supposed
to have '50s-era clothes,
which helps
to make the movie timeless,
because we don't have
any stupid '70s fashions.
Another story is that we
always had envisioned this movie
as a kind of a '50s style and always
thought of it as on a prop plane
because that's what "Zero Hour" was
and we loved the sound of the engines
and the drama of the prop plane
and when we came to Paramount,
Eisner loved the script
but he said you gotta do it
on a jet plane.
It's hard to imagine,
but we struggled with this.
We had no other offers
to make the movie,
a bunch of other places
had turned us down,
but we were gonna say no because
we'd envisioned it on a prop plane.
Finally, we sold out because
we really wanted to make the movie
and in fact Eisner was totally right
and it wouldn't have been as good
because you wouldn't have identified
with the present day aspect,
just the old movie aspect.
- You can see the string there.
- Yeah.
Eisner said you may go on to make
this movie on a prop plane
but it won't be at this studio.
So we thought
about it and came back.
Other studios had worse ideas,
remember America International
and they said, "We'll let you
make the picture but...
"it's gotta be with Dom DeLuise."
And Harvey Corman,
"I'll control casting..."
- That's right.
- He died, that guy.
And then United Artists,
who we took it back to after we had
done "Kentucky Fried Movie" there,
said they wanted to do it
as a 20-minute centrepiece
as part of
a "Kentucky Fried Movie ll",
so that that would be like "Fistful
Of Yen" in "Kentucky Fried Movie",
Airplane would be this centrepiece,
and we said no.
We pitched it to Warner Brothers,
who loved the idea
and didn't like the script.
Avco were going to do it for
a while but couldn't raise the money.
- What happened with...
- We wanted...
With Avco, we kind of sequestered
ourselves away, remember?
Because we had to decide
shall we go to Avco or Paramount?
- No, no...
- What?
Was it? No, it was AIP...
- Our lawyers wanted AIP.
- Then Avco.
And Bob Raimi really wanted
the picture, he loved this movie.
He was head of the studio
but we were for Avco.
But then we actually decided,
after we'd debated and debated,
we said, "We'll go to Avco,"
but we called Paramount to say
"We're gonna make the movie at Avco"
and talked to Jeffrey Katzenberg
and the express intent
of the conversation
was to say, "Sorry,
we're going somewhere else,"
and the conversation
was three minutes
- and we made the movie at Paramount.
- Katzenberg was very persuasive.
He's brilliant.
And we took a week, calling him...
with a list of factors.
Yeah, 'cause there wasn't a movie
afoot at the studio at that time,
they said, "You can have
Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack,
"Leslie Nielsen and Peter Graves,"
but they wanted lots of cameos,
comedy cameos,
which we didn't want to do.
The one we ended up with, who was
great in the movie was Jimmie Walker,
but that's...
Jerry kept calling him "JJ".
- And he said I'm Jimmie.
- I'm not JJ.
And I think Paramount wanted Barry
Manilow to fly down the plane.
We had a lot of suggestions.
He lived next door to Michael Eisner.
That's David's
and my sister in the middle
and our cousin Mallory on the left.
And Howard Koch gave some great
advice when they said Barry Manilow,
Howard Koch said, "Don't worry
about things that'll go away."
Bruce Jenner came in
to read a couple of times.
We screen-tested
David... David Letterman.
- Oh, yeah.
- That's right.
And later showed it on
the David Letterman Show.
Oh, there's a pun.
Smoking.
Here's high production value
right here.
That shirt has no production value.
Just... I want to point out
where you can see
the Scotch tape
holding the set together.
- Real stock footage.
- Yeah.
I don't think we'd have got through
the studio system without Howard.
He was so uppity.
And every time the studio had
an actor they wanted us to consider
that we