10 Great Comic Turns From Serious Actors

2. The Entire Cast of Airplane!

Airplane The Zucker Brothers€™s €œAirplane!€ is perhaps one of the most influential films of all time bringing out the age of the parody films imitated by the Wayans Brothers and the team of Friedberg and Seltzer. What those filmmakers seem to not understand about the success of €œAirplane!€ is the earnestness of all the actors involved. The Zucker Brothers€™s brilliance lies not only in the nonstop gags, but through the casting. To effectively drive home the parody, they cast actors that would be in those types of movies. €œAirplane!€ was a parody of the numerous disaster movies that were popular in the 1970€™s that would feature a lot of stars. In this film they got the likes of Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Leslie Nielson and Robert Stack. All of these actors doing the same straight laced routine they would be doing in this type of film except what they are saying is completely ridiculous. They all excelled in the dry sense of humor that put an exclamation point to the gags. You know it€™s a comedy when you see Cedric the Entertainer but seeing Leslie Nielson dead pan, €œI am serious and don€™t call me Shirley,€ is even better.
 
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