Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today I thought we'd do another You Should Laugh More post.

Research has shown that laughter is good for us. It has all kinds of health benefits. Despite most of us knowing this, none of us laugh enough. Yeah, I know, being an adult is tough, and furthermore there is a lot of grim stuff happening in the world. These things may be true, but that just is all the more reason for trying to get a little laughter into our lives.

In my first post in this series I shared ten funny clips. In this post instead of a single clip, I want to take a look at one of my favorite films, Airplane.

Airplane is a 1980 spoof of the disaster films that were common at the time. It actually borrows most of the story of the 1957 disaster film Zero Hour, but then gives it an absurd spin. The genius twist is that almost all the actors were dramatic actors, many of them quite famous for being dramatic actors, and furthermore all of them were instructed to play their parts completely seriously. That makes everyone a straight-man in this film, and the comic then is the situations themselves. That may sound strange, but it works amazingly well, creating one of the funniest films of all time.

Note: This may include spoilers, but it's a comedy so the story isn't really the point anyway. That said, if you don't want anything spoiled, stop reading now.

I generally assume most people have heard of Airplane. It is usually considered one of the top comedies of all time. A UK survey put it as the second-greatest comedy, right behind Monty Python and the Life of Brian. Some lists even put it at number one. But recently I discovered that on YouTube Airplane is the topic of a great many reaction videos as young people discover the film for the first time. So I guess a lot of people here also haven't see it and it needs an introduction.

The story is typical disaster film. There is a disaster. A hero arises to save everyone. There is a moment or two of doubt but then he indeed does save everyone. But none of that is important. Around this basic framework is stuffed joke after joke after joke.

Best of all, Airplane introduced us to Leslie Nielsen.

If you've been on the internet for any length of time, I'm sure you've seen the Shirley joke. This joke may be what Nielsen is best remembered for. Well, either that, or Enrico Pallazzo 🤔. Naw, that's more of an inside joke and few of you will be laughing along with me on that one, but the Shirley joke... it will live forever.

Anyway, there isn't much more to tell. It's the comedy of comedies. Most of the jokes are stupid. There is little cleverness here. But the jokes are delivered so flatly and are just so stupid, that you just can't help but laugh.

I'll leave this little intro with a few more of the more well-known jokes from the film. If you enjoy any of these clips, I urge you to see the movie.

So what do you think? Did any of those clips make you laugh or were they just stupid? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.