Airplane! (1980) was a new kind of motion-picture comedy. It skillfully satirized a popular film genre (category), one that was dramatic and serious in nature yet at the same time ripe for parody. In the case of Airplane!, the genre to be made fun of was the disaster movie (see entry under 1970s—Film and Theater in volume 4), set on board a commercial airplane or an ocean liner. In such films, the plane or ship becomes imperiled in mid-journey, and is in danger of crashing or sinking.

Airplane! may be most directly linked to Zero Hour (1957), scripted by Arthur Hailey (1920–) and based on his television (see entry under 1940s—TV and Radio in volume 3) play "Flight Into Danger" (1955). However, the film's most celebrated film ancestors are Airport (1970), based on a best-selling novel by Hailey, and its three sequels: Airport 1975 (1974); Airport '77 (1977); and The Concorde—Airport '79 (1979). The standard storyline...