Charlie Brooker on Airplane!

Broken Vale is back. Join the Broken Vale channel and get everything new that we're making. That means Broken Vale series 2, Discomfort Blanket, our Weird Media podcast and Sidepods like Tom, our Christmas Ghost Story. There's plenty more coming. Join up, be part of the Broken Vale channel and support the making of independent, weird as hell podcasts. Go to patreon.com/brokenvail. Hello and welcome to Rule of Three, a podcast about comedy. I'm Joel Morris. I'm Jason Haisley and as usual we're joined by someone who makes comedy to talk about something funny that they love. By taking it apart maybe we'll learn something about how comedy works or we'll just quote bits from it and giggle until we're finished. Both approaches are valid. Our special guest today is the magnificent Charlton Brooker. Hello Charlton. How are you guys? This is good. This is good. Obviously people listening to this can't see this but we're huddled around three. Are these called baffles? Yeah, they're like baffles. It's a bit strange. I was saying earlier it was like we're playing a futuristic game but this is like being in a fox hole. They do look like pieces of torture equipment as well. They can close on you. Bikes on them. If you swear this will close on your face. Okay. Like a iron maiden. I'll bear that in mind. It's also making my eyes go a bit funny. You can look away from them. Close your eyes while doing it. All right. Like a disapproving maiden on. We've been trying to get this one running for ages and you've been dead busy doing black mirror and stuff. And when we first suggested coming on and you sort of say I know exactly what I'm going to do and then you suggested a second option which we're not doing today which I keep thinking about because it's such a brilliant idea which is you were going to do Robocop. Yes. Robocop is a very funny film. I just think that's a fascinating thing to prove. I'm sort of, I'm really looking forward to doing what we're doing today but I'm kind of regretting we're not also doing Robocop. Oh maybe we can do Robocop and I reference Robocop a surprising amount in black mirror meetings and discussions. Yeah. There's a lot of things I like about Robocop and of course it's like spiritual sequel starship troopers. My immediate reaction was that's not sort of as a comedy movie. And then I suddenly thought because obviously you started off doing comedy and you're known for comedy and black mirror people went is that a comedy? And then I went if you understand Robocop is a thing you'd bring on this. Yeah. I think it completely recast black mirror in that sort of the hoven dystopia thing. And I don't think I'd quite got that about black mirror before how Robocop it was. It's very, it's sort of I think it's because the 15 year old me I must have been 15 when I saw Robocop and I watched it about a thousand times. That was one of those things that it was one of the first things I had on video. Yeah. That I sort of I can't remember if I I think I must have bought it like second hand from a video shop. And I watched it again and again and again obsessively. And I just love the tone of it. It's still now the fake news reports in that still hold up. Yeah. I think it's funny and strange. And the advert hasn't changed enough. Pakistan is threatening my border. That's it, buster. No more military aid. Nukum. Get them before they get you. Another quarterly home game from Butler Brothers. Three dead police officers, one critically injured. Police union leaders blame Omni consumer products OCP, the firm which recently entered into a contract with the city to fund and run the Detroit Metropolitan Police Department. And which does actually does segue neatly into what we are talking about today because there's like a similarity there. Yeah. It's a it's a parody and a past issue. It understands the language of the things it's parodying really well. There are different ways of doing comedy and doing and the same comic impulse can give you something absolutely ludicrous and fast-conn black-adder. But it can also give you something sort of dark and odd and questioning and troubling like black mirror. Yes. And it sort of suit you Robocop here to be sort of this little sort of focal point in the middle of that. You go, ah, now I get it. Yeah, I think it's a comedy that people don't realise as a comedy and as is as is Starship Troopers. Yeah. It's a playful unpleasantness. And a weirdness. There's like deeply weird things go on in Robocop. I thought about it. Now I wish I'd watched Robocop. I was sorry for really. I've seen Robocop in ages. Have you seen the remake? No, I've received it. They've re-matched it. They look like a power ranger. Oh no, it's kind of cool. It's kind of cool. It's not good about it. But they do they take it quite seriously in the remake. Right. And what it means is that half way through you realise you're watching a disabled man recover. Because it's not got that fun and that blackness. You go without the comedy in it. You go, this is just a really injured man who's got prosthetic. That's a bit like, what's the dark night movie where he's basically Batman's just got a bad back for the whole fucking film. It's just a moment. It's just like, oh my back, oh no my back hurts, oh boom, you know me. Like that. It's a fucking, that's the most boring premise you could think of for a Batman film. Yeah. Get up. Rick terrible. Was it the dark night rises? Because he doesn't, he fucking doesn't, he's telling you fucking sits there when he did. God, it's boring. But it's, yeah, it's when he's, especially when you take these things top two seriously, I suppose, isn't it? Yeah, it's possible without that line of time. Everyone sort of forgets black men are started off with with primers to fucking tell you you doesn't forget that. The Americans don't know. No, because they quite often warn each other not to start with that one. Really? Yeah, because, well, it's, so I think if you've never seen black men before on Netflix, it defaults to starting with episode one of season four, which is one of our more recent ones, obviously. And that's partly because you don't need to watch them in order. So you might as all start with a, yeah, a new shiny one. Yeah. And also because I think Americans in particular don't always know quite how to react to the national anthem. And don't see the comedy in it at all. Quite often. I mean, it is a, it's a weird tone. Yeah, that episode. They want me to have sex with a pig. Live on television this afternoon. But I think over here, I forget that when it went out, it was like 2011, people didn't know what it was because the, the advertising campaign didn't tell you that the prime minister was going to be like, it's fuck a pig or the princess does. It didn't say that. And the words really straight adverts that advertised it as a straight sort of political thriller. Yeah. And so quite a lot of people tuned in initially thinking, this is going to be a gritty. And then got in the first like eight minutes or something you hit with that. And then it cuts to a commercial break. And I think that, but people sort of went, oh right, it's, it's like that. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, laughing everly. Yes. So I think maybe, one of the things we sometimes get a criticism of, which wounds me on black mirrors when it's when people, and it usually tends to be overseas viewers who maybe don't know the context of like me as a, with a comedy background and that sort of thing. Yeah. Whether go, it's a bit humulus. It's, oh, this is too earnest. It's like too serious. Or when there's something else that comes out and they go, this is like a funny black mirror. And I'm like, well, I fucking pissed myself when we're making that mirror. So what's the wrong with you? I don't remember that one of the reviews of a touch of cloth, I think it was in the garden. And I think we all know who wrote it said it had too many jokes in it. Yeah. I've done like that. Yeah. I mean, so you can't get anything right, Charlie. No, so I then know jokes at all. I mean, they're not really, and sometimes we do, when, when black mirror doesn't work in my opinion is when we get, it goes too earnest. Right. So it can go too earnest. But you can have too many jokes, I think. I think it's possible to have too many jokes, but only if you're not enjoying the jokes. Yes. Basically, there's the sun bits of the what we're going to do. I'm acting like I can't say the name of what we're discussing today. And it'll be all this into this. It'll say it'll say why I know the rule is you mustn't mention it by name or a buzzer goes off and you lose 10 points. And we see if we can get to the end without mentioning what it is. There's like, there's a couple of elements in this that I find a little irritating, but like the favorite jokes. Which I just think, I wish that wasn't in it, but then it's that particular element, isn't for me. And there's about 1500 different flavors of joke. So I suppose this, with black mirror you're talking about, where you either find the general idea and the tone again, like Robocopus, you find the tone blackly comic. Yeah. It's an idea taken. It's a comic technique. It's taken an idea to exaggerate it lengths. Well, I'm quite often I suppose what we do on black mirror is we're spoofing a genre. A national anthem was very much written as when I was writing the script, I was imagining it was an episode of 24. So it's sort of formatted like an episode. I mean, it's literally it starts with a terrible dilemma. And I mean, the one that there isn't a hero character running around, but other than that, I was literally thinking in terms of there's a ticking clock, there's like, yeah, I break every like 11 minutes and I sort of wrote it like that. And so a lot of the language that the advisors to the prime minister are using is sort of slightly deliberately a little bit over the top, like ultra serious sort of, you know, there's quite a good word doing a portmanteau series. You can see we go with this one, the romantic one, this one's the thriller, this one's the adventure series. What's annoying is we keep going, oh, we haven't done a western, let's do a westworld. We did one that's like the Star Trek episode like USS Callister, which is set in space and that started out because we were going to do we wanted to do one that was based around a musical. - That's it. - That's it. - Wow. - It's evolved, 'cause I had thought, and I still think it's a good idea. So, I'm an asterisk, I'm copyrighting this. - Yeah. - The idea originally was, well, how could we do a musical episode? - Yeah. - Something like that. How could we do that? There was gonna be like a work bonding exercise, teamwork exercise, - What? - Yeah. - that what they would do is they would put people in virtual reality, and they'd all have to reenact Greece, the musical. (laughing) It was gonna be based around, but people were gonna be assigned random roles when they went in. So, you didn't know if you were gonna be like John Travolta, or like someone in the background going, "Shoot the what?" (laughing) So, you know, so, and you didn't know who everyone else was. And somehow that seemed a little bit high-concent, so, and then it was like, "Well, what if it was Star Trek?" Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, it's all a bit, it looks similar. It's not the same bright colors and things. - Bright colors, yeah. You'd have to license all the songs. It would only really work if it was a very recognizable music. - Yeah, that's true. - That's true. - That's true, and then you're in Brightsehill. - I suppose the good thing about doing Star Trek is you can do something that looks like Star Trek without it ever actually being Star Trek. And everyone gets the references and the resonances. - Yes. - Not that it is in any way Star Trek. - Of course, I mean, obviously I can't write. - I mean, it's nothing, I mean, after we did it, some people said that it's like Star Trek, and I went, "What, really?" - Who famously never seen Star Trek before? - I've never seen Star Trek. I never heard of Star Trek. I didn't realise it was two words. Which was recently, I thought it was Star Trek. - I thought it was one word. - Yeah. I didn't know what it was, and I assumed it was about something completely different. - I'm sure they're fine. - Is that not a role in industry? - Obviously, they're a role in industry? I don't know what I'm talking about. - I found in wall shops on the rise. - Walls? - Yeah. - What, you mean, rebelling? - Yeah. - That would be a nice, I'd be into that rebellion. When I was growing up, there was a shop sort of near me that sold wool and computer games. - Really? - Yeah, which seems like an odd combination, but makes sense actually, because people's parents were going in for the wool. (laughing) And their kids were all like, "Oh, boring, the wool shop." - Oh, wait a minute, it's got, oh, Daily Thompson's the Catalan. Oh, so it's actually clever. - Crochet pixel graphics. - Yes, there's a similar link. - There is a real similarity. I don't think then people were into eight-bit. - Were they? During the eight-bit graphic era, no one cared. They didn't realize you could take those little blocks and put them somewhere else. - It's basically mosaics. - Well, someone can't say it's actually. - Yeah, they're basically, they're all eight-bit graphics. - Eight-bit computer graphics. But that's something that Brian Eno said that. As soon as you've got a piece of technology that's really frustrating, that it's not very good, you hate it. And then the moment it's superseded, you start romanticising it. That's super eight-film and polar-roin. It's limitations become really, really sexy. - I spend quite a lot of time emulating old computer games, and a lot of that is making them look right, which means emulating the look of a CRT television on a flat screen TV. And that's a real rabbit hole. I've been spending a lot of time emulating old computer games and curating a sort of collection of these things, and then realise this is basically the exact equivalent. I'm basically a middle-aged man with a railway set. - Yeah, totally. - It's exactly the same thing. And going, it's like recapturing some, not just, it's not actually about recapturing your youth, is it? It's about being a child god. - Yeah, basically. - Basically, I've got all the computer games. I've got my own arcade. And I don't have to pay, and they, oh, I've got, I've got golden eggs. I've got it in my house. I don't, I don't want to play it. I don't, I don't play them. I don't play them. That's terrible. I don't play any of these fucking things. I just sort of look at them, and they're never quite right. So I adjust them. It's like I'm a fritzel or something, like controlling these fucking things. Or it's like, I'm a, I will ferrule in the Lego movie. Yes, the other guy will be, I'm like, stop it. Leave it alone. It's perfect. - You'll break it. - Stop it, don't adjust the hum bar. - It's a sort of toxic nostalgia that would lead you, if you weren't doing this, you'd just start a political party and be dragging us back to the 1970s. - Well, it's the best dangerous thing. - What I'm doing is submerging myself in a relevant fucking nonsense. (laughing) Because I'm ignoring, I've been ignoring the news. - That's crazy. - I've been ignoring the news. Because I'm not doing the wipe stuff, but I'm, I don't have to look at the news. - Isn't it nice? - So I've been enjoying the last couple of years. - I'm loved not having to watch the news for a couple of years. - Yeah, I really do like not having to watch the news. And when I do watch the news, when I catch the news, it's a bit like a sort of horrible repressed memory. In the spirit of toxic nostalgia, let's just go back to when everything was all right and we really liked to film. Which film did you really like? - Well, I just, I said that I wanted to talk about airplane, which that would be a surprise to no one who's listening to this because they'll have seen, yeah. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - Surely you can't be serious. - I am serious. And don't call me sharp. - It's like I picked the wrong week when I'm filming. - You have clear insurance? - Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor? - I just want to tell you both good luck in rural county, I think. - I must have been, it came out what, 1980? - Yeah. - So I now, I remember seeing it in the cinema. - Really? - I saw it in the cinema. Now I'm not sure whether I saw it on its original release or not. - I think it was. - It's like a PG, it's a PG. - It's a PG, yeah, so it's bit saucy. - I think it was, that I've meant it was an A. - At the time, like A certificate. - 'Cause they did it as a PG. So it was like, you think you can go, if a grown up goes with you, you're allowed to go and see it. There was a cinema called The Corn Exchange in Wallingford, which was near where I grew up. I would see like, you know, for your eyes only. - Yeah. - It was probably the same, yeah. So you'd sort of see slightly saucy films in Roger Moore and then there were films where people would say, "Shit." That's what I remember is that you could go and see a film and people would say, "Shit." And you chuckle a bit and it was a bit, there was a frisson, there was an excitable frisson throughout the cinema 'cause there were children. - Did it say that on the thing at the front of the cinema? This way it says, "A film you, you're the man says shit." - Someone says, "Shit." - It's a certificate, they say, "Shit." - "Hole" is another thing that people could say a lot. But anyway, so I remember going to see it and it being rapturously received by the audience. Like just, I remember people applauding the end of the film and applauding some of the actors. Is that a bit at the end where it's a bit? You have been watching it, yeah. And individual cast members were being applauded by the audience, which was something I'd never seen before. And also, I think it's probably the first time I had laughed in a cinema. I imagine, 'cause so I must have been about nine or 10 when I saw this film. And I remember finding it really funny and I felt like I was seeing a sort of joke that I didn't associate with films. And it was slightly naughty, it was slightly grown up. There were jokes I didn't understand, but I sort of did understand, not like the pilot, be a bit of a foul. I didn't understand quite what was going. I knew it was weird and a little bit scary. (laughs) - Join, you like movies about gladiators. - That would have sailed right over my head, but I sort of also knew what you were doing. - But you were just like, - Did you ever see them first draft line for that? - Was it, have you ever seen them grown man's car? - No, have you ever seen them grown man's car? (laughs) - Okay, right, well that would have been the, that surely would have been the PG-rated, the Wii-O. - That joke is a really good clue as to how this film was made. 'Cause I imagine the line, 'cause it's based on a film that already exists, it's based on a film, Zero Hour, which they'd seen late night. They'd set a video to record loads of adverts, 'cause they were trying to make a movie out of old adverts to write sketches about. And they caught this movie, an old sort of disaster movie, and they ended up having to buy the script for $2,500. But what they're doing is they're talking over the old script, like a bunch of mates who have had a bit too much to drink, watching an old movie. - They're drawing dicks in the margins of the screen. - It's very, it's very like, they're scribbling over it. The teachers said something in December, and you've turned to your mate and said, what if he said cock? - Yes. - It's that level of pure joke, but that line about every other set of metal cock comes off the line, have you ever been in a cock pit before? I love the way you can see how their brains are going. They've heard the word cock, and like, be with some butt head gone, "Haha, cock." And then about four drafts down, you get, "Have you, do you like gladiator movie?" - Put yourself in this man's place. Aborted transcontinental plane, suddenly half the passengers, including your own son, are struck by a paralyzing deadly illness. - This is Captain Wilson, and our first officer, Mr. Stuart and Mrs. Mr. Striker, and his son, Joey. - Joey, here's something we give our special visitors. Would you like to have it? - Thank you. Thanks a lot. - You ever been in the cock pit before? - No sir, I've never been up in a plane before. - You ever seen a grown man naked? - It's like coming up with the best back of the class joke in the world. - Also, that is a bit like every comedy writer's remote ever been in with the first hour or two. - Yeah. - It's like just people saying all the unbroadcastable things before settling into what you could actually say. - Coughing up a fern ball. - Yeah. So, but I mean, so that's a very good point, because it has an authenticity to it. It feels like a proper disaster movie, because it is one, because they literally took the skeleton for one, and made it silly. - I want the weather on every kind of landing feel on the other side of the mountain. - I want the weather on every landing feel this side of the mountain. - Any place where there's a chance to land this plane. - Any place where there's a chance to land that plane. - I just want to tell you both good luck. I'll keep your son with me. - Thank you. - Okay, start. We're all counting on you. - And you can see that when they make Top Secret after this, they really struggle, because it's a parody of that six sort of, I just did a great movie. - Yeah. - gag for gag, but it's not got the rewatchability of airplane, because it's not a proper disaster. - You don't know what it is from looking at the post. - It's a rock and roll surf war. - No. - Don't know. - I mean, it reminded me of, because when I was growing up as a kid, the things I would gravitate on, towards with things like the goodies. Or I remember seeing End of Part One. Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And then there would be repeats of Python and stuff, not the Nine o'clock news. And all of these things were parodies. And they would break the fourth wall and they would do, they would cut to an ident or they would just sort of run the credits halfway through. And they do all this anarchic stuff that I really loved, the fact that they were messing around with the machine I was watching on, was really exciting. - It's fascinating. - So we're gonna keep breaking this, smashing it up. - Yeah. - And so airplane felt like a British comedy to many ways. - Yes. - It felt like a British piss take of an American film. To me, because it was a time of humor I wasn't accustomed to seeing. - From the bullseating pages of history, from the dark and furious days of Imperial Rome, we bring you a story that shattered the world. A tale so gripping that they said it could not be filmed, a unique event in cinema history. Junior Caesar on an Aldous lamp. - I loved that growing up. And I usually get really annoyed when I watched a comedy film that wasn't like that. I liked Woody Allen and early on Mel Brooks, Mad magazine. - Yeah. - And I liked all those sort of hotel programs that would take the piss out of everything. And then when you watched a film that was actually about someone actually big in love with someone or doing an actual spy mission. I'm just saying to you when we were quite young, when this film's fun, it's not funny. And there were lots of films that were especially American films that were fun, but not funny. Their primary purpose was to raise a smile rather than just keep doing jokes. And this was such an exciting thing to see because it had that, take the money and run, love and death, sleep at every joke you can do. And then it broke the fourth wall as well because it was a sketch shot. - And it's interesting, 'cause they've done the Kentucky Fried movie, hadn't they? Before I had, which I saw several years later on video, not knowing it was the airplane people. I haven't seen Kentucky Fried movie in many, many years. But I do remember, it's last time I did watch it, which must have been about 15 years ago. It's lots of sketches and lots of parodies of commercials and trailers and stuff like this. Then it goes into a Kung Fu movie parody that lasts about 20 minutes. - Right. - And I remember the first time I watched a game really frustrated thing, it was going on for fucking ages. (laughing) And then the next, I've been watching it several years after that realizing, well this is really funny. They obviously realized, hang on a minute, we can parody a whole movie and that's what they ended up doing next. And you mentioned that they had set up a video recorder to record old commercials 'cause they were going to do another Kentucky Fried movie. - They wanted late night commercials, 'cause they were, they might be sort of Tim and Erika kind of thing. They wanted the shittiest low budgetist commercials to take the piss out, 'cause at no point taking the piss out, I really slick ones. So they'd leave the thing on going later. - And then zero hour came on. - And you can totally see what's so clever is to then just buying it. And being able to remake it means you've got a structure so that all the anarchic stuff that's happening still is happening in a very rigid order, apart from the mistakes of very clear. And you've seen that movie before as well. - You've seen it. - So you don't need to sort of know. It's interesting 'cause I watched it again like the weekend 'cause I knew I was coming in. So I watched it again. - We're all, I did my homework. And there's a lot of things that I didn't realize. I don't know about, I often don't actually pay attention to what's happening in the plot of films. You know, you like, but a lot of people don't need to. You don't sort of need to know. So I didn't really realize, of course it makes sense. But I never thought about where there is that they're landing. Like they take off at the NLA and they land in Chicago. But I always assumed they were landing in the same airport. They took some reason. - They were landing in Chicago. Because of course they do. They're in the air for hours. So they, but all of that sort of, you don't need to know. And they don't even bother making the Chicago airport. It's the same. Apparently it's the same airport. - You don't need to know all that stuff. But the plot of mechanics have been worked out, worked out years before by someone else. - Yeah. - Some we had, I think it was Rufus Jones who said, there's a great thing in comedy action movies. Many sort. A little bit of dialogue that's got the sort of feel, the chew of, say, bounty hunting or gangsters or flying a plane. A bit of dialogue that's got a bit of a technique out it. You hear it as an audience and go, oh, they've got this. - Yeah. - It's okay. They're looking off that. I assume the plot's working. I won't listen to it too hard. - I'm about bail bonds. So I'm assuming that the chase has got a reason. Or here, you hear the stuff. Air traffic control dialogues all taken from zero hour. So therefore you go, they've got this and you don't ask any questions. So then you can relax and just enjoy the jokes. Knowing that the vehicle is just traveling along on tracks quite happily. Don't worry about it. - It's an old fashioned film. They're parodying. I mean, even then it was an old fashioned film. And the music and everything is sort of deliberately. - Emma Bernstein, they got him in and said, right, a B movie score. Don't write. So none of you are good shit. They said, right, it's a B movie. It's collapsed. - It's really good, isn't it? (dramatic music) - The white song is for an idiot loading and unloading of passengers only. - But it's, yeah. I assumed. I assumed it was an actual, like an old score that they'd taken. - No, he's doing it. - He's playing the same game that they are. - And apparently he just couldn't stop laughing. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world. So they got someone in who had done serious movies. Which is what? - On Touch a Cloth. - Yeah. - You got a crew who made serious detective shows. - Because you want, so we all did. We all worked on Touch a Cloth, which is an hour naked gun. - Yeah. - And some Abrams. - When I say, "hour," I don't mean Britain. I'm not like claiming it. I'm saying literally the people in this room. - And when we first were sort of discussing cloth, I remember thinking this is a real tightrope. Because you've seen so many shit airplane attempts. Basically where it's just not quite right or there'll be some good guys. It's just, it's a very delicate, - Yeah. - And it's usually that it's too silly. It's usually what's sort of going on. It's too silly or it's too crass. - Yeah. - It breaks its own reality. So you just start worrying about the plot. And listen, airplane is very clever. It looks exactly like, but it's also really stupid. - Yeah. - And crass as well. It looks exactly like the thing it's parodying. It is the thing it's parodying 'cause it doesn't break the rules too much. It like there's a fundamental reality to what's going on with that. - They are going to crash and die. - They are going to, they will die. Everyone on board that plane will die if Striker can't land the plane. - Yeah. - So it's very clear. The stakes are very clear and you understand that that could happen on some level. - That makes the jokes funny. - Because you go, it's incredibly simple. - Yeah, but what's good about the plot? 'Cause it's on rails and you can follow it. There's a bit in it, which we talked about when we were doing cloth and we've talked about doing any cloth for anything. Is there comes a point where people stop laughing? And even if listed the commentary on airplane, Zooka and Abrahams and start giggling and going, well, I hope everyone's enjoying all these jokes about an hour in time, 'cause they haven't been many jokes. And we were talking about this this morning and said there's a bit where the jokes stop being forth wall breaking. - Right. - And all the jokes in the actual, when they're trying to bring the plane down, the stakes are really high on the music's up. They stop joking about it being a film. And everyone who's doing their silly lines, there are loads of jokes, but the jokes are all, I like you to know we're all thinking of you. But it's quite a high stakes line. I'm Rob at Stack, there's a brilliant line. He says, "Do we leave the lights on on the runway?" No, that's exactly what they'll be expecting. Which is a high stakes line, but from a wrong movie. But no one breaks the stakes for about 10 minutes. They don't do anything where it changes genre or anything. They stay in a plane. And it's really clever, 'cause you go, well, you must have, they did 30 drafts at this script and they edited it so well. They've taken out all the jokes that stop the audience being excited, but they left in just enough jokes for you to know it's still a stupid film. So it's still a felt, basically. And also of course there's the form, there's a lot of attention to detail in the form. And then the cast were all recognizable. Even to me, I think my memory is that even me, when I first saw this sort of recognized quite a few of these people, as serious people I must have seen like on BBC Two in the afternoon in an old black or white movie, being bloody serious. And they- Lloyd Bridges in Mission Impossible, they played all with such a straight bat. They've got a sort of, I suppose as a kid, I would have recognized them as sort of almost an Adam Westie sort of batman cast. They are high stakes actors who are coming to mess about, but they don't even camp it up to that degree. But I always like that straight bat that Shatner and Adam West played. You'd recognize them from, actually you're right, a Mission Impossible action stuff you watch as a kid. Did you, I just, little sidebar. Yeah, I didn't know that Batman was ridiculous when I was a child. No, no, no, no. I thought it was really. None of the jokes landed with me, as in I just sort of accepted the WSZ on T-Rex. Well, the Shatner, Peppell and Batsbree. I remember thinking that's a bit ridiculous, but thinking, "Bloody, oh, that's a bit embarrassing." For the Batman film, they didn't know that that's, God, that's a convenient plot. Devices, isn't it? It is. Shatner, Peppell and Batsbree, they think I'm swallowing that. But no, you're right. I think that's because that was too, that was played so straight. I did not, my brain couldn't process it as a child. You've definitely seen these actors doing high stakes drama in a thing your dad was watching on a Sunday afternoon. Come on, minute. Nicoli, mildly, of course. That's impossible. They're all instruments. (Funky music) And you know that they will have been laughing when they were filming it. I mean, it's interesting that we. So when we did cloth, that was. So we tried to slavishly ape a lot of the things they did, the formula that they used in airplane. Yeah. So what was the recipe? So they used an existing thing. So for the first one, we got a sort of existing plot. For a forest style. Macyre-starring, it was a Macyre, so Macyre, which was this. Yes, that mini series with Ken Stott, which was like seven. It was incredibly depressing and bleak in the heart. There's a seven-style serial, Artisan Killer, over it. I think it was the storyline for Macyre four. Yeah. And it was about somebody bumping off members of a jury, basically. Yes. And so we took that plot and. And my memory is it was more the plot than a full script. - It was, I remember seeing it. It was like a four-page document with it. - Yeah, which sort of outlined, and we'd check it out the bits. But I remember it was being, do you remember this? Do you remember me constantly going Taliban? This would have been, I'm gonna be Taliban about this, which basically just means it can't get too stupid. So it's still got to be basically a storyline about murders. - Revolving around a jury. - And the method of murder shouldn't be too stupid. Like it should be quite grim. It should be, because when you watch these shows, they're really enjoying how bleak and horrible the deaths are. - Yeah. - Well, it was a big lesson for us 'cause we came on board cloth ones, sort of partly throughout the even Damar and done a lot of the work on it before. We came on quite late, because we'd been working at the BBC on an almost identical show in a neighbouring office. And our one, we'd said, oh, we'll make it slightly more, it was like a cracker, tagging kind of thing. But we'll make it a little bit lighter 'cause it was a half hour zinc commie version of it. And we made it a series of ritual murders in the Marmalade industry. And every time we did a passing it, we can't bring the stakes up enough 'cause even though people were really being killed, we worked that out. It was still just slightly too funny. And we came on cloth one, the brilliant thing with this is that the joke is that everything in it is very, very played straight. And on top of which, you can lay a load of absolute nonsense. As long as people are really getting killed and it's a real jury. - People are really getting killed in horrible ways. And that the joke in a way there is that the show is enjoying, (laughing) but it's horrible. 'Cause that's sort of what they do, isn't it? - But that's the, that's totally airplane. 'Cause when they got, they said the key actor to get him with Robert Stack, the place that the pilot who's in air traffic control, the guy with the two sets of sunglasses. - Yeah. - Who played a pilot in to be or not to be, which we watched with Paul King, isn't it? - Yeah, he said, obviously he played pilots before. He's very funny. They got him in because he was amazing at doing this very high stakes dialogue. - Yes. - And he said, "What they got him in, "he set the time for all the other actors to copy." He got the joke. 'Cause he'd been in comedies with Jack Benny and things before. But he also was very good at taking everything very seriously. - Yes. - And when we did cloth like John Hanna, you played like, it was just a natural at being incredibly intense. - That's so cool. - And total conviction. - Which is the other thing that the Jimmy directed it. He used to shout before everything was like, stop giggling everyone, we're gonna win a fucking BAFTA. And that would get John in the mood. - I don't know about him saying, like there was a scene where they go into look at the shrine of Todd Carty. - Yes. - And he was like saying to them, you're going, it's child murder. You're watching, it's a terrible, you're looking at a terrible shrine of murdered children. It's serious ultra dark. Yes, exactly. It's BBC one, 9pm on a Sunday. It's red riding again. - Yeah, he's dressed the right. - It's serious. - New blood. - That's a quick question. - The murder's a lot like sex. Why? - Nothing worse than walking in and your parents doing it. - Because some people are better at it than others. - Because some people find it easier in the dark. - Okay, describe the scene. - And Shaven, close on backwards. - He's only stomach. - You don't always land the right way up. - Right. - Roll him. - Oh my god. - He looks just like you. - It's my brother. - Your brother? - My brother. - His brother? - His brother. - Your brother? - My brother. - And also, but John, I remember being on set and talking to Johnny and Seran. And both of them said, we haven't got a fucking clue if this is funny on you what we're doing. 'Cause we're not giving comic performances. We don't know whether this is gonna end up funny. In the same way that the actor said on Airplane, didn't they? - Lloyd Bridges was worried about it. And he said, I don't know where the joke is Bobby. - Right. - Robbist said, laughed and went, we're the joke, Lloyd. - Which is really something. - He sums it up. And well, another thing we used to say on cloth was you haven't noticed it's the wrong script. - Yes. - It's like so. This is series five of touch of cloth. The very hard hitting serious police drama. But the wrong script has arrived. And no one has noticed. But it's a prank. So no one here is in on the joke at all. And then there are machines. Nothing can stop the factory. Well, there's a thing of that in Airplane. They cast the people who would be in it. There's a lovely story about Letty Nielsen agent getting a call. So they'd like him to be in it. He'd mainly done straight roles before. And he said, so when are you filming tomorrow? And they went, no, no, in a couple of months. No one's ever found, Leslie, this early. He was always the last minute replacement in things. And he was so plattered up in phone with a couple of weeks notice. (laughs) (upbeat music) He is brilliant in it. It's interesting that in naked gun he starts gurning. But he starts ignoring the thing that made him brilliant. I mean, not entirely, because he's still, you know, he's still, we watched the police squad and then once naked gun were we were doing cloth. And in police squad, he's a serious cop. He's the best cop in the business. And when you watch naked gun, he's Cluzo. He's a clown and they know he's an idiot. Lots of pratfalls and things, which I suppose makes it more international and makes him film it. Well, they cut to people. They do that thing, which they do a little bit. They do it occasionally in Airplane. But I guess maybe they get away with it because it becomes the exception that proves the rule rather than a new rule, which is where they'll cut to somebody being bemused by the silliness of something that just happened. They occasionally allow people in the film to acknowledge that it's stupid. And they do that a lot more in like the naked gun. Like they'll be, you know, say something, crassles idiotic and it will cut to somebody sort of pulling a face. Well, it's not funny man and straight men, but the whole point in Airplane is that everyone's a straight man. Yeah, apart from Steven Strucker, the guy in the Air they're a truck control. Who's performances from a different film? Well, that's the now that. So he is the one that annoyed me. This weather called it, he says, "You're off the wire." Johnny, where can you go to this? This? Well, I can make tap or a broach or a tarot dacle. Please take care of him. - Really? - Yeah. Now now-- Can you two fight? Because he's just-- Now I'm more well now. Well, okay, this was good to disagree. But now quite clearly, when I first saw Airplane, maybe this is partly because I saw it in a cinema. Yeah. The people were really laughing at him. So he's Johnny, the crazy guy in the Air Traffic Control, who says crazy stuff. Who is completely in a different film? He's in a totally different film. They got him from their sketch show. Yes. And they just liked him. He was just a very silly, big, broad performer. And I've got the script. I was looking at the script while watching the film the other day. He is, first of all, he's not called Johnny. The script is called Eddie. Secondly, he's got hardly any lines. Right. And all the stuff that Steven Strucker was doing in this film, he threw in. Right. And he's even working from the script. So he's subverting a subversive film from the inside. But also, what I like about him is that you were talking you mentioned jokes that you don't get. There is the line and Leon's getting larger. Yes. I think about that line at least once a week, because I've got no idea why it's funny. Wow, he's getting sicker. And Leon's getting larger. Well, weirdly, you see, this is the thing. So when I first, when I first saw it, I remember people really laughing at him. And me being a bit annoyed by his presence and thinking-- That's justifiable. --thinking he's breaking it. He's-- he's spo-- what I like about this is, at some level as a child, I was enjoying the fact that the film was just-- I sustained-- Do you know what it was? It was very straight. Yes. And then because he knew he was so stupid, it was annoying me. And it was annoying me that he was getting laughs. Yeah. Like, I was quite cross about it. He's not playing the game. And I thought this is-- he's spoiling it. And I held onto that thought for many, many years. When I watched it this weekend, Leon's getting larger. Maybe last. And also, Clarence Oversewife, who shows up, who is sleeping with a horse. Yes. Where's the wakeer up? It's worth listening to the Doritos commentary like, because they go, how do they get a horse to lie down? I'm really sorry. So much of the white town that he's getting up from-- It's not a lot of horse. He's working up a knee to shit. But she's called into the air traffic control to stand there and look distraught. And Johnny, he's even stucker. And it just goes, oh, where did you get that dress? Oh, fuck. In a way that really made me laugh this time. But I think by that point in the film, you can watch it-- the sort of film structurally, it's got the structure of a disaster movie. But also, the way it lets its jokes drop out, they change his tone throughout. So yeah, you go to-- by the time that the air traffic control turns up, you look set, Stephen Stucker, because they've said the rules are, this is really solid. And then obviously they put him out at the moment when you take it seriously. They're quite clever at putting in-- You say that, but I didn't accept it. Oh, I didn't accept it. I didn't know I accept it. But I don't really find it accepting now, because I didn't like him and now I'm meloded. Is it like getting into a favorite track or something? So we didn't like before. Yeah, it's like-- And you actually-- now I see what you're doing. See now I actually appreciate what he's doing. It's kind of-- It's pure cloning. I've been for work, I guess I was-- Yeah, why am I talking like that? But recently, you know, the comedy nerd voice that people did in the age of-- Oh, I'm an owner. You're signing your fund. I've decided that's funny again, because we did the rest of this podcast. I kept going, oh, well, of course, if you're-- [LAUGHTER] I think it's just because I'm old. And your mind's going. And doing the slightly funny-- I'm not doing that one. Going, I think you'll find these are my own shoes. I've decided that's funny. So you know, it was the announcer, the 80s sketch of an announcer voice that used to be. Well, I'm trying now arriving at Patform. You know, you heard in every sketch, I reckon that's-- do you have a comeback as well? It should be in the back of the paper next to the weather. These voices are now back in. And that does relate to where, because I did so much research. I actually read the trivia page on IMDb for this. Oh, well done. And so did you know-- Did you know that this is like a format point I'm introducing? Did you know? Did you need a jingle? Yeah. My pause for you to put a jingling. I'll put some music behind it. Put a jingling now. [MUSIC PLAYING] So did you know that the announcers at the start going the white zone is for whatever are the actual announcers from Los Angeles Airport? Oh really? That's the attention to detail. They went and hired the people who actually did the actual announcing at the airport. And that's again that's like casting Les Yenil's that's casting the right casting it. And one of my pet hates when you when you look at that one of one of my obsessions when we're making things is that it's got to look or that I hate it if like a a newspaper front page doesn't look right. The font isn't quite right or like it takes you out of things. Or when you've got a reporter in something who doesn't have the intonation of a real reporter. So it's better to hire a real reporter to do it and ask them not to act. It's almost like supporting buttresses. The reality is holding in nine places so you can break it in one. Well strange as well so just what you just I'm just thinking about what you're saying that top secret. Yeah, and that the problem with that is that you don't quite know what it is yeah, which is true. It's like it's all over the place. But the joke you might even be better than it is. Yeah, it's really funny. But you sort of I remember watch I saw that in the in the cinema as well. I don't think I was old enough to see it. Lucky bugger. I think I I seem to remember that was the first film I snuck in to see. Wow. I haven't seen top secret in many years. But is that the one with the visual gag where the helicopter flies behind the sun. That's hot shots part. I've never seen which is actually okay but the last joke where the helicopter goes off into the sunset and flies behind the sun. My favorite jokes in any medium. That should be in the Smith zone. I've never seen that because I assumed they got shut off to sort of top secret. They still do the coastal joke. Top secret. The mom with the shot has no the shot. The car falling off the wall. Yeah, over the vehicles on the battlements and shatters. Yeah, Peter Cushing underwater fight. Yeah, the western fight. Big magnifying glass. Big telephone in the foreground. People in the scene. Yeah, it's full of great jokes. And that was great. It's very, very good film. But you don't know what it is. Now, so when I was watching airplay, I realized what's odd is that the structure is so familiar and so simple and yet so rigid that you don't notice that actually it goes all over the fucking. Yeah, yeah, like it's a sketch show basically. So, so the whole sequence the Saturday night fever. Yeah, from here to a turt. What is that? That's straight out of top secret. Yeah, whole sequence is I couldn't tell you what that is. It's like they do a thing with sort of tribesmen, which I don't know why that's come from. Yes, that I've totally forgotten about that. That's what she's having a tupperware party. Yeah, yeah, especially not a favorite by the way, a great bit of trivia. That is 10% faster than the actual soft. They had to ask permission from the Bee Gees to make them higher. I didn't go there that night to fall in love. I just dropped in for a couple of drinks. Seven. There she was. I showed that sequence to my kids, because I thought I can show them this. Yeah, like six and five at the moment. And they really laughed at the bit where Julie Haggerty. Haggerty Haggerty Haggerty Haggerty Haggerty Haggerty Haggerty Haggerty Haggerty Haggerty. It's dancing and the bloke she's dancing with gets knifeed in the back. I remember, I remember that being I was pleased to see them laughing at that, because I remember as a kid thinking that's a really good old fashioned gag, but it's also nasty. Yes. It's a man basically an agony dying trying to indicate that he's been stabbed in the back and and the person he's dancing with thinking it's a disc. This go move that she was replicate. There's a little edge of violence. It's very funny. I rewound to rewatch another slapping the historical woman scene when they give up to slap her. Unless it does to when someone says sorry, it's my go. He gets in one extra one. That's really. That's like. Yes. That's really good. If I have to go quick one more. But it's because. But see, so there's the the whole from here to what you call the Saturday night fever section, which is basically top secret for five minutes or whatever. And then yes, the I totally forgotten about the bit where they go. Yeah, where they're suddenly in sort of pith helmets. Are they like? It's always yeah. Totally forgotten about that. But there's lots of sections as well, which are just airport gags. Yeah, yeah. That they've just randomly dropped it. So there's that bit where there's like people going down a luggage. Yeah. Yes. Which just occurs randomly at one point. They must have just got all this stuff and they thought, well, where will this go? There's a lot of stuff like that. I mean, Americans have a lot of stuff of generally about airports. That's like a stand up routine. Well, I was thinking this that we don't I guess his Brits, we don't go to the airport as often. Or certainly in the 70s and 80s, we probably didn't. But they're always doing fucking jokes about airports because they use them like buses. It's a perfect example of on those films you saw as a kid. And I hadn't seen a disaster movie. I certainly hadn't been to an airport by that point. And I think I learned about airports from this from airplane. Yeah. You're fucked. I had seen I believe in the same cinema that I saw airplane. I saw the towering inferno. Now that must have been a re-release. And the towering inferno in the cinema was one of the fun was was an absolute defining moment in my life. And I think I'd seen that by the time I'd seen it. So you knew the rules roughly for a disaster. And I used to really love disaster movies when I was younger. They showed them a lot. And they're sort of 80s on TV. They'd show like earthquake. Because if they get a lot of star power that way, put it in the TV times. Put one, put Telet of Alice and Gene Hackman or any. But there's an old relationship with this where you watch this and it's got because this plays a straight back, it immediately reminds you of other films you've seen. Like it was black and white movies in the afternoon or disaster movies. And it doesn't remind you of other 70s comedies very much. No. Because the interesting thing about the production of this is the original studio they went to wanted to cast it with exactly who you'd expect. Right. So they wanted Bill Murray. Yeah. I think one wanted Dom Delewee used to play the Lesson, the Awesome part. And he suddenly get this vision of a cannonball run version of this. That's all antica manic. And that's exactly what comedies were like. At this point, what feels great about it is that it's sort of brown and a bit hard-edged. And even though they're being really silly, it's against this very formal, very austere. Apparently they made it by taking the VHS of 0 hour down to the set and looking at it and just copying the lighting, which made it affordable. Because that was a cheap movie so they could just light it the same way. Directorally, everyone's in rigid lines. Yeah. The first film they were directed. So if you look at it as a piece of comedy staging, everyone's always sitting next to each other. Yeah. Which is great for comedy because everyone's faces. They're all in rows. And then when they're in the front of the plane, they're in rows. And then the air traffic is all in rows. It's a great way of accidentally, simply directing a movie that looks quite austere. It's not full of manic jumping around. It's great. And manic jumping around works if in a comedy of this type, if the thing you're mocking is manic and jumping around. And you take the piss out of it. Like that. Have you seen the clip of Liam Neeson jumping over a fence? We've seen that for There's a clip of Liam Neeson jumping over a fence from Taken that uses something like 46 edits in five seconds or so. I'm sure, I must be exaggerating, but it's like an insane, it's worth having a look at. It's like a textbook example of him, he's jumping over a fence, that's all he's doing, but they've really tried to make him very exciting. And they use way too many shots, you google it, and I could imagine parodying something where you kind of do that, but then you'd have to understand that that's what you were parodying. And so Jim, when we were doing touch of cloth, he would sometimes bring in, there were things he wanted to do, like the so, and he got better and better at doing it, where he wanted to do things that were all in one long shot. Because they would do a sort of small, just showing off bit. There's one bit in the first cloth where I actually get sort of motion sickness when I'm watching it. It goes round and round and round and round and fucking round. There's a point at which it actually is really uncomfortable. I know what I was going to say, which is when just when you were saying about how it didn't feel like other films from the 70s. So I recently watched, there's a film on Netflix, which is about the guy who founded National Lampo, Doug something, so we look it up and then we'll just look it up. We'll sound really authoritative, by looking it up. By looking it up. So I was watching this film on Netflix about Doug Kenny. I didn't google that, I just knew it. And he's the guy, one of the co-founders of National Lampo. And there's a film about him. I found the character a bit obnoxious, but there's a good bit in it where he's made Animal House and it's been a massive hit and he's taken loads of cocaine and like gone off the rails. And then he gets very cocky and he starts making Caddy Shack. And they're making Caddy Shack with Bill Murray. And while they're editing it or something like that, he goes to the cinema to watch Airplane. And he watches Airplane and he's immediately immensely depressed. And he sort of comes out going, Caddy Shack is shit compared to that. And it actually fucking destroys him as a person in this movie. And he spirals into a massive sort of alcohol intervention. Airplane is exactly what he should have been making. That was what National Lampo was. National Lampo was astonishingly precise parodies of life magazine. Exactly. It looked exactly right. There's a thing I was noticing watching. It's an imagining a version of it that had Bert Reynolds and Bill Murray in it. And thinking that and going, what that would look like if I watched it, would be like everyone had a brilliant time making it. But I wouldn't necessarily have a brilliant time watching it. And the thing that's great about Airplane is there's a real feeling that they are doing this for you. They're not doing it because they're obviously having a blast. Everyone's enjoying themselves. It's not cynical. But they've not put any of that on screen and expect you to say, I bet it was a hoot when we did all that cocaine and pissed about. Because there is something quite joyless about a Cheach & Cheong film, for instance. They're having more fun than you are. Yeah. If you're having more fun than the audience, I think you're on the wrong side, aren't you? - You know, the studio wanted Barry Manolo to play Striker. - What? - Yeah, I know. - As Barry Manolo ever acted in anything, not to my knowledge. - How would that work? - Not very well. - They would have gone into the disco scene and then not come out. - Right. (laughing) - For an hour and a 10. - And I imagine the problem there as well is that you might have got a situation there where, 'cause I didn't recognize it. I mean, I didn't know that Robert Hayes was a comic act. So he was starring in a sitcom at the time. - So things like that, I sort of, I'm slightly disappointed in a way when I hear that. I'm like, oh, would that mean that if you were an American you went to see this, you'd go, oh, it's the bloke from the comedy show. - Yeah. - But you might get a situation if it's Barry Manolo that Barry Manolo was hugely famous and powerful. And so what if you'd had a situation where he went, this isn't funny? What if I just do this? What if I raise an eyebrow here? - I'll go, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. (laughing) - Yeah, I've got the feeling when he watched this, the writers, 'cause they said they, off they did Kentucky Fried movie, they said the only way to control our work was to direct. So this is their first, three of them directed it effectively. Well, apparently one of them did the ordering about and two of them got a monitor and watched it. - And about 80% of their job was just being Taliban about things and going, no, we can't do it now, it's got to look like this, it's got to stop smiling, don't do a double take. Can you imagine how much, they rain Steven Stucker in? Imagine what it was like on the first take. - Well, weirdly, he's allowed, now I understand he's like, on a rummstringer, whatever, he's like gone, he's allowed to run around, but also I suppose no one else reacts to anything he says and does. - That's what's fun. - So that's the other thing. - It's almost like you're testing them, you're putting a court joker. - Only now have I realized that I unlocked the case. They all seen jokes I hadn't landed with me before. But for some reason, so there's a joke where they're on the beach snogging and she goes, oh, let's go off down the coast or whatever and he goes, oh, I can't. And he lists this, he goes, my orders came through, we've got to go into, I've got to fly over Rio Grande, whatever it is, and he lists every detail of the mission and then she say, like, we're going in low so they won't expect it. And she says, when will you be back and he says, I can't tell you that, it's classified. (laughing) I only, for the first time only, I understood the joke. - You know, he's never noticed, I've been noticing that they were covered in seaweed. - Yes, yeah. - I'm thinking about that. - Do you only notice the mirror gag this time around? - Yeah, I've got the Robert Stacks that walks out of the mirror. - Yeah, I think it's just that. - There's a guy who got attacked by a dog behind you. - Yeah, it's quite distracted. - It's not a brilliant, like, contact style mirror reverse. - Yeah. - There's quite a few things as well that I discovered later are based on that are cultural references to things that we wouldn't have known. - Yes. - Like the so there's like, Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home. - Yeah. - So there's a line from an advert. Again, I was slightly disappointed when I heard that. It's like a, and apparently she was the woman in the advert. - Oh, that it was. - You used to it as a kid. You'd watch the monkeys and the banana splits and talk about that. - There's no one to line it. There's like, film at 11. - Yeah. - It's like that, that they would do it like, there's that point counter point. - I'll hear them. - They bought their tickets. I say, let them crack. (laughing) Just still relevant today. That's basically Katie Hopkins. - I remember thinking of the line, give me ham on five, hold the mayo. - Yes. - When you talk to Ham, he's talking to the mayo clinic. I remember thinking, there's something in that line that I don't understand. - But the mayo clinic I only sort of, only this time watching it, did I, am I aware that the mayo clinic is a real thing? - The mayo clinic is no. - The mayo clinic is an American sort of health institution. - That's why there's Hellman's mayo. It's sort of like there's a whole wall of mayo. - A whole time. - That's just a stupid joke. - But the mayo clinic is a real thing. - Do you know what I think with this, your favorite joke is one that, oh, you were to a cinema to hear it, but I always liked, you sort of actually rate some jokes that you got, I bet no one else got that. And when he watched the commentary, I said, "Oh, that never got a big laugh. We left it." There's a couple of gags in there. I really like the one where he's doing the painting with the guy risking the baby from the Jeep. - Yeah. - So it's being painted from life and the guy, because the first joke is that the painting is fucking awful anatomy. - The painting is awful anatomy. - His legs bad. - His head. I've got a contortionist here, so it's a completely accurate representation. - That gag, I think, for ages is my favorite joke in it, 'cause I used to watch as a kid go, I bet no one else liked that gag as much as I did. You could sort of own some of the jokes you went there for Americans, some of the jokes you went there for me. - Yeah. - There were so many jokes you could choose your favorite. - So that's an example of you see, I think when I saw that joke, I reacted slightly, so I thought that it's Maddie's got his little line of his head. But I thought it was the joke was that it's a very disturbing painting. It was sort of like a hilariously distinct, 'cause he's holding a baby upside down, firing a machine gun in the wreckage of a plant. I thought that's a funny thing for a disturbed pilot. - Yes. - Very painting. And then yes, and then they cut to the guy, that amazing contortionist. (upbeat music) - There's another moment that I've forgotten about that. It's again a little, just a moment in it. It's very well observed, I think there's a bit, when it's coming into land and they do a thing where they go around the world, the different global newsrooms. - Yeah, and they share like somebody going, "Ah, the plane is in May crash at Chicago Airport." - This horn just ended. - It's the helicopter going to Japan, sort of saying it in Japanese. And also in the background, so in the American one a picture of a plane comes up. And the Japanese one are sort of like, Japanese painting of the plane. (laughing) And then it cuts to like a bloke into like a grass skirt. He's meant to be like, I don't know, polonese, you know, or something like, with like a xylophone type thing and two wooden sticks that he's going, (laughing) that he's handed the thing. And A, he's got a sort of like a carving of a plane. Right? And also he starts doing it. And then it cuts to another camera, and then he follows it. And delivers it down. (laughing) (upbeat music) The rest of the sort of more-- - Pull forever of a musical. Down that into another camera for the second sentence. (laughing) It was just like, they didn't have to do that. But that's very, very funny. - Get that finger out of your ear. You don't know what that finger's been. - What's lucky about airplanes? Well, 'cause it's sort of a slightly edgy, the jokes are supposed to be the most shocking thing you can say over a movie. - Yeah. - What's amazing is how much of it is dated fine. You think we'd have lost more jokes. And some of the stuff they can tell, luckily, I think probably wouldn't be in there. But the fact is, I've got nice things to call gags and things to it, but they still work. It's got quite a good heart to it. - I mean, are you slightly going, now you watch it, and you just slightly go. (sniffing) - Yeah. - I mean, it was, it's easy to forget that Peter Files would generally regard it as funny. - Yeah. - In 1929, that it was like jokes about scout masters and such a diggers and stuff. And it was all a bit. - Yeah. - Isn't over reading modern sperm, magazine. - Yes. (laughing) - Actually, the art department is so a bit of credit on this as well, don't they? Because like, you know, the boy reading nuns life and the non-reading boy's life and all the things like the cod Spanish on the. - I know, I know, I know. - Just that the first one. - Who's smoking? - Put on a your seat belt. - Yeah. - Put on a seat down there. I like the no-shagging sign, the lights. - Yeah, it's the pizza design. - There's no smoking, no-shagging. It's a great, but we used to do art department passes on touch of cloth that once you fill the film with jokes, you can always get the art department to have some fun on top. There's a joke, now here's a joke, I definitely very much remember from seeing it as a child in the cinema and thinking, this is naughty, but also I think that's a brilliant joke and I don't understand why. And that's the bit where everyone panics. There's that shot of everyone panicking and for no reason a topless woman runs into the middle of frame and just jiggles her tits around and then leaves. Also, it's just for no reason. It is like, which should again, you should watch that now and go, that's a bit. But weirdly, it's so gratuitous, it becomes so, it's so fucking stupid. But it's almost a joke about the way that you do a topless scene in those kind of films to make them feel a bit race you. It's almost like saying, it's having it's like an eating it. I don't quite know, what the joke is there? - I remember doing that gag in touch of cloth where there was a scene where Saram was going to get out of bed. - Yes. - So we're going to play to a body double. - That you see, I think that's very, because that feels like a different joke to me. In that I think the tits in airplane is just like, for me, the joke, the reason I thought it was funny was, I think I just thought it's chaos. What they tell you to it's chaos on board. It's chaos, chaos, chaos, even more chaos. What's more chaotic? A pair of tits for no reason. Like, right in your face. And then so, yeah, in cloth, yes, it was, I remember that was because we noticed, there's maybe it's worth pointing out that again, while we were slavishly trying to ape the airplane formula, another thing we did was we taped the real thing. And I remember at one point there was a thing where we realized it was best not to watch the full episodes of things, but to go, can we have all the crime scene sequences randomly in like together? All the scenes where the detective is in a pub, on his own, or the confession scenes together, because then they devoid of context, and they become even, you sort of notice, just seem to remember that we'd noticed, whenever you see a woman waking up in a film, there would be a gratuitous bum shot. Sometimes they'd do it with bloats, usually with a woman, she wakes up and you see an ass, and often it's a body double as well, and so, yes, that's one of my favorite shots in the whole of cloth, is that we got a guy. What's good is that it's a guy whose, his body's not so revolting, but it's like that's the joke. It's just sort of a bum-gammerous. It's a very average bloke. So, sort of getting, I think you can see a bit of his balls he's been staring to put on the pants, and it's a bit slightly fudges it as he's getting the noise. I think, I remember writing that thinking, this is kind of a, I remember thinking at the time, this is kind of a double joke, because it's an airplane going, if you're putting nudity in a thing that's meant to be a comedy, there's almost a way you have to, on a bound to either make it so ridiculous that you go, really, what a gratuitous ass. I think it's get away with a ball. It's such a, it's definitely because the, well, and the joke is clear. And it's just, also, it cuts back to it. Yeah. It's sort of cuts to Saran's face. And then it cuts back to the bloke, (LAUGHS) leaving the room. Like we haven't noticed, it's the worst body double that's ever been employed. The person, the body double, didn't turn up, so they had to sort of get like the black one of the cage of it. (LAUGHS) They've got this thing with a borrowing a whole of a film, which you can nick stuff from. If you go on YouTube, there's a side-by-side comparison thing where it plays a bit of zero, and then a bit of airplane. You can see how they did it. I've got zero on DVD, I'm, it's okay. It's watchable. But then what they also do is they watched every other fucking airplane film they can do. And as you said, every joke about airports you can do. From the reason they didn't do airplane too, they said let's do a sequel, they call it airplane too, and they went, "We've used every joke." It's 30 drafts, they've written every joke you can do about airports. It's done. Airplane too, I also saw in the same cinema. And I remember being a little disappointed, but I'm sure I wasn't aware why I was slightly disappointed, but it was, it will have been because I didn't really know what it was about. Yeah. It's like a space shuttle, all of a sudden. There are some really good jokes. There's a good joke with William Shatter on a door. What about the one of our members? No, no, no, there's a really good joke, and it, which, it's always in the sort of, it's like space command type area, isn't it? And there's a bit where he walks past, there's two guys with a sort of big piece of equipment there, with lights all over it, and he goes something like, have you worked it out yet, and they go, "No, we don't know what it does. It's just this light." It's just a light that goes backwards and forwards, and then sometimes this thing goes deep. One of the Zucker or Abraham's or Zucker said of airplane too, it's a parody of a thing that doesn't exist. There isn't going into space and it going wrong. So is top secret, so we should have f*ck it. Well, it's four things that exist at one, but you've stuff to do. But again, that's flagging up the thing, maybe they even they didn't know at the time, that the audience needs to have some very solid handrails if you're going to be this silly. Yeah. They claim they've never seen airplane too. They had nothing to do with it. You can tell when you go off-piece, you lose the audience really. There's a reason there was no airplane, three. I mean, you mentioned earlier on about loving sort of the goodies and sketch shows and things like that. And what's interesting with that kind of joke where everything's up for grabs, the multiply, then you can do anything you like, holy grail kind of thing. There aren't many films that have successfully done that. And this is now regarding, it's critically, it's like 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, it's in the AFI's top 500 American movies, it's a classic. And maybe it's just because there aren't many of them. And when you look at the other people who do them, there aren't many of Mel Brooks' you'd put in the top 500. That are just gag, gag, gag, gag films. Don't tend to be this good or this popular. No, they just got everything right. And I haven't never met anyone who doesn't like airplane. Even I don't think I've met anyone who doesn't love airplane. If you mention airplane to anyone who seen it, they go, "Oh, that's a brilliant." Like, you'd watch it if it was on. If you caught 10 minutes a bit, you sort of have to, and you will find you will enjoy something in you every time. And it's interesting that it's a real crowd pleaser. Like, by definition, everyone seems to love it, who's seen it. Yet it contains such a mixture of gagging it. It's got very clever parodies. It's got ridiculous or crazy, like, weird watermelons falling from the sky for no reason. It's got some shitting, a foul shit. It's got that shit, literally human shit being thrown into a fan. And it's got like weirdly, you know, almost brass-signed levels of sort of like eerie, like the pilot asking, you know, if you've ever been in a Turkish prison, that's really abrasive, that's daring and strange and weird. And yet, there's lots of stuff that feels like it could be in the two ronies. It's sort of, it's four candles, meets the day-to-day, basically what it is. And so it's, I remember being incredibly, finding it incredibly exciting, that you could make a film that was that. That was not something that had occurred to me. I'd seen the goodies, and I'd seen sort of sketch comedies and things like that. And it never occurred to me that you could make. Why not make that, as a film? Because films are fucking ridiculous. And it's weird that it doesn't happen very often, or when it does happen, comedies that have to be really flagged up, don't they, as this is a comedy. I don't like it when things have to have comedy in the name. Cos it's supposed to be known as the comedy about. But after this came out, and obviously it was a huge influence on people, because everybody loved it. And it was made again and again, but within a few years, that form has been debased and demeaned to the point where, if you said to a film fan, do you like airplane? Yes. Do you like scary movie? There you go. Oh no. And immediately the thing that it was doing, even hot shots, we all said, "I haven't seen that." I assume, do you suck that Dracula dead and loving it? Weirdly, the first one of these that really, really hit. And then no one ever does it again as well. And it still stays there as the original, and the one no one's ever managed to hit. The first naked gun was like, that was, I remember, that was a big hit. I'm sure I saw that in the same fucking cinema. I said, I must have been locked in that cinema. I'm here to this. Someone let him out of the corner, James. I'm sure I saw the naked gun in the same cinema and thinking, start thinking great, because it's got that only sequence where the, you know, 'cause I'd seen police squad as well. And the only sequence with the flashing light going through the rollercoaster and changing room and all the jokes. It's got lots of jokes. But then as the naked gun movies went on, it was like diminishing returns. I guess black-earning went on. There's still some good jokes in even the third one, I think. There's good jokes in most of these movies, but they don't have, there's something sort of rigorous about airplane. Yeah. So everyone starts misbehaving afterwards. It's because they've said, as you said, the reaction is, I can't believe you can do this. I can't believe you can make a film like this. A whiff point everyone goes, well, you can do anything. And the thing of, of course, that they found out is, you can't do anything. They did 30 drafts of this script. They used to record audience reactions to it onto audio and then edit based on what. So it's been through a really rigorous testing process to say everyone of these jokes has been tested. It was like sort of, they started writing it 74, it doesn't come out at all 80. It's the best one of these because it's really been tested like a plane. I just want to tell you both good luck where I'll carry on. Actually, our dust ring about, which is that, but this was them talking about a joke that's in naked guns. There's that bit where the bad guy falls off a building. Like I think he bounces off a flagpole and off an awning and then he lands on his feet. Like unexpectedly lands on his feet and he's fine and he sort of goes, oh, and then a lion. (laughing) But nowhere comes in and mulls him to the ground. Right, and I remember, I remember really laughing like, fuck, when I saw that. And the audience really laughing like that. And then years later, I read that when they first, they first test screenings, the joke didn't work. And they couldn't understand why the joke didn't work. And the reason the joke didn't work is they had included a shot of the lion jumping before, so it had cut to the lion jumping before it mulled it. And once they took it out, it was brilliant. (laughing) So it's precision tool because it comes in slightly and elegantly and like, that's not partly why it's so unexpected is that it sort of, the timing of it is not quite, it's just, it's just thrown a lion at it. (laughing) But the way you describe that, the only place you see jokes like that pulled off as well now, probably the Simpsons Animation, which is running at that airplane gag speed where you can throw, I'm not think of Homer falling down the gorge in that classic thing. - Yes. - I hadn't thought of that, but the Simpsons and airplane are real bedfellows. - Yeah, yeah. - They're basically, well you talk to Simpsons writer, they're all big mad magazine fans, and maybe it's all to do with saying, we want to make comedy that feels as under the covers, thrilling and funny as mad magazine was. - It's that thing where it flatters you and amuses you at the same time, doesn't it? So the Simpsons, when it does things that are very well observed, that you sort of feel like it's a private joke that somebody's making, like, oh you've noticed that this is fucking ridiculous as well, haven't you? And it's ridiculous in this way, but I'm not gonna make a big song and dance about it, I'm just gonna sort of show you an example of it that slightly turned up and we all agree, we're all the club of people who regard this as ludicrous. I suppose what airplane is as a movie is, it's a film that says, aren't film silly. And that's a joke that you go, oh that's kind of a bit subversive as a kid. - This is a very animation, it's a short early on when that woman is singing to the, when the students start singing to the sick girl. And there's like, everyone's smiling and leaning in and smiling, and there's like a bloke from no reason leans in from the top of the frame. She's like, you can fit in another smiling person that you get the joke, which is, this is clawing and it's overdone and it's ridiculous. Without it, I don't know how that would have made sense on paper, like trying to describe that joke. That's why they had to direct this film 'cause trying to describe that joke on paper would be very difficult. - Yeah, someone would say no, we're not having a guy in a harness. But again, on screen, again, they're treating everyone like cartoon, I'm a bit of animation. They've got total control of the frame. I suppose that's, the reason I don't make many of these films, that production method were a bunch of stupid people who were giggling, got complete control of production. And no one said no. No one said no, they got everything right. It's straight, I think, yeah, it doesn't happen very often. And I don't know why, because it so clearly worked. - Yeah. - And it seems like there's a lot of fairly simple rules you could follow. But you could compare what you're, I don't know, maybe they're just brilliant at doing it. I mean, there's that. Maybe that's how I can close, we could come to the conclusion. The reason the airplane is brilliant is because it is brilliant. Even the bits that I didn't realize were brilliant. Everyone is doing the right thing in it. - Yes. - I made all the right decision. And they were, I think it's to do with an obviously obsessive and innate. attention to detail because it's like this isn't right until this is just so and I think I suspect that's at the root of it because I think no one ever wants to say about comedy is it's not splashy it's precise it's boring like it's like it's pedantic often it's like really pedantic for a reason that you can't quite articulate it's like you have to sit there it's uh Christos there's a lot in Brassie doesn't it's like where the edits are so the sound effect or the way it cuts from you know the the degree of sarcasm that's being exhibited in the edit is so precise yeah that it would be you could not write that down you can't sort of teach it to someone and someone you it has to be something that an obsessive person is there and isn't happy and cannot leave until just so which in a way should be awful comedy is hell yeah you've got to I suppose the hardest thing why imagine maybe that's why this is rare is to hold concentration and discipline for something which at any moment you're gonna go hang on I've just edited a thing where some shit went into a fan what am I doing with my life I should stop I should go and make the godfather it's very rare for that level of precision to be applied to something which is throw away and stupid and it just meant to make you laugh it does slightly remind me slightly reminds me because I think a lot the time a lot of my job is about being a fucking pedantic boring prick basically and so a lot of the so it's on the white shows a lot of the time in the edit it's to do with now it's got to well hang on no another couple of frames it's literally like like and then on something like black mirror often with the design of things you're constantly saying you can't no we can't it can't do that no the compute we've got to take that noise off because that computer wouldn't make that noise because when you have a computer it doesn't go be a boom boom but you drive you fucking crazy so you're like constantly being a killjoy in many ways you're constantly sort of going that's very interesting that you've designed this operating system for everything spins around but I it's it makes it look unreal on some level so let's make it really boring and then and then and I think with a lot of the time it's knowing when they know when to do that in this they know when to and they know when to not do it that's the weird thing they know when to go fucking ridiculous they get away with like the joke where she's sort of giving the autopilot a blowjob yeah they sort of get away with because it's fucking stupid yeah but really if it was all that it would be unwatchable yes that's a glimpse of how bad and they get it's how they've earned a bad moment in a way by being brilliant everywhere oh yeah I mean the the the first Les Yenielsen's first entry excuse me Stuart is I think the man next to me is a doctor and he's sitting there asleep with a step he's going to do you know what we'd all reach for that gag but they really earned it by the yeah you get all of them because it's you know you're on a safe pair of hands it is oddly in the disaster movie you know someone is in control and it's these guys because they've been rigorous you know the film's not gonna crash so you let them do sort of bad taste jokes or jokes that are cheesy things that would be in the two runies basically you let them do all these registers so at the end of it you end up with a smog as board of comedy with all available flavors it's a buffet where everything's there so of course it ends up in the AFI top 500 because if you're going to see a comedy film it's a definitive comedy film it shows you all the colors and tones you can do in your comedy yeah it's a fucking good workout isn't it it's basically a sort of I'd be quite happy if all other comedy films were deleted well I'd be quite relaxed about that's decided we're wiping everything else oh that's a great point to finish if we're going to delete all other comedy and only have airplane and you get the Bible and Shakespeare and that's it robo cops just been deleted that's okay it counts as sci-fi thank you for bringing airplane thanks Charlie thanks Charlie cheers I just want to tell you both good luck we're all coming on