Is this that this film doesn't age well or?

Honestly this movie looked dated to me when I first saw it in the late 80s and I was around 12 or 13 years old. I was 5 when the movie came out in 1980, but I don't remember it coming out and I was way too young to really get into a movie like this. But I consider this film nevertheless part of my growing up years.

I've always found this movie funny, but I distinctly remember thinking how old and dated it looked, and that was around 1988. So I can imagine someone who barely even remembers the late 80s (or younger) thinking Airplane! is just a horribly dated film. For instance the "jive talking" black guys were ridiculously dated by the mid-late 80s. The 70ish fashions, even though the movie takes place in 1980 really stuck out.

Since I was alive in the early 80s and I grew up in the 80s, I think I understood about 60% of the jokes when I first saw the film in the later 80s, but even for me there were many gags (especially the 70s themed gags) I didn't get b/c the references were from a time when I was either a baby or very small child. Ultimately if you don't like it, you don't like it. This is a film that many of us cherish, and many of us that grew up in the 80s thought it was dated film, even when we watched it during the later 80s.

All of the post that I don't agree with are dumb. Grow up. This IS the funniest movie ever made so there! 😡

Other than being a satire of aviation disaster movies, the film lampoons many nuances of popular culture and events of the time period. Many of these subjects are obscure, and have been forgotten in a historical context. So unless one lived through this period of time, many of the jokes will come up empty. I can understand someone of a younger age not relating to much of the humor presented in the film.

One of the things that sets up the whole film, is the use of actors that people my age grew up watching in the 50's and 60's. They had only played serious characters in serious films or TV shows. These were familiar faces to us, still maintaining their serious demeanor, but performing comedy. That in itself made the film funny. To a younger person, they're just anonymous middle age actors in a comedy film.

I watched it as a 15-year old in the theatre in 1980, I've watched it at least a couple dozen times since. Watched it last night, again. Sure it's aged, every movie does, but I STILL laugh at it. I still drop lines from it fairly frequently.... "Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop____".

No spoof film has ever reached the heights (no pun intended) of Airplane.

I can't see how this is rated higher than "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" for example which was the greatest comedy ever made.

Wow, you must have had a total sense of humour bypass if you don't find Airplane! funny.

Personally, I think it's an ageless film in that the humour transcends any decade and I'm sure people watching it for the first time 50 years from now will watch it with tears rolling down their face and aching sides from laughing so much.

No matter how many times I see Airplane! I still laugh as much as I did the first time I saw it so it never loses its appeal for me. Humour is humour and doesn't come in and out of fashion like clothes do - something is either funny or it's not and that's that!

I definitely recommend anyone who actually does have a sense of humour, and regardless of their age, to watch this film.

Oh, I would say there is one downside to Airplane! and that's O.J. Simpson, for very obvious reasons. Other than that it's amazing.

"Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" ... the greatest comedy ever made.

certain lines aren't going to make sense to younger people today who don't know who Anita Bryant or Ethel Merman were. Fortunately there are lots of other jokes that aren't tied to when the movie was made that are still funny.

A bigger issue might be that younger audiences aren't familiar with the target of the spoof, disaster film genre in general and airport disaster films in particular. These films were being released regularly in the 1960s - 1970s and audiences in 1980 were very familiar with them, today not so much, unless it's camp stuff like "Sharknado".