Jim Abrahams, who pioneered spoof comedy films like Airplane and Naked Gun, dead at 80

Jim Abrahams, one of the creators of wacky, slapstick comedy classics such as Airplane and the Naked Gun series, has died at the age of 80.  

The writer and director died at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., his son Joseph told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday. 

In his work with brothers Jerry and David Zucker, Abrahams was a pioneer of the spoof comedy. The filmmaking trio, referred to as “ZAZ” for their last names, honed a style characterized by wild physical comedy, sight gags, double meanings and endless puns, helping to seal their place in comedy history. 

Abrahams was born in Shorewood, Wis., in 1944 to Jewish parents and studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which the Zucker brothers also attended. The friends began their careers on stage in a sketch-revue show called Kentucky Fried Theatre, which later became their first film, 1977’s Kentucky Fried Movie. 

It was with their second film, Airplane, that Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker made their mark. 

The parody plays on the dramatic, heightened environment of disaster films, pulling much of its dialogue and plot straight from the 1957 plane thriller Zero Hour! 

In Airplane, a former military pilot has to land a commercial plane after everyone else on board falls ill due to food poisoning. Packed with jokes that come at a near-relentless pace — like references to the main character having a “drinking problem,” which is then revealed as an inability to drink liquids without spilling them — the film was a critical and commercial success. 

One of its most enduring scenes is the iconic exchange between two characters Ted Striker, played by Robert Hays and Dr. Rumack, played by Leslie Nielsen. When Striker is told he has to land the plane, he says “Surely, you can’t be serious,” to which Rumack responds, “I am serious — and don’t call me Shirley.” 

The film, often called one of the best comedy films of all time, was selected in 2010 by the U.S. Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry due to its cultural impact. 

Movie lovers and fans of Abrahams’s work took to social media after the news of his death to honour the filmmaker, with many sharing scenes from his films in tribute. 

“RIP, Jim Abrahams, 1/3 of the greatest comedy trio of all time,” one user stated on X, calling Airplane, “stupid yet brilliant.”

Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker created the short-lived TV series Police Squad in 1982, an idea that would later be resurrected as the Naked Gun film series. 

The series followed hapless police detective Frank Drebin, played by the late Nielsen. Abrahams is credited as a writer and executive producer on the first film, 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, in which Drebin attempts to stop the assassination of Queen Elizabeth II during a baseball game. He was an executive producer on the following two films, The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. 

Other key ZAZ films include 1984’s absurd, gun-slinging musical Top Secret, starring Val Kilmer. According to film critic Roger Ebert, this was the filmmaking trio’s best movie — though he also said describing the plot “would be an exercise in futility.”

Abrahams also directed and wrote several films on his own, including Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux in the early 1990s, which parodied Top Gun, and 1998’s spoof comedy Mafia!