The 1980 disaster movie spoof Airplane! was a flyaway success. Made for $3.5m, it grossed over $170m and forged a new style of film comedy. It was written and directed by the trio known as ZAZ: the brothers Jerry and David Zucker, and their childhood friend Jim Abrahams, who has died aged 80 of leukaemia.
There had been movie send-ups before, notably from Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and the Monty Python team. One of the innovations of Airplane!, though, was to multiply the gags without lingering on them. The audience had to be quick to keep up: this was one instance where the phrase “laugh-a-minute” represented a serious understatement.
