elroy Hirsch. It was mentioned somewhere on the Don't Call Me Shirley dvd.

[wmbrown6]

The other thing: Both films were put out by Paramount.

[Jonnybrams]

Of course. Airplane! is a parody of Zero Hour!

[CitizenSmithee]

not sure if you had a different username then, but i know i saw this on youtube more than 3 months ago.

that should answer why there are so few views, etc. for this vid.

anyway, whether you put this together yourself or not thanks for posting.

i always laugh my balls off.

[23456applejuicebum]

Good job on this! There are more similarities, but you've touched on the major ones.

There is a better scene later on in Zero Hour with that crazy lady where 2 people each take a turn shaking her.

Ony 667 views (at this time)? I wish more people would find this clip on youtube. Once again, awesome job!

[heroicpose]

So basically AIRPLANE is the MST3 version of Zero Hour.

I can live with that.

[Yirmumahnet]

Awesome, simply AWESOME!

[TheAmericanInsurgent]

I was ready to do just such a video but you've beat me to it. Nice job!

[folcroft001]

More Zero Hour!, please!!!!