Disaster movies had been one of the most successful Hollywood genres of the seventies, with such successes as "The Towering Inferno", "Avalanche", and "Earthquake"- and the whole series of Airport movies. By the end of the decade, these catastrophe films were running thin on ideas, and the relentless parodying provided by "Airplane!" not only tolled their death-knell but gave rise to a new style of knock-about spoof movie. "Airplane!"'s plot was based on Arthur Hailey's screenplay for the fifties B-movie "Zero Hour". The AZZ team-Abrahams, Zucher and Zucher- held on to the B-movie tension (with the help of such B-movie stars as Bridges, Stack and Nielsen)-and added a laugh a second. They'd been practising the laughs in "The Kentucky Fried Movie", and the hilarity now came tumbling out of the bucket. 'Parody may be the lowest form of humour', observed Variety on Airplane!'s release, 'but few comedies in ages have rocked the laugh-metre this hard.'

Very rarely does a film come out that is as truly brilliant as Airplane. It has everything that a comedy should have. The cast is fantastic, the jokes hilarious and almost constant.

One of the best things about Airplane that I have found is that the jokes are not all obvious, and because of this it has far more re-watchability than most comedies, as every time you watch it you pick up on more of the subtler jokes and background sight gags.

It is a film that manages to cater for almost all tastes in humour, from dry wit to slapstick via spoofery and dark humour. If you haven't seen this film you MUST watch it. This is one of those few films that everybody can enjoy. It's fairly rare to find a comedy the whole family can enjoy, most are either unsuitable for children or too childish for adults, but Airplane manages to find that balance where all ages can enjoy it.

In conclusion, if you have yet to see this film, watch it. If you have seen it, watch it again.