AIRPLOT 1975

AIRPORT 1975 (1974)
dir: Jack Smight

Airport inspired another sequel before sequels were all the rage, and by this time the disaster movie with the all-star cast was a full-fledged genre.
AIRPLOT '75
MAD #176, July 1975
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

MAD was obsessed with the barf bag for some reason, devoting at least three covers to one, and many mentions of them in articles. I've seen air sickness bags on planes and have experienced occasional air sickness, but I've never had to use one or seen one being used. Maybe they just thought the concept of a barf bag was funny, or just the word “barf”.

Jerry Stiller, who passed away earlier this year, has a credit lots of actors of higher stature don't. An appearance on the cover of MAD.

Airplot '75 opens with an establishing shot of most of the cast. Many are not named and do not show up later. There's Norman Fell and Jerry Stiller talking to Myrna Loy. Those two guys and Conrad Janis (the obscured bald head) play the comedy relief as three drunks. Gloria Swanson plays herself on board writing her memoirs.

There's an affair alluded to, one between flight instructor Alan Murdock (Charlton Heston) and stewardess Nancy Pryor (Karen Black, whom they missed out on an opportunity to call “Karen Blecch”).

Mrs. Patroni (Susan Clark) wife of Joe Patroni, the character played by George Kennedy, is on the flight. Rounding out the cast is co-pilot Julio (Erik Estrada).

Scotty Freeman (Dana Andrews, who happened to be the lead in Airplane! parody Zero Hour!) is a businessman taking his own flight in the bad weather.

A sick girl, Janice (Linda Blair), is in transit and one of the nuns offers to entertain her with her singing (probably why they cast Helen Reddy as Sister Ruth). I mentioned before Airplane! Was mostly taken from Zero Hour!, but it also borrowed this subplot.

The parodies of it from Airplane! are probably better known, though.

The jet has to land because of the fog and Scott Freeman's private plane, also in the air, also has to land.

The two planes have crashed into each other, killing and injuring the crew of the commercial jet, leaving Nancy the only one who can land it.

On the ground at the airport, reporter Glen Purcell (Larry Storch) is getting a story on this flight.

Now let's see Cracked's version, which they called the same thing...


AIRPLOT 1975
Cracked #127, September 1975
a: Sururi Gumen

Captain Stacy (Efram Zimbalist Jr.) is used on the first page here.

Linda Blair's previous film is referenced here too. They tried to put her in other things all throughout the 70s and 80s but she could never shed the image of her debut character.

Helen Reddy was best known for “I Am Woman”, so they had to reference that as well.

Two of the drunks played by Norman Fell and Jerry Stiller are used here.

Cracked also ended with a cliffhanger “coming soon” ending. There was no installment in 1976 but there was a later one the year after that with a completely different location and cast. The fact that George Kennedy existed in all Airport movies put them in the same universe.