I just finished the book, “Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!” — it’s an oral history of the movie “Airplane!” I didn’t know much about the three guys behind the movie: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker. They were friends who grew up in Wisconsin together. They started a sketch comedy show in Madison, then moved the entire thing to Los Angeles. From there, they made their first movie, “Kentucky Fried Movie,” before eventually hitting it big with “Airplane!”
But throughout the book, they shared that they had a few ideas that might have been huge:
When we still thought of ourselves as a TV sketch group, we had the idea of doing a national show with comedy sketches and musical acts. It was essentially the idea for “Saturday Night Live.” We took it to our William Morris agent, and she said, “Nah, that’s not a good idea.”
Stupid — not her, us for listening.
It’s a nice reminder that you should listen to your gut. Like with “Kentucky Fried Movie.” They wanted to film a teaser of the movie — 10 minutes of sketches that they could show to studios. They couldn’t get someone else to fund the thing, so they put up the money to film it themselves. That got them the funding for the movie, which went on to make more than $7 million at the box office.
Some ideas are a little ahead of their time. If you believe in it, go for it.