We have arrived at the final installment of our ground-mending, non-thought provoking, utterly pointless review of YouTube Movie Reactions. What I like to call THE BOYS’ OWN GUIDE TO STUFF PEOPLE SAY NO MATTER HOW STUPID.

This episode covers the 1980 laugh-fest AIRPLANE. I think, along with THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, this is the most-reacted-upon comedy of them all. 

I first saw AIRPLANE on the big screen on the very day it opened over 40 years ago. Going in, I knew it was a comedy, but that’s all. I loved it that day and laughed so often and so hard (in an almost-empty theater) that I wasn’t sure if this was a hilarious movie or if I’d lost my freaking mind.

Before watching any of these reactions, I thought I had a fair idea how the movie would play to these youngsters. There would be some things which would seem dated, some references which might not register, and some things which would be familiar to them from other sources (“Don’t call me Shirley” most notably.) But all-in-all, I thought this was pretty basic 10-jokes-a-minute-comedy and would play now just about as it did then. But there were some surprises for me, and some belated awareness.

Some people who were so familiar in ‘80 didn’t register now: Ethel Merman…”is that really her?”  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar…one lady recognized him, uh, maybe. “I think that’s him. I think so.” Others had no idea who he was. Barbara Billingsley: not surprising I guess, but not a single person recognized the elderly lady who “speaks jive” as the mother of Wally and the Beav.

The ancient commercial being mocked by “Jim never vomits at home” does not, of course, mean a damn thing now.

There’s a mild laugh or two at George Zipp, “the Zipper”, but only for the funny name itself. Nobody here had ever heard of Knute Rockne’s “win just one for the Gipper.” Of course, in ‘80, Ronald Reagan was running for President and he had played George Gipp in the old movie and was nicknamed “the Gipper”.

The smoking airline ticket got some chuckles but was mostly lost in the reactors’ disbelief that there had EVER been smoking on an airplane.

Is the Mayo Clinic still around? Nobody seemed to realize that it was a genuine place being joked about. 

Nobody got the parody of the FROM HERE TO ETERNITY beach scene, while it was about 50-50 on the SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER bit. Most recognized the music, only about half knew it was from “some movie”, nobody got the title or mentioned Travolta.

There was a disturbing amount of “that’s just silly”, “that’s stupid”, “why does he…” and such. I fear for the national sense of humor.

Unsurprising sign of the times: “Have you ever seen a grown man naked?” gets the expected “Eeeuuw…that’s not funny.”

Saddest of all--one of the true genius aspects of AIRPLANE was the casting. Using such familiar folks as Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, and Leslie Nielsen in comic versions of the kinds of roles we’d seen them play a hundred times over the years. 

Now, though, Bridges and Stack are simply nameless old actors. Nielsen is sometimes recognized, but always as a comedy guy, a role he never played till AIRPLANE took him there. And, of course, he wasn’t ALWAYS recognized. “Hey, look, it’s Steve Martin!”

All told, the movie still got big laughs from all of them (except for one young lady who, I fear, has never laughed and doesn’t know of the possibility of laughter.) It was a little sad to note just how much of what seemed permanent memory has become just…nothing.