Evolving from a 2015 online oral history of the 1980 classic Airplane! (released in several territories, including Australia, as Flying High!), Surely You Can’t be Serious contains everything you ever wanted to know not just about the making of the film and its legacy but the entire history of the three iconic comedy writer/ directors behind it.

Abrahams and the Zucker Brothers are joined by the studio executives, producers, crew and cast who were involved, the book divided into rough chapters about each aspect of their history and the movie, and each paragraph a direct quote by the respective interviewee.

After staging a comedy show in their native American Midwest hometown, the trio decided to try their luck in Los Angeles, opening another version of their live sketch show at a venue (The Kentucky Fried Theatre) that’s now become iconic. It led to their first produced script (1977’s The Kentucky Fried Movie) and paved the way for their immortal 1980 satire on self-important, melodramatic airline disaster movies of the 1970s, a movie that changed screen comedy forever.

It’s a rags-to-riches success story of the type we love about Hollywood, and even though you’ll know a lot of the lore behind the production if you’re a diehard fan, it’s still great fun to revisit it. If nothing else, the captions that accompany stills from the movie (‘looks like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking’) will make you laugh all over again.

Reviewed by Drew Turney

MORE ABOUT THE FILM

After the crew becomes sick with food poisoning, a neurotic ex-fighter pilot must safely land a commercial airplane full of passengers.

The film stars Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty and Leslie Nielsen.

Find out more about the movie, Airplane!