Three years after their initial blip on the cultural radar as co-writers of The Kentucky Fried Movie, boyhood friends Jim Abrahams and Jerry and David Zucker landed with a riotous bang -- writing, producing, and directing the zaniest comedy of the '70s, Airplane! Mixing absurd sketch-comedy, puns, wordplays, and cartoonish slapstick with relentless glee, the trio lampooned Hollywood’s penchant for formulaic schlock, using the airline-disaster movie as their framework. The story here is of a burned-out fighter pilot (Robert Hayes) who boards an airplane in hopes of reconciling with his lost love (Julie Haggerty), a flight attendant, and winds up having to overcome his anxiety and crash-land the suddenly stricken jet. The story, though, is secondary to the whirligig of goofball characters on the plane and on the ground. The unending barrage of quips, sight gags, and one-liners transcends the often self-aware dopiness of the humor, making Airplane! as much a brilliant exercise in post-structuralism as it is a gut-buster. Employing seasoned TV straight men such as Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, and Robert Stack to brilliant, self-parodying effect, the movie served up a buffet of deadpan catchphrases. When Hayes says to Nielsen, who portrays a doctor who happens to be aboard, "Surely you can’t be serious," Nielsen dryly responds: "Yes, I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley." And so was born a new Leslie Nielsen, vaulting from ‘70s TV guest star to Hollywood’s go-to buffoon in a single line reading. For the lion's share of films out there, a single viewing will more than suffice -- for Airplane! the notion is simply unthinkable.