MARCH MADNESS 2022 - DAY 11
🕑 Added 2022-03-11 17:01:04 +0000 UTCOver at Blank Check HQ, we're pleasantly surprised that PSYCHO and Norman Bates live on to see another day!
Up today, we have another franchise that time has forgotten...up against a franchise that was VERY of its time:
It's AIRPORT vs THE NAKED GUN.

AIRPORT was a movie that took a bunch of aging Hollywood stars and stuck them on a plane that was about to blow up. For whatever reason, it was nominated for a bunch of Oscars (including Best Picture!) and they made three more of them!
An AIRPORT series consists of:
AIRPORT (1970)
AIRPORT 1975
AIRPORT '77
THE CONCORDE - AIRPORT '79
The massive success of the Airport movies inspired the team of Zucker-Abrams-Zucker to make their 1980 classic spoof comedy AIRPLANE!...which brings us to THE NAKED GUN.
Z-A-Z and AIRPLANE! star Leslie Nielsen teamed up to make another series of spoofs - this time, of crime shows. First with the tv series POLICE SQUAD! and then a trilogy of comedies starring Nielsen, AIRPORT star George Kennedy, and.......OJ Simpson.
The NAKED GUN series is:
THE NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD (1988)
THE NAKED GUN 2 1/2: THE SMELL OF FEAR (1991)
THE NAKED GUN 33 1/3: THE FINAL INSULT (1994)
So really, it comes down to Academy Award-Winner Helen Hayes vs "The Juice".
WHO WINS?
Comments
Olympian Comics
I guess everyone loves seeing OJ
Robert Young
I think the Airport films are a really important forgotten cultural artifact that needs close examination. When I was a kid in the 80s, the Airplane films were on TV all the time, but the Airport had all but disappeared, leaving this weird hole in the culture around which jokes were made.
Daniel Citron
Do you think they would also cover Police Squad! as part of the Naked Gun series?
Louis IV
Griff and Ben did the first Naked Gun last year with the live commentary series and it was a blast. Would absolutely go for some more of that
Jamie Bruno
I’ve been swimming in raw sewage. I love it.
Lundon Boyd
People won’t believe it but these serious airport movies are funnier
Rad Rodge
Yeah the big Irwin Allens could really really be a cool Patreon series for blockbuster prehistory that gets overlooked because of the brighter light radiating off of Spielberg and Lucas, similarly to Planet of the Apes
Scott Southard
Naked Gun winning this one would make my year.
PG
I'd be more interested in ZAZ on the main feed because Top Secret and Kentucky Fried Movie are pretty interesting.
Andrew Carden
AIRPORT '79 has Charo. Enough said.
Jim Portant
I thought this was a “no bits” podcast
Ryan Sosa
Naked Gun, while great, has been talked to death. I want to learn more about the movies that inspired ZAZ .
Tim Turner
I'm all-in on AIRPORT here. Naked Gun rules but I think it would lead to bad commentaries since there are so few breaks between jokes to make comments.
Nolan Murphy
Come on guys, deep dive into weird 70s disaster movies would be more interesting than Naked Gun
Sean Sakimae
The absolute genius of The Naked Gun (:From the Files of Police Squad) needs to be further discussed. Everyone playing it straight, maximizing the laughs... WHEN this ep happens, I'm going to be laughing at Griffin and David just MENTIONING the jokes.
Jordan Coleman
Halloween should have won for the schlock. Can’t say I care about these choices
Jan Hammer-Sledge
Agreed on main feed zaz especially if it also includes the post zaz oeuvre of their solo efforts
Uncle Frankie
Never heard of Airport , seemed like a wacky series to explore.
J. Bailey Burcham
The Naked Gun series and UHF live in my blood and bones.
Miguel Arteaga
Voted for The Naked Gun but a main feed miniseries on ZAZ would be really interesting tbh
Adam Rich
It’s the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day
Addison Godel
Airport probably has some clunkers, but would be SO much more interesting --- imagine the tangents on all those crazy casts! Tons of people we've never heard TTF discuss. The Naked Gun movies are pretty blah in my recent experience.
Devin Luke
Hey, it's Enrico Pallazzo!
Andrew Amon
Gotta hear Bennie laugh about "The Juice" , Grif give a back ground on the trail.
Zef Wagner
I used to watch those Naked Gun movies all the time as a kid, and I'm guessing most of the references didn't even make sense to me but I still thought they were hilarious. I've never seen them since I was a child, so would be fun to revisit them.
Matthew Harper
I low key want an Abrams miniseries, but would settle for Naked Gun.
Austin Ato
Look at that amazing Airport cast photo... Burt and Dean's tans match the decor of the plane's interior.
Mark Young
I voted AIRPORT just because I've never seen a single one of those movies.
Ben Mineo
Yes, but it's Airport
Alexander I Switzky
do Airplane as part of Naked Gun you cowards
Johnny Pomatto
We all love NAKED GUN, but highly recommend the AIRPORT series if you want to see something equally as funny but for all the wrong reasons. Also, the star power is off the charts.
jscro
Oh, Airport all the way. That series is NUTS. Plus, no O.J.
Leo Martin
The airport movies are great. In Airport Dean Martin plays a pilot yet comes across as drunk in every scene and the ending is absolutely bonkers. In Airport 75 Gloria Swanson is in it for some reason, in Airport 77 there is Jimmy Stewart and Christopher Lee, in 1979 The Concorde there is just so much insanity.
David Rollison
I'm giving Airport a courtesy vote
John Carroll
Why do people think they are doing airplane?
Jessica Elsener
I think I've lost every bracket, on this and on the main site, so far.
PoorFrisco
I want Airport because I know absolutely nothing about those movies
Pete Grant
Guys, the Airport series is so great. It lurches to self-parody by 77 for sure, but the casts alone are worth a series. The original Airport is a really great. Also,, if anyone had a blank check it was Irwin Allen.
Jessica Elsener
I voted for NG.
Jeremy Frank
Here's the thing: Naked Gun is better. Airplane gets WEIRDER
John Blood
No contest.
Matej Semes
Airplane because the sequels are really bonkers!
Jacob
I want to see Airplane minus the jokes.