Side-by-side comparison: Zero Hour! (1957) Vs Airplane! (1980)

And this: https://moviechat.org/tt0051221/Zero-Hour/58c722ac5ec57f0478ec1070/an-essay-on-Zero-Hour-1957

If I ran a TV station, I'd play those two movies back to back every year!

Why is it that everyone remembers "Zero Hour!", but no one remembers "Airport"?

https://moviechat.org/tt0065377/Airport

There were several 'Airport' movies, one of which has a Concorde in it!

(https://moviechat.org/tt0078740/The-Concorde-Airport-79)

Airplane! certainly spoofs 'Zero Hour!', but remember that Airplane! ALSO spoofs the Airport movies as well as other 1960s and 1970s 'disaster movies'.

It's not just ONE source, you know.

It also makes fun of things that modern audiences probably don't know, remember or understand, like those coffee commercials that always had the "Funny.. he never drinks a second cup at home", hinting that the coffee at home is TERRIBLE, but the other coffee is delicious, so of course he takes another cup in that case.

The hilarious part comes when she thinks 'funny, he never vomits at home'.

This probably wooshes over modern audiences, but it can't be helped.

A lot of the funny stuff also has a deeper meaning that makes it even funnier, when you realize what it's spoofing, like the woman that 'knows how to speak Jive', is Barbara Billingsley, the mother in 'Leave it to Beaver'. I haven't watched that show, but I think there's probably some kind of contrast between her being 'proper' and speaking good english in the show, and then suddenly she's the master of 'Jive'.

This kind of little details are kind of hard for modern audiences to grasp, so a lot of the humor just wooshes by. It's interesting to me, that none of the modern 'youtube movie reactors/commenters' have mentioned how funny it is that a JET plane always sounds like a PROPELLER plane in this movie (and those that know the reason, probably find this whole thing even funnier).

So there were LOTS of things this movie spoofs and ridicules, but many are just not that known, so everyone always talks about that Zero Hour, as if it's the only thing they're making fun of.

I was going to mention how interestingly bold, brave and perhaps even suicidal this movie is with how far it goes and how 'taboo' jokes it uses, but maybe in the modern times, better not delve into that.