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The Jewish team behind the classic comedy ‘Airplane!’ explains how it got off the ground
(JTA) — Growing up in Milwaukee in the 1950s, brothers David and Jerry Zucker entertained themselves by performing skits for their family during Hanukkah parties. In a recent conversation, David downplayed the skits’ significance, noting that they were “really just pre-9-year-old stuff,” but the younger Jerry had fonder memories of their performances.
“I’m not sure that the skits we were performing in our living room had a lot to do with Hanukkah — it was just wanting to get up in front of an audience,” said Jerry. “It was great because that’s the last time we didn’t need to be funny, and everybody laughed.”
Over 60 years later, the Zucker brothers, along with their friend Jim Abrahams, have entertained a much larger audience than just their relatives. Millions worldwide have embraced their anything-for-a-laugh approach to spoofing movie genres and cliches, exemplified in 1980’s “Airplane!,” a side-splitting lampoon of the disaster movies that Hollywood had churned out in the prior decade, such as “The Towering Inferno” and “Airport.”
“Airplane!” was not only a critical success, and an influence on legions of comedians including David Letterman and “Weird Al” Yankovic, but a commercial one: Paramount Pictures, which gambled on three first-time directors to the tune of $3.5 million, netted hundreds of millions of dollars from the film’s worldwide release. In 2010, “Airplane!” was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, along with “All the President’s Men” and “The Empire Strikes Back.”
The unusual, and far-from-inevitable, path they took towards a place in cinematic legend is explored in depth in their oral history “Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of ‘Airplane!,’” published in October.
It explores their career arc in depth, through their recollections and those of their friends and professional colleagues, focusing on “Airplane!”’s turbulent journey from idea to reality. After college, David, Jim and Jerry had founded Kentucky Fried Theater, a sketch comedy group in Madison, Wisconsin, that often mocked commercials they’d discovered by recording late-night movies. One night, they stumbled on “Zero Hour!”, a 1957 melodrama in which the pilots of a passenger jet fall ill from food poisoning, leaving the fate of everyone onboard in the hands of a Canadian Air Force veteran who hadn’t flown since World War II.
The team known as “ZAZ” describe how they adapted a script from a 1950s B-movie to create a joke-filled lampoon of the disaster movie genre. (St. Martin’s Press)
That find inspired “Airplane!”, a parody that used the plot elements of “Zero Hour!” (and even some dialogue, including the immortal sentence, “We need to find someone back there who not only can fly this plane, but who didn’t have fish for dinner.”) while playing its premise for laughs, and stuffing the film with puns and visual gags. Their approach was novel — employing stolid actors, such as Peter Graves, Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen, not known for their comedic chops, to deadpan outrageous dialogue — and proved an obstacle in getting the studios to understand it.
That approach to humor was a legacy from the Zuckers’ father, Burton, a commercial real estate owner and developer, and an active member of many Jewish organizations in Milwaukee, including the Wisconsin Society for Jewish Learning, the U.W. Hillel Foundation in Madison, and the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. David recalled that his dad “didn’t tell jokes, but he would say funny, dry, humorous things with a straight face,” which David considered to be the antecedent to Nielsen adopting that same approach in portraying Dr. Rumack in the film. In the book, Abrahams praises Nielsen for perfecting “the art of pretending he had no clue he was in a comedy.” Playing Rumack revived Nielsen’s career, and the role featured his often-repeated response to the quote incorporated in the book’s title, “Surely you can’t be serious”: “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.”
While David, Jerry and Abrahams sought to have their jokes and humor appeal to a wide audience, they also included throwaway references for their own amusement, including ones inspired by their Jewish upbringing. For instance, when a passenger asks a flight attendant for some light reading, she is offered a leaflet, “Famous Jewish Sports Legends.” That was one of Abrahams’ favorite jokes in the film.
“Here we were three Jewish guys who were sub-mediocre athletes on our best days, making fun of Jews being poor athletes,” he recalls in the book.
In one of the film’s countless sight gags, Air Israel’s aircraft is adorned with a kippah, tallit, payes and a robust beard. Such shoutouts to their heritage also appear in some of their other films: 1977’s “Kentucky Fried Movie,” a sketch film that they wrote, featured an ad for Sanhedrin, a headache remedy that took its name from the Talmudic-era rabbinic court, as well as the use of a spirited rendition of “Heiveinu Shalom Aleichem” in two scenes, one a torrid sex scene, and the other a satire of Kung Fu movies. In their 1984 espionage spoof “Top Secret!”, which they wrote and directed, an imprisoned scientist played by Val Kilmer is stunned when his captors demand he complete a deadly weapon by “Sunday.”
“Sunday?” responds the Nordic-looking Kilmer. “But that’s Simchas Torah!”
The trio was also working in a tradition of show business satire whose best-known practitioners were Jewish. Mel Brooks, who wrote parodies of classic Hollywood movies for Sid Caesar’s shows, hit box office gold in the 1970s with films sending up the cliches of the Hollywood Western, horror films and Hitchcock movies. Mad Magazine, whose masthead was predominantly Jewish, was famous for its movie parodies. In his 1966 film “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?”, Woody Allen took an actual Japanese spy movie and redubbed it in English, turning it into a spoof about the search for the world’s best chicken salad recipe.
Columbia University professor Jeremy Dauber, in a biography of Brooks, calls such parodies “nothing less than the essential statement of American Jewish tension between them and us, culturally speaking; between affection for the mainstream and alienation from it.”
Does the “Airplane!” crew think there is something particularly Jewish about their brand of humor? “I would say there is, in the sense that Jews have always had a sense of humor,” said Jerry Zucker. “They’ve had to have a sense of humor because there was such a long history of persecution.”
Abrahams said he was less certain, commenting that while “the heart of our humor is that you’re better off not taking a lot of things seriously, I don’t think that’s a particularly unique Jewish point-of-view.” All three recalled using humor to get through sometimes long family Passover seders. When Abrahams shared that he’d “always related most to the simple child [of the Haggadah], seeing things through his eyes,” Jerry quipped, “Fortunately for Jim, David and I had wisdom, so, you know, things worked out.”
Today, the trio have different connections to their religion. David Zucker, who’s traveled to Israel, is the most observant, attending Shabbat Zoom services faithfully and studying Torah “as taught by Dennis Prager,” the conservative talk show host who started off as a Jewish educator. David’s general love of history led him to record his grandmother Sarah’s memories of her life in the small village of Hinkovitz in what is now Slovakia, which yielded his previous book, “Before the Invention of Smiling: The Incredible Journey of the Zucker Family from Horse & Buggy to Indoor Plumbing.”
Jerry, after joking that he’d joined a devil worship cult, shared that he’s proud of his heritage, and considers himself “very culturally Jewish,” but not religiously observant. Abrahams celebrates Passover and fasts on Yom Kippur. He credits the Judaism his parents practiced with teaching him to count his blessings and to feel responsible for giving something back to the world.
The three discounted any attempt to imbue the enduring popularity of “Airplane!” with any deeper meaning. David and Abrahams agreed with Jerry’s observation in the book that, “We all take ourselves too seriously.” David commented that, “I wouldn’t go for any deep social meaning other than we saw these movies, they were really serious, and we could make jokes.”
Abrahams concurred. “Life is much easier,” he said, “if you don’t take seriously all the stuff we do take seriously.”
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Scarlett Johansson Criticizes AI Video of Her Condemning Kanye West’s Antisemitism
Scarlett Johansson attends The American Museum of Natural History’s 2024 Museum Gala at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, December 5, 2024. Photo: Anthony Behar/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Actress Scarlett Johansson is protesting an unauthorized, AI-generated video that circulated on social media on Tuesday showing her and other Jewish celebrities opposing Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, for his recent antisemitic behavior.
The video begins with an AI version of Johansson, 40, wearing a white t-shirt that features on the front a hand with its middle finger extended. In the center of the hand is a Star of David and “Kanye” is written underneath the hand.
Other Jewish celebrities are featured in the AI-generated video wearing the same exact shirt, including David Schwimmer, Ben Stiller, Mark Zuckerberg, Steven Spielberg, Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, Drake, Jack Black, Mila Kunis, and Lenny Kravitz. The Hebrew song “Hava Nagila” plays throughout the video. It concludes with an AI version of Adam Sandler flipping his finger at the camera, followed by the words “Enough is Enough” and “Join the Fight Against Antisemitism.” Others featured in the clip include Jake Gyllenhaal, Woody Allen, Adam Levine, Lisa Kudrow, and Natalie Portman.
In response to the video, Johansson condemned what she called “the misuse of AI, no matter what its messaging” in a statement to People magazine. The “Black Widow” star also called on US lawmakers to pass legislation that would limit the use of AI.
“It has been brought to my attention by family members and friends, that an AI-generated video featuring my likeness, in response to an antisemitic view, has been circulating online and gaining traction,” she told the magazine. “I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind. But I also firmly believe that the potential for hate speech multiplied by AI is a far greater threat than any one person who takes accountability for it. We must call out the misuse of AI, no matter its messaging, or we risk losing a hold on reality.”
In November 2023, Johansson threatened legal action against a company that used an AI image similar to her own, without her permission, for an advertisement. In May 2024, she accused OpenAI’s ChatGPT system, called Sky, of using a voice “eerily similar” to her own without her permission. The “Astroid City” star told People magazine in her statement that she has been “a very public victim” of AI, “but the truth is that the threat of AI affects each and every one of us.”
“There is a 1,000-foot wave coming regarding AI that several progressive countries, not including the United States, have responded to in a responsible manner. It is terrifying that the US government is paralyzed when it comes to passing legislation that protects all of its citizens against the imminent dangers of AI,” she noted. The actress said in conclusion: “I urge the US government to make the passing of legislation limiting AI use a top priority; it is a bipartisan issue that enormously affects the immediate future of humanity at large.”
Johansson did not mention Ye’s name in her statement. She also included a blanket remark about his recent “antisemitic view,” without elaborating about how the rapper went on an antisemitic rant on X on Friday and then proceeded to sell a swastika t-shirt on his website Yeezy.com, following a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday night that directed viewers to his website to shop the item.
“Shameful. Tragic. Pathetic,” said David Draiman, the lead singer of Disturbed, about Johansson’s response to the video. “Beyond disappointing, ‘AI abuse’ is the concern, not the explosion of #Jew hatred, smh.”
Australian actress Isla Fisher, who is also depicted in the AI-generated video, urged people on Tuesday to unfollow Ye on social media for selling a swastika t-shirt. She posted on her Instagram Story: “Hey friends, can you please unfollow Kanye? Did you know this is the only thing for sale on his website after placing a Super Bowl commercial? F–k this monster forever. No Tolerance for this s–t.” Schwimmer has also responded to Ye’s recent antisemitic behavior and insisted that the rapper should be banned from all social media.
Ye has since deactivated his account on X. He has also been dropped by his talent agent, and Shopify, the e-commerce platform that the Yeezy website uses to sell items, shut down Yeezy.com as of Tuesday morning.
The AI-generated video went viral on social media the same day that a Jewish woman filed a lawsuit against Ye in Los Angeles court, according to Billboard magazine. She claimed that when she worked for the rapper, he subjected her to “antisemitic vitriol,” which included text messages that said, “Hail Hitler.”
“Ye carried out a calculated campaign to threaten and psychologically torment Jewish people around him, specifically plaintiff,” her lawyers said, as reported by Billboard. “There can be little doubt that Ye treats those around him, especially Jewish people and women, much worse than just a bully. He is a self-proclaimed ‘Nazi.’”
The post Scarlett Johansson Criticizes AI Video of Her Condemning Kanye West’s Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Super Bowl Protester Breaks Silence About Disrupting Kendrick Lamar’s Halftime Show With ‘Sudan, Gaza’ Flag
A protester holding a flag with the words “Gaza” and “Sudan” as rapper Kendrick Lamar performed during the Super Bowl halftime show at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Feb. 9, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
The dancer who unfurled a combined Sudanese and Palestinian flag during Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show performance on Sunday night said he felt obligated to draw attention to the “suffering” of those in the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip and the civil war in Sudan.
“I felt like I didn’t have a choice,” Muslim protester Zül-Qarnain Nantambu, 41, told Al Jazeera. “When I saw what my position was, it was a great stage … I had an opportunity on a grand scale to bring awareness or to speak out against wrong of our Muslim brothers and sisters. I didn’t want to face my creator with a sign of weak faith when I knew I had an opportunity to show I didn’t have weak faith.”
“They are oppressed, and suffering, and treated with injustice, and it’s on a wide scale,” he added. “I wanted to show the solidarity for those afflicted by this, that they’re being remembered here in America … I thought that I could contribute to taking it to the next level with this activism and protest and enlightenment to make other people aware of what’s going on in other parts of the world.”
Nantambu was asked if he is worried about the repercussions of his actions and how it might affect his ability to find work in the future. The dancer, who dubs himself a “freedom fighter,” replied, “I trust in God. I fear God more than I fear man or the loss of wealth. I fear losing the pleasure of Allah.”
The Muslim dancer was part of a 400-member dance team that performed alongside Lamar at Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. The show included cameos by Samuel L. Jackson, SZA, Serena Williams, and DJ Mustard.
Toward the end of Lamar’s performance, Nantambu climbed on top of a car used as a prop in the performance and raised a combined Sudanese-Palestinian flag. On the white sections of the flag, he had written “Sudan” with a heart drawn next to it and “Gaza” alongside an image of a solidarity fist. While still displaying the flag, Nantambu jumped off the car and continued to wave it while standing on the ground near other dancers, before security personnel tackled and escorted him out of the stadium. The New Orleans Police Department said no arrest or summons were issued, but the National Football League issued Nantambu a lifetime ban to all NFL stadiums and events.
The NFL added the Nantambu concealed the combined Sudanese-Palestinian flag and unveiled it during Lamar’s performance without prior knowledge by the show’s production team.
Nantambu told CNN he spent two weeks, eight hours a day, practicing with the other dancers to prepare for the Super Bowl halftime show. He did not tell anyone about his plan to unveil the flag during Lamar’s performance.
The post Super Bowl Protester Breaks Silence About Disrupting Kendrick Lamar’s Halftime Show With ‘Sudan, Gaza’ Flag first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australian Nurses Threaten to Kill Israeli Patients, Leading Jews to Question Safety at Country’s Hospitals
Car in New South Wales, Australia graffitied with antisemitic message. Photo: Screenshot
An Australian hospital is reviewing patient records after two nurses were caught on video vowing to kill Israeli patients, prompting swift action from authorities. One of the nurses has since expressed remorse through a family member and is suffering “extreme panic attacks” in the wake of the scandal, according to her uncle.
The incident at Bankstown Hospital in Sydney unfolded after a video surfaced online showing Ahmad Nadir and fellow nurse Sarah Abu Lebdeh — both of whom posed as doctors — making inflammatory statements during a night shift discussion with Israeli social media personality Max Veifer. The footage, which circulated widely, featured Lebdeh stating she would refuse to treat an Israeli patient and would instead kill them, while Nadir used a throat-slitting gesture when he confessed to having already killed many.
“It’s Palestine’s country, not your country, you piece of s—t,” Lebdeh told Veifer.
“One day your time will come, and you will die the most disgusting death,” she added in a sentence riddled with obscenities.
Veifer began asking the two how they would respond if an Israeli seeking treatment landed in their hospital, and Lebdeh, preempting the question, interrupted: “I won’t treat them. I’ll kill them.”
Nadir interjected: “You have no idea how many [expletive] dog Israelis came to this hospital,” and using a throat-slitting gesture, continued, “I sent them to Jahannam,” which is the Islamic word for hell.
New South Wales (NSW) Health Minister Ryan Park confirmed Wednesday that both nurses had been suspended and would be permanently barred from employment within the state’s health system. “They are vile, disgusting, and deranged individuals,” Park said in a press conference.
An internal hospital review found no evidence of discriminatory treatment of Jewish patients, he said.
“To the Jewish community today, I say not only am I sorry, but I can assure you this: the care that you get in our hospitals will continue to be first class,” Park said.
Lebdeh has since expressed remorse through a family member and is experiencing severe anxiety following the release of the video, The Australian reported. Several members of Lebdeh’s family accosted a journalist from the newspaper, with one even grabbing his phone and demanding that footage of the exchange be deleted.
Her uncle, speaking outside her home, said she was suffering from extreme panic attacks. He added that “of course” she was sorry over the incident.
“She will come out and make a statement when she’s ready, but you can’t talk to her now because she’s having a panic attack, an anxiety attack. We might be calling the ambulance for her.”
Lebdeh obtained her diploma in nursing five years ago and began working at NSW Health in February 2021. Nadir, who immigrated from Afghanistan and became an Australian citizen four years ago, issued an apology. “To the Jewish community and anyone I’ve offended, I sincerely apologize,” he said.
The family members of Sarah Abu Lebdah – the Sydney-based Islamist extremist nurse who recorded herself threatening to kill Jews under her care (with the claim of having already done so) – assaulted a journalist from The Australian and stole his phone. pic.twitter.com/B5r7jRgBza
— Imtiaz Mahmood (@ImtiazMadmood) February 12, 2025
The incident came amid a rise in antisemitic incidents across Australia, with Jewish institutions targeted in arson attacks and businesses defaced. Law enforcement in Sydney and Melbourne, home to the majority of Australia’s Jewish population, is actively investigating hate crimes, including the recent discovery of a trailer containing explosives and a list of potential Jewish targets.
Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, described the footage as “utterly sickening.”
“Their unrepentant, gleeful hatred is the precursor to the violence we are experiencing in our country, and it must be stamped out,” he wrote on Instagram. “No doubt we will see the defense that Jews have brought this hatred upon themselves through Israel’s war in Gaza. That these people are merely traumatized from the images of the war. They have it backwards. It is this hatred and dehumanization of Jews that causes wars and the carnage of Oct. 7 and if left unchecked it will further degrade our society.”
Some Jewish Australians responded to the post by sharing personal accounts of what they describe as discrimination in medical settings. One woman recalled that after a doctor noticed her Hebrew tattoo, “the level of care changed,” and she was misdiagnosed before being sent home without pain relief. She wrote that she “knew in my soul” that it was antisemitism. Another recounted being treated warmly by a nurse until she mentioned working for a Jewish organization, at which point “she turned totally cold.”
Shira Nussdorf, a US-born Jewish woman who moved from Israel to Australia six years ago, reflected on the contrast between her past experiences and the country’s current climate.
“Five years ago, while delivering my son in the hospital, my religious head covering fell off and a nurse wearing a hijab gently placed it back. I remember thinking how needless all the fighting in the Middle East was, since when you take two women out of their region, they really have more in common than not,” she told The Algemeiner.
But Nussdorf said the Australia her son is growing up in is a very different place. “In the past year alone, my little boy has witnessed many hostile protests where ‘anti-Zionists’ have actually come into the Jewish community without permits to intimidate us. Time and time again, instead of [authorities] dispersing and arresting anyone in the crowd for screaming racial slurs and threats, Jews are asked to evacuate and told if they don’t run away, they are inciting violence.”
“Now they actually brag online about killing Israeli patients,” she said. “I don’t know how safe I would feel giving birth at that hospital.”
The post Australian Nurses Threaten to Kill Israeli Patients, Leading Jews to Question Safety at Country’s Hospitals first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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