Jim Abrahams, a writer-director best known for his work with Jerry and David Zucker, has died. The trio were responsible for some of the greatest comedies of the 1980s, including Airplane!, The Naked Gun, Top Secret! and Ruthless People. He also co-wrote and directed Hot Shots! in 1991 and its sequel in 1993. He was 80.
Abrahams and the Zucker brothers, better known by the acronym ZAZ when they hit fame, focused on parody and being “fast, frenetic,” and silly, most importantly. Airplane! was born from Zero Hour! in 1957, which provided a script and blueprint for ZAZ to play around with and create their comedic classic. They paid $2,500 to secure the rights to the film, taking its plot and dialogue almost word-for-word and even naming the main character Ted Striker, played with real drama by Dana Andrews in the original film and Robert Hays in the parody.
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“The biggest struggle was to cast straight actors as opposed to comedians,” Abrahams said in 2019. “At first, Paramount was resistant to that idea. They didn’t quite understand why we wanted to do something like that. There was something very endearing about those four actors spoofing themselves in the movie. In essence, they had had full careers, and they were kind of having a laugh at their own expense.”
They followed Airplane! with Police Squad, bringing back Leslie Nielsen from Airplane! to play Detective Frank Drebin, earning an Emmy nomination despite the series only airing six episodes before being canceled and sent floating out into the sea of syndication.
Abrahams and company jumped the concept to the big screen and a franchise was birthed. All made possible by three childhood friends who would go on to found the Kentucky Fried Theater in Madison, Wisconsin, which was also later turned into a movie directed by John Landis.
Away from his collaborators, Abrahams also directed films like Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, Jane Austen’s Mafia, and the Hot Shots films. It’s a hell of a career, even if you’re putting out silly jokes for a living.
