Airplane! is an American comedy film, first released on 27 June 1980, produced, directed, and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. Airplane! starred Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lorna Patterson.Airplane! is a spoof of the disaster movie genre. It is unique among film parodies in that Airplane! (originally designed for a 20-minute sketch) is a virtual remake of the 1957 Canadian airplane disaster movie Zero Hour! The earlier film featured Dana Andrews in the role of Lt. Striker, for instance, and Airplane! includes numerous jokes and gags that derive directly from the 1957 film. The plot device of the food poisoning incident, which figures prominently in the story line of Airplane!, also came from Zero Hour!
