The Original Of Steven Slater

The late, great Stephen Stucker (with Lee Terri) in Airplane!,Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, 1980.

Comments

[G Jimson]

"Can you make anything out of this"?

[Chris O.]

Stucker in AIRPLANE is one of the rare quality cinematic examples of the human embodiment of Daffy Duck you can see.

And, yeah, I like to imagine Slater bouncing off the emergency chute all "woo-hoowoo-hoowoo-hoo"-like as well.

[LexG]

I saw Airplane! for the first time when it hit HBO (1981 or 1982); I was eight-nine years old and thought this dude was hilarious... At that age, I had no concept of what gay was, or that Stucker's character was so proudly flamboyant. He was just "that funny guy!" that I got a huge kick out of. I'd go around imitating him saying "The tower? The tower? Rapunzel!" in this mincing voice and twirling about, because it just seemed funny to my child brain. NO idea what my chain-smoking, beer-guzzling war vet uncles made of Li'l Lex going around twirling his arms like a flamboyant queen. When they'd stare sans laughter, I don't think my crickets-chirping "You know! The funny guy from Airplane!" explanation was much comfort.

Between idolizing this guy, and my mom watching The Goodbye Girl with me in the room every single day of my childhood ever, it is a FUCKING MIRACLE I grew up to like vag.

[Owain Wilson]

Stephen Stucker is remarkable.

And so is The Goodbye Girl. To me, it's the archetypal 1970s New York romantic comedy with 'one of those' theme songs, the kind that later morphed into the Kate & Alley theme. Whatever happened to the great New York romantic comedy song? 'The Goodbye Girl', 'Arthur's Theme' ... all magical.

[Ed Hulse]

"Toto! Auntie Em! It's a twister!"

I was in L.A. the week AIRPLANE opened and saw it at Grauman's Chinese, which was packed. I have never been to a movie theater, before or since, that reverberated with laughter the way the Chinese did that night. You'd have thought another earthquake had hit -- a 90-minute-long earthquake. A couple days later I visited the film's producer, Jon Davison, who'd just gotten his own office at Paramount. Nobody was more surprised that AIRPLANE took off the way it did, and he parlayed the film's success into a fairly lengthy stay on the lot.

[Keith Uhlich]

"How about some coffee, Johnny?"

[Fitz]

God thank you I have been thinking this non stop! "Well i can make a pterydactol"

[Mr. Peel]

"Just like Gerald Ford."

[brad]

There's a sale at Penney's!

[Griff]

"Nick, Heath, Jarrod -- there's a fire in the barn!"

[lipranzer]

"And Leon's getting LARGER!"