Where Does The Time Go? Airplane!-The Movie Turns 40!!

[+ E.T.Bass]

I remember my Mom and her bridge club being so taken by the gay character, how funny he was.

I didn't really get it completely, this was a stereotype of the harmless, funny, queen. They loved it. I was too young to know. When HIV came, my Mom mentioned this character from the movie. She didn't know much beyond TV and movies.

[+ poolboy48220]

I remember my Mom and her bridge club being so taken by the gay character, how funny he was.

I didn't really get it completely, this was a stereotype of the harmless, funny, queen. They loved it. I was too young to know. When HIV came, my Mom mentioned this character from the movie. She didn't know much beyond TV and movies.

Maybe it's too early and not enough coffee, but I don't remember a gay character in "Airplane!". Do you mean Johnny, the funny guy in the control tower?

[AceHardware]

Maybe it's too early and not enough coffee, but I don't remember a gay character in "Airplane!". Do you mean Johnny, the funny guy in the control tower?

Yeah, I just thought Johnny was eccentric and a prankster, in a movie full of eccentric pranksters. Maybe his voice was on the high side, denoting gay. Otherwise, I never thought of him that way.

[jeezifonly]

Yeah, I just thought Johnny was eccentric and a prankster, in a movie full of eccentric pranksters. Maybe his voice was on the high side, denoting gay. Otherwise, I never thought of him that way.

He’s really just a late 70’s version of “the Nance” - a stock male character from 19-20th Century plays and Vaudeville meant to be a comic, intelligent, non-threatening version of the Greek Chorus to comment on ensuing action. Stephen Stucker never had the success of his forebears like Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn, Paul Lynde and Billy DeWolfe. He was perfect in Airplane.

[+ E.T.Bass]

Maybe it's too early and not enough coffee, but I don't remember a gay character in "Airplane!". Do you mean Johnny, the funny guy in the control tower?

Yes. Hollywood inserted him as the silly, camp, funny, ridiculous, manic, (Oh, I can make a hat, a broach, a pterodactyl...) gay character because that was Hollywood.

 

But yeah, I support everyone's right to claim no proof he was gay.

.

 

Edited August 14, 2020 by E.T.Bass

[+ oldNbusted]

There could be a reasonable argument that some African-American patterns of speech should be considered as a dialect version of English rather than substandard or stereotyping, but we're not there yet.

 

I believe linguists are there already.

 

African-American Vernacular English

[+ oldNbusted]

One of the subtleties that always brings a smile to me is the sound every time they show the aircraft flying. It’s the sound of a propeller aircraft!

 

 

Turns out there is a backstory on that...

 

D. Zucker:

The most amazing thing is the way Eisner handled the situation. We had this meeting with him on Friday where we really put our foot down, and we explained why it was correct to have this thing on a prop plane and in black and white.” And he listened very politely, and when we were done, he said, “Well, you’ve stated your case very well. In fact, you may be right, and you may go on to make this movie in black and white and on a prop plane, and it may be very successful. But it won’t be at this studio.” That’s what he said. And so there’s this silence, and then I think he broke it. He said, “Why don’t you guys think it over, and then we’ll talk again on Monday.” He was so good at handling us. Of course, on Monday, we said, “Okay, we’re fine.”

 

Surely you can’t be serious: An oral history of Airplane!