Jerry Zucker

Subtitle: The True Story of Airplane!

Yes, I saw the surprise comedy blockbuster movie when it first came out. I remember little about it. I laughed and thought some bits were really hilarious (Mrs Cleaver as the translator!), but I also thought that much of the humor was juvenile typical of middle-school boys.

This is the creators’ memoir of how they came to think of the parody, and their (often naïve) efforts to get it written, produced, cast, made and distributed.

The format is a series of snippets of interviews / memories of not only the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams, but also of actors, technicians, and support staff who worked on the film, and a variety of famous people who reacted to the movie when they saw it.

The book is full of photos from the movie, occasionally with captions of dialogue from the scene depicted.

The ZAZ team is from a suburb of Milwaukee, and they recently reappeared in our city for the launch of this book. In fact, one of my friends now owns the house in which the Zucker brothers lived through their teen years.… (mer)