The creators of the movie Airplane!—don’t call them Shirley—are coming out with a new book about the making of the cult classic comedy, the Associated Press reports.
St. Martin’s will publish Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! this fall. The press describes the book, written by the film’s writers and directors—David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker—as “an in-depth and hysterical look” at the movie’s creation.
Airplane!, which parodied disaster movies like Zero Hour! and Airport 1975, was released in 1980, and is now considered a classic of the comedy genre. The film featured deadpan performances by actors including Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and iconic lines from the movie (“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines”) are still quoted today by fans.
“With anecdotes, behind the scenes trivia and never-before-known factoids, these titans of comedy filmmaking unpack everything from how they got Peter Graves to play his first comedy role after a career of ‘straight’ roles, who was the prankster on set, to that jive talk scene!” St. Martin’s says. “The book also features testimonies and personal anecdotes from well-known faces in the film, television, and comedy sphere—proving how influential Airplane! has been from day one.”
Surely You Can’t Be Serious is slated for publication on Oct. 3.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
