Zero Hour!

The news is depressing. 

So, it was great to catch Zero Hour! which was the "straight" film that was a major inspiration of Airplane! I enjoyed it quite much.  

The film works on two levels. First, it is a pretty good little 1950s disaster film. Second, if you watched Airplane!, you would recognize a chunk of stuff. 

Ted Stryker has bad flashbacks from his wartime experiences, which makes it ironic when he has to fly the plane after a burst of food poisoning. There a little boy named "Joey." A doctor who says, "that isn't important now." A flight official who picked a bad week to stop smoking. And lots more.  

The wife here is named "Ellen" while in the other film it's "Elaine." The kid isn't theirs. But the overlap is rather amazing. Plus, you can see how the writers saw the comic potential in all of this. For instance, more than one character are a tad over the top.  

When the original and parody are both good, you are doing okay. I do wonder why they had the Germany mission so late in the war. April 10, 1945? 

We seem to have picked a month when well-known people died. Lou Dobbs died. 

More importantly, Bob Newhart died. I'm of the generation who saw him on Newhart, as the inn keeper. Julia Duffy (Stephanie) posted on Twitter that she was the only one left of the main cast.  

I saw him in various other things, including in Elf. A long time ago, I listened to one of his comedy albums on an old record player. You now can check out his amusing routines on YouTube. He was a gem.

There are other well-known actors in their 90s so we will have other chances to remember soon.