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'I Speak Jive': 12 Stories of a Hilarious Airplane! Joke That Might Not Fly Today

MovieMaker Magazine
Story by Tim Molloy
scrn logline
A classic Airplane! comedy bit about a hilarious jive scene that may not fly today, as told through 12 behind-the-scenes stories of its creation.
beat sheet
  • The jive scene was inspired by the slang-heavy dialogue in the 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft, as the Airplane! writers - three
  • - tried to capture humor from white people's befuddlement over Black vernacular.
call sheet
Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, Norman Alexander Gibbs, Al White, Barbara Billingsley, Randy (Lorna Patterson), Richard Roundtree, August Wilson, Tony Dow, Jerry Mathers, Hugh Beaumont, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, American Conservatory Theater, Paramount, Airplane!, Shaft, Gem of the Ocean, The Bionic Woman, Colombo, Roots: The Next Generations, Hill Street Blues, Runaway Train, Blue Thunder, Leave It to Beaver, The Kentucky Fried Movie
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