In the year of our Lord, One thousand, Nine hundred, and Eighty, the world was presented with a marvelous gift: Airplane! A monster hit upon release, the film still resonates today, with a bit of a timeless quality. David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker wrote and directed Airplane! and I don’t think we’ve collectively as a society have ever thanked them enough for it. So, please take a moment, doff your hats (and if you’re not wearing one, put one on to doff anyway out of respect), and say thank you to those wonderful former residents of Milwaukee for bringing you, me, and all of humanity the film Airplane! Thank you.
Oh, and give some lip service to Arthur Hailey who wrote Zero Hour!, which is what Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker parodied in the first place. (I’ll wait as you do so, but not too long; I’ve got a post to write here and we’ve been thanking more people than I had intended when I first started writing this.)
Now, you might be saying, this is all well and good, but I came here as a huge Airplane II: The Sequel fan! What’s all this gibberish about some other Airplane! movie?! Yes, I understand your frustration since I do tend to go on a bit. So, without any further adieu, because I don’t know that that means, let us dive into the world of Airplane II: The Sequel!
The Sequel: Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
Original Movie: Airplane! (1980)
Key Cast/Production Staff Returning from 1st Installment:
| Robert Hays | Ted Striker |
| Julie Haggerty | Elaine Dickinson |
| Peter Graves | Captain Oveur |
| Lloyd Bridges | Steve McCroskey |
| Steven Stucker | Johnny |
| David Leisure | Religious Zealot |
| Al White | First Jive Dude/Witness |
| Lee Bryant | Mrs. Hammen |
| Howard W. Koch | Producer |
| Joe Biroc | Director of Photography |
To Start With:
“Ted, I have the strangest feeling we’ve been through this exact same thing before.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I know! Yes, I know, already! There isn’t anyone who is stampeding past Airplane! to gleefully watch Airplane II: The Sequel. I get it. I do. But the whole center of the Tootsie Pop sucker of my point of my raison d’être for this post, aside from using French, is that I ask you to consider that Airplane II: The Sequel maybe perhaps just might not be as bad as you think it is. That’s it. No, truly. That is my agenda here. Oh, and that you acknowledge the awesome might of William Shatner as being the greatest actor in the history of any medium. There, that shouldn’t be so hard now, right?
Anyways, with Airplane! being such a hit, Paramount was eager to capitalize. They wanted a sequel and they wanted it yesterday. I think Jeffrey Katzenberg was busy okaying the poster before the first screening let out. So, Paramount offered the world to Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker (Henceforth known as ZAZ in this post because I tire easily while typing. Probably not as easily as you tire of reading this, but I digress.)
All the money on earth would sound good to you or I or me, but not to ZAZ, who eventually passed on the idea. They thought they had run out of airplane jokes, saying everything they wanted to in the first movie. They decided to make a television show instead. That television show was called Police Squad!, a loving parody of M Squad and other cop TV shows. (At this point, I must point out something. Oh, but I must. ZAZ gave the excuse that they didn’t have any more plane jokes for a 70-minute sequel, but somehow, they were going to find it easier to write an entire television season, which was about 20+ episodes at the time, of weekly 25-minute cop show parodies?! Hmmm…)
Ultimately Police Squad! failed because people had to watch the show. The distracted masses, who could stumble through the average thrilling Joanie Loves Chachi episode, wouldn’t miss much if they made a sandwich or got up to get a beer across town. However, Police Squad! demanded attention from a mass viewing public that didn’t have it, so it was cancelled with only six episodes being completed. I wonder whatever became of Leslie Nielsen playing Sgt. Frank Drebin, Detective Lieutenant in Police Squad, a special division of the police department. Eh, probably nothing. Never mind.
But what about Airplane II: The Sequel, I can hear you screaming. Well, Paramount decided to go ahead with it. Having run out of American choices, Paramount hired Canadian Ken Finkleman to write and direct. The studio brass figured that Finkleman would be too polite to turn them down and would gladly put down his hockey sticks and back bacon just long enough to write and direct, eh? Well, they were right! He brought on writers Mike Reiss and Al Jean, who helped to polish and provide additional gags, and Paramount gave Finkleman essentially double the budget of the first movie to bring back a winner.
Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves came back, but Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen did not. Nielsen obviously had Police Squad! going on, but Stack demurred, saying that his schedule was far too booked to allow time for filming. Stack lied of course, and could be found during production just strolling around in the background, whistling a charming tune, saying things like “Oh, you mean you’re filming this now? Oh, I see! Yeah, I was totally not busy, but oh well!” before giving them the finger and laughing uproariously as he left the soundstage.
Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty reprised their roles as well, and they once again were highlights throughout. Hays, in fact, worked his eyebrow-raising camera taking expressions so hard, that he was hospitalized for three weeks after filming due to the facial strain. The rest of the cast was the best made-for-TV cast list one could ever hope for! Kent McCord, Chuck Connors, Chad Everett, Sonny Bono, Raymond Burr, Rip Torn, John Dehner, John Vernon, John Larch, and even some fellows that weren’t named John, if you can believe it. Several doctorates have been presented to those that have calculated the sheer volume of television hours this cast has produced over the past century and beyond.
By the way, for those of you playing along at home, did you know that John Vernon and John Larch also acted together in 1971’s Dirty Harry as the Mayor and the Police Chief? Did you know that another Dirty Harry series alum, Michael Currie, who played Donnelly in Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool respectively is also in Airplane II: The Sequel? Rip Torn would later be in City Heat, with Clint Eastwood. Come to think of it, John Vernon was also in The Outlaw Josey Wales and John Larch was also in Play Misty For Me both also with…Clint Eastwood. Now, did you also know that out of all the major stars who weren’t in Airplane II: The Sequel, Clint Eastwood was one of them? Coincidence? Are you still reading this?
I will say this, at least Airplane II: The Sequel upped the ante to go into space rather than bother with rehashing a different airplane crisis. This was a step that even the Airport series didn’t dare try, since George Kennedy wouldn’t have fit in the standard astronaut costumes at Universal and seeing Gloria Swanson or Myrna Loy floating in zero gravity would have been rather unbecoming.
So with half the original Airplane! cast and twice the original Airplane! budget, how did Airplane II: The Sequel fare? Well, it certainly has been raked over the coals in the intervening years, but is it truly bad? Hmmm…well…let’s take a look, shall we?
Anything Done Better than the Original?
Buck Murdock: “We’d better get to the tower, Lieutenant.“
Lt. Pervis: “We have no tower, sir.“
Buck Murdock: “No tower?“
Lt. Pervis: “Just a bridge, sir.“
Buck Murdock: “Why the hell aren’t I notified about these things?“
Let’s just start off with the greatest reason in the world to see this movie: William Shatner. Yes, William Shatner. I say this without sarcasm, without irony. William Shatner as Buck Murdock is simply the best thing in the movie. Tonally, he would have been wrong for the first Airplane! But here? Here he saves the whole damn film. There is such an incredible breath of fresh air once he makes his appearance. Granted, he doesn’t show up until the last act of the film, but he was worth the wait. Bill knows exactly what he’s playing, he’s clearly having fun, and he is hilarious, which is something that I cannot say for every performer here. God bless you, Sir William Shatner. Bless you, sir.
Outside of The Glorious Mr. Shatner, Robert Hays is certainly doing all the heavy lifting throughout the sequel. With all the guest stars and whatnot flying around, making this basically a clunky Love Boat: Space Voyage in all but name, you’d think Hays could just phone it in a bit. But oddly enough, he can’t, because the film isn’t allowing for it, so he doesn’t, and we’re grateful. Robert Hays earned his paycheck here which is more than I can say for Chuck Connors or Chad Everett.
Anything as Good as the Original?
Steve McCroskey: “Jacobs, I want to know absolutely everything that’s happened up till now.”
Johnny Jacobs: “Well, let’s see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di’s clothes. I couldn’t believe it. He took her best summer dress, put it on and went to town.”
Julie Hagerty is back and essentially plays Elaine exactly the same as before, no more, no less and frankly, I’m completely okay with that. I think that Hagerty is rather good throughout and is rather cute to boot! Right around this time, she was also in Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, which isn’t as bad as people say. No, really, it isn’t. Hagerty is just fine. That being said, Mia Farrow can’t act out of a paper bag as per usual, but Hagerty is a delight in that one.
Ah, the late, great Steven Stucker. If only there were some way to get him to the moon in this one, because he could have been in more of the movie. That being said, he does lend his presence to the courtroom flashback, which is a joy to be sure. His off-kilter remarks seem a bit subdued here in comparison to the first movie, but that could just be the lack of having ZAZ around or he just had a head cold. But it is great seeing him back and messing with Lloyd Bridges.
Anything Not-So-Good as the Original?
Prosecutor: “Dr. Stone, would you give the court your impression of Mr. Striker?”
Dr. Stone: “I’m sorry, I don’t do impressions. My training is in psychiatry.”
Speaking of Lloyd Bridges, he needs an actor of Robert Stack’s skill and gravitas to play off of when playing Steve McCroskey. But Stack is gone and Bridges is left to basically replay the same lines as before. What is really frustrating is that even when Bridges has normally solid character actors like Rip Torn, John Dehner, Richard Jaeckel, and Chuck Connors with him, the scenes are just flat in comparison. Granted, they are brief and in Connors’ case, Bridges doesn’t even have dialogue with him, but thank goodness Bridges was later able to redeem himself in the Hot Shots! saga because he’s sleepwalking here.
Speaking of Chuck Connors, he is completely wasted in this film. He gets one gag where he gets to spit and after that, he isn’t given enough to do. Same goes for Chad Everett, and that is a theme throughout this movie: there are too many famous faces, and they don’t get enough to do. Kent McCord, Rip Torn, John Dehner, John Vernon, Richard Jaeckel and even Sonny Bono are all solid but there is just not enough for them. Thankfully that attitude stops when Shatner shows up because he is given a wide berth to gleefully chew scenery with aplomb and without interference.
Anything Far Worse than the Original?
“A bobby pin? What the hell’s a man doing with a bobby pin? Huh.”
Even though the budget was doubled, this movie looks just like a made for TV version of a movie. Yes, the cast does that a bit, but it isn’t like the cast of the first Airplane! was full of then A-listers. They were steady working character actors and sometime leading men on TV. Mostly the level of the cast is the same here, but the movie looks cheap in comparison. My guess is that the special effects, such as they are, were the reason for the larger budget. I can guess there wasn’t a lot of stock footage of the space shuttle heading towards the sun and, no matter how much one loves Adam-12, there is no way in hell that Kent McCord is pulling down 7 figures on this movie.
The sexual humor in Airplane! was there, I don’t deny it. But it certainly gets amped up for the sequel. Yes, the autopilot was blown…up in the first movie, but here? There is flat out nymphomaniac joke that follows the rule of 3 and even that ends on a bestiality sight gag. And for a PG movie, you wouldn’t believe the amount of naked breasts flying around. I think I counted no less than 8 of them. While I can certainly appreciate beautiful women flaunting their exposed boobs for hours if not days on end, the camera tends to linger on them here a mite too long. It’s like “Yes, I get it. They are topless. Wonderful. Can we move along now? Where’s Peter Graves?” If it didn’t feel like an intrusion into the made-for-TV-movie atmosphere, I might be a bit more accepting, but here it feels like we’re seeing major league gazongas on Fantasy Island and it just feels wrong, even if Herve Villechaize is here.
Follow-up installments?
“That’s just what they’ll be expecting us to do.”
Given the obvious expected success of Airplane II: The Sequel, Airplane III was a certainty. Paramount, delirious from pre-counting the cash that they were sure was going to be coming hand over fist from the box office receipts, even promised that third entry after the end credits of Airplane II. However, to quote my grandmother, wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which one piles up first. Yes folks, she was certainly a poet to be sure. But she was also wise because if wishes were dishes, there wouldn’t be enough Dawn to scrub them all.
In other words, the movie didn’t do as well as hoped, so they scrubbed a third Airplane! and instead made Flashdance, which was a major financial success despite not being all that funny and more tragically, didn’t star William Shatner in any capacity. Studio executives only see trees, never forests.
To date, there hasn’t been an Airplane III, which means that the chances for an Airplane IV grow slimmer each day. I haven’t ruled it out completely, but there’s always a chance.
And Finally:
“We’re not in the past anymore, Elaine. This…is the FUTURE.”
All right, I’m just going to say it: Airplane II: The Sequel is not as bad as you’ve been led to believe. It is a pleasant way to whittle away some time on a lovely weekend afternoon. Yes, ZAZ have gone on record on saying that none of them have ever watched it and that’s fine. Airplane II: The Sequel isn’t from ZAZ, but it is enough in the ZAZ vein that you won’t be outraged or angered when seeing it. When compared to the other ZAZ wannabes that came out in the wake of The Naked Gun franchise, Airplane II: The Sequel has aged like a fine wine indeed.
Plus, I know I might have mentioned it once or twice in passing, but William Shatner is in this, and he shines like the star he is. He is radiant, he is a gift, and all we can do is reflect in his glory, and we are thankful. Thank you, Airplane II: The Sequel.
“I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.”
A Full Rich Blather 