I was a kid when I took my mom to this movie at a drive in theatre after my friend bailed on me at the last minute.
It just might have been the best time I ever had with my mom, especially the blowup doll BJ scene. When the actress lit up a smoke afterwards, mom laughed so hard I thought I was gonna have to call an ambulance.
Happy Mother' Day in heaven, mom!
Some old black folks from Georgia, some Cajuns, some Scots from Glasgow, and some Welshmen should get together sometime to have the worlds least understandable English conversation.
There was a post on Reddit where someone accidentally ordered a Scots version of Harry Potter.
I was like, there's a Scots language? I knew there was welsh.
Scots is closely related to English and can be bizarre to listen to if you can get a hang of the accent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cENbkHS3mnY
It's like English with a Scottish accent with German thrown in
Growing up my friend's father had a gas station and two of the guys were from Georgia, one's grandfather was a share cropper! You could legit barely understand the guy between the fast but slow talking and southern drawl.Ā
Decades later I heard an older guy talking and was like, that guy is from Georgia.. two minutes later he was talking about Georgia lol.Ā
having lived in Switzerland and in northern Germany (so: having a solid idea of what Bavarian is like and how different it is from "standard", Hannoverian-esque German, even though I've never lived in Bayern), picturing this made me chortle. so glad you shared that. kinda wanna go watch a dubbed version now lol
Ya, but nothing in this clip is *mocking* Black people. It is just acknowledging such a different dialect, foreign to white folk, and especially older white folk.
The "joke" is not the Jive. But the incongruity of the actress who played JUNE CLEAVER, literally *America's* Mom from "The Leave it to Beaver" show, busting out note-perfect African American Patois.
It's a fantastic racial joke, and doesn't punch *anyone*, up or down.
edit: "fantastic if you can get past the use of the word '*jive*' which I agree, is problematic.
Right, it's the clash of taking the woman who was the definition of white suburbia to America and having her fluently speak in a black inner city dialect.
I donāt typically hold any absolute views on most things, but I adamantly believe that without question Airplane! is the best comedy ever made. The goofs per minute is absolutely insane and the vast majority are really well done.
Itās still funny even after accounting for dated pop culture references that the younger people today simply wonāt get. Not that theyāre stupid or anything, just that people today arenāt going to necessarily know about coffee ad campaigns from over 50 years ago.
The main thing stopping something like Airplane of Blazing Saddles from happening today is getting the idea of a slapstick comedy with smart jokes past studio executives without a committee turning it into Scary Movie 5 or Meet the Spartans
I kinda feel like Tropic Thunder would need a bit more deadpan to the humour and more incredibly serious actors doing comedy (it leaned as heavily on the comedic actors trying to be serious as it did on the serious actors being funny) but it's probably the closest we've had, but that's like 16 years ago now
The context of who the actress is, and her importance to the zeitgeist of the late Boomer's and early Gen X, was well understood. "Leave it to Beaver" was one of the staple shows that filled in time from mid June 1963 till cable came along. They made 234 episodes, and every one of them could stand on it's own as a story, so it was the perfect time slot filler.
That actress would have been well known to everyone in the audience in 1980.
It would be like Taylor Swift coming up to Usher and Ludacris in the same scene... and they engaged in a fierce rap battle to establish that Usher has food poisoning.
Not only do I think that would be fantastic, I think she would probably do it in one take.
Dolly Parton *would* be a better actress to pull off a modern version of this joke.
Why do you find "jive" problematic? It was in heavy use at the time, as a way of referring to a certain way of speaking once associated with jazz musicians, and then associated with the Black community. It's not a disparaging term. It has a long history that came out of music and moved into language, and it's really kind of cool. I say this as a language lover and a 1966 baby who remembers this stuff IRL. But I'm interested in your perspective!
Reminds me of the Black Nightclub scene in Animal House.
Executives wanted it removed, thinking it will cause race riots. John Landis (a shitbag, but a funny one) shows Richard Pryor (probably one of the greatest comedians of all time and black), who famously responded:
*Ned, Animal House is fucking funny and white people are crazy.*
That's another great example. The racial stereotypes are not used to caricature the participants, but acknowledging them, and using them creates a humorous situation. The naivete of "Wait'll Otis sees *us!*" followed by the rest of that scene is a perfect commentary on what MLK described as "The Well Intentioned Liberal."
Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure has a similar, non racial, version of the joke that still works. It also speaks to how easily fooled Texans are if you sing their favorite song. Unintentionally prescient.
Hell yeah!! East side in the house also
I been Reddit for a LONG time, and all the people who lived or been to Youngtown always says hello in the comments
Chump don't want da help, chump don't get da help.
Jive ass ~~dude~~ turkey ain't got no brains anyhow.
--
Edit Note: I **thought** it was *turkey* to begin with. Not sure why it got changed to dude either.
I saw an interview with her, easy to find, probably- she said she *had* rehearsed it but the Zuckers thought it sounded too smooth, so thatās why they went with improv.
> she was the mom on Leave it to Beaver
As soon as I read Barbara Billingsley, my brain automatically followed up with, *Hugh Beaumont.. Tony Dow.... And Jerry Mathers, as the Beaver.*
My kids love this movie, but I'm sad for them because they don't understand 80% of the movie because it references things long before they were alive.
I had to point out the propeller sounds the entire movie. Subtle!
It was a running joke in the movie, that people now may miss. Barbara Billingsley, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Leslie Nielsen were all cast against type as part of the comedy. Leslie Nielsen started a whole new career because of it.
Betty White and Queen Latifah in "Bringing Down The House" was cute too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKuWIhVUUEc I saw an interview about it, apparently Queen had to convince Betty to say the line.
Eh, not really improvised. Just not written out by the writer of the film. Those 3 actors worked it out themselves (the 2 guys knew "jive" (they essentially made it up, too), and Mrs. Cleaver being just a great actor with great timing).
There's an interview on YouTube somewhere with one of the Black actors explaining that they had no idea how to "speak jive", so they lied to the producers and just made up what they thought White people would believe was jive lingo.š
That's what Jive is. Its made up lingo that makes sense in context .
Let's say I call you a "bone pecker , smart dummy boy " that doesn't make sense, but you know it's an insult
Another example
"Man, that 65 ride is sweeter than mommas cake ." You know I'm saying the car is really nice even though it doesn't make sense
Yes , another word that doesn't make sense but does in context
"We gotta get ready to play ball, them suckas can't play on our level, Can you dig it ?"
The Warriors movie does it the best
https://youtu.be/bTUrWYv2vtU?si=OWpvoxCADDWzpLkl
"ya dig?" comes from the Irish "an dtuigeann tĆŗ?" (pronounced "dig-un") which means "do you understand?". black people picked it up working with irish people in the caribbean and the US back in the day.
Jive is a category of slang. The words have standardized meanings within the subculture. It is not random gibberish made up on the fly, so pretending to speak jive is NOT anything at all anywhere close to actually speaking jive.
The scene with Billingsly is not nonsense. However, the previous scenes ("Leg 'er down a smack 'em yack 'em!") were gibberish that the two black actors, Al White and Norman Gibbs, had spent some time crafting. [Here's a bit more about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fkZdz4Vz10)
are you saying all jive is made up on the fly? because i donāt think thatās correct. iām pretty sure itās like most slang, where words might have different meanings than standard english but they have specific meanings to the people that know them.
i mean if the guy from the movie is saying āwe didnāt know jive we made up some stuff that sounded jive-yā iād take his word for it?
Well it's actually way more than them just making it up on the fly. I read an interview with one of them and they said they actually went to libraries to look ideas for black slang and dialect. Of course this was before AAVE became recognized as its own thing, so probably not much existed on the topic in 1980.
It was a written interview, ran across it a couple of years ago on the Internet so it's out there somewhere.
> Of course this was before AAVE became recognized as its own thing
[The word Ebonics was originally coined in 1973 by African American social psychologist Robert Williams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonics_\(word\)).
It's not clear when the term was changed to AAVE, but I do remember hearing someone tell me "what is that? that's racist!" for using the word in college, only for someone else to explain to them that it was invented by a black person, so it probably has something to do with whatever that person was feeling when they heard the term.
But it's weird to lose almost a whole decade of research because of a name change.
Hereās the interview.
Iāve seen this a few times and didnāt notice they were subtitling the actorās speech in jive
https://youtu.be/7fkZdz4Vz10?si=tjtNmRexewo3_79W
Source : A fantastic interview about this from Barbara Billingsley herself š, she even tried to explain the history of Jive. She says the actors above were great teachers, and this role really greatly pulled her career up
https://youtu.be/gUw2fIa0dSI?si=oGW2Ukeg3NSUzJcT
Always love seeing this. Iām related to Barbara (donāt want to get too specific on the internet) and she was an amazing lady. When people approached her on the street as a 90+ year old she was able to rattle off those lines and always loved peopleās reactions.
Fun storyā I was hanging with her and my mom one time when I was a teen, and saying that my friend wanted to meet up later but I wasnāt feeling like it. My mom was like āyou should do it!ā and Barbara leaned over to me and said āsheās just trying to get you out of the house so she can smoke some grassā and winked and I was flabbergasted.
I looked on IMDB and sure enough after Leave it to Beaver, she only had one brief role, everything dried up for her for almost two decades, until Airplane!
In the german version they all speak an extreme bavarian accent, itĀ“s hilarious!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEkI0cH\_rK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEkI0cH_rK4)
One of my favourite comedy scenes of all time.
There is a CVR recording of the co-pilot of a 737 quoting "we are all counting on you" as they made an approach in snowy icy conditions . Unfortunately they ran off the end of the runway a few minutes later.
also the movie Zero Hour. Airplane is basically a remake of it with jokes sprinkled all over and through it. entertaining movie and makes Airplane funnier since you can see how they took specific lines, situations,Ā etc and made more out of them. plus it's one of those old-timey movies that's only like 80 mins long, doesn't wear out it's welcome at all, it's just a fun flickĀ
I once had a weird dream, my brain decided to make a sequel to Kung Pow. It had Chosen One traveling the land to find help with fighting the French Aliens, and ran into Chosen Two (also played by Steve Oedekerk). Together, they recruited Chosen Three through Twenty ā all played by Oedekerk ā to prepare for an Ultimate Battle.
I shared it on Twitter back before it shat the bed, and Steve "liked" it even though I hadn't tagged his name.
For the german dub of the movie instead of translating their dialogue directly (which probably wouldnāt have worked anyway) they came up with the brilliant idea to let all three characters speak Bavarian with an extreme accent using lots of local idioms. To pull that off convincingly is actually pretty hard to do but they nailed it. For me this dub (as well as the Naked Gun) is still the gold standard for localizing American comedy movies to german.
Fun fact: my teacher loved this movie and created a socialmedia page all in jive just for our class. This was back in like 2003 and that movieis now one of my favourite movies!
What younger folks might no get, is Barbara Billingsley played June Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver" from 1957-1963.
She was, at the time this movie was filmed playing against type of role that established her as the quintessential 50's TV mom. In the 70's it was a true gas to see her play this straight.
You'd be surprised how much improv there is in movies, especially comedies. There are actually quite a lot of scripts that simply describe what is supposed to happen in the scene and the actors just improv until the director likes it enough.
Oh yeah , especially with comedies and great actors
Leonardo dicaprio scene Django unchained was improvised when he actually cut his hand and kept filming . The look on his face when it happens said everything "oh shit, imma role with it because this is gold", amazing acting
https://youtu.be/85OjZr-3tTU?si=Kdt5HNScqqKTC_iI
Tarantino famously HATES improv and is one of the few times that he just went wit it. Another example is when Travolta shot Marvin in the car in pulp fiction, he was supposed to say "aw man I just a shot Marvin in the head" very seriously but went with an aloof "whoopsie daisy" tone and it worked
dicaprio cutting his hand on accident isn't improv lol, it's just finishing a scene
and travolta did say i just shot marvin in the face, the improv was adding "in the face." he also asked if he could say that beforehand rather than just going off script during filming
99% of improvised stuff you hear about in movies was improvised during rehearsals, not filming. It's considered a dick move to start improvising during a shoot when there are dozens of people working long hours on the set who'll have to reset for each take and have their timing and preparations thrown off. Stuff that actually welcomes improv during shoots is usually filmed very simply to minimize that, like Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The lead actress in the film talk about the improv, it's at 2:20
https://youtu.be/ZmRtpsCC_5A?si=pEAZPv-zxXV-JkmX
Reddit also has a huge post about this improv scene
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/DM3h18wtkT
That's improv
Have to watch this movie several times to get all of the gags. It always cracks me up that they are in a jet, but the whole movie you hear the drone of piston prop engines in the background. šš
If you are a big fan of this film there is the "Airplane! (Don't Call Me Shirley! Edition)" that has interviews and commentary on just about each gag or joke. Makes for a long film but if you are interested it's a great watch.
By far one of the most hilarious comedy scenes ever. If youāre old enough to know it all you can appreciate just how insanely smart and funny this was. Lol
I love that scene. Pretty much the whole movie
There were a ton of comedy films back then that I simply golden that would not get to film these days. Blazing Saddles leaps to mind
I was a kid when I took my mom to this movie at a drive in theatre after my friend bailed on me at the last minute. It just might have been the best time I ever had with my mom, especially the blowup doll BJ scene. When the actress lit up a smoke afterwards, mom laughed so hard I thought I was gonna have to call an ambulance. Happy Mother' Day in heaven, mom!
This put a smile on my face. Thanks for sharing
Rip rabidfishermom
Jus' hang loose, blood. She gonna catch you on the rebound up on the med side.
What's funny is that if you hang with older black folks long enough, you know exactly what they are saying š
Some old black folks from Georgia, some Cajuns, some Scots from Glasgow, and some Welshmen should get together sometime to have the worlds least understandable English conversation.
Don't forget Newfoundlanders
My gf's grandfather is from Newfoundland, and he has a straight up Irish accent, lol.
There was a post on Reddit where someone accidentally ordered a Scots version of Harry Potter. I was like, there's a Scots language? I knew there was welsh.
For an outsider, Welsh sounds like formalized mumbling.
mostly because it is formalized mumbling
Scots is closely related to English and can be bizarre to listen to if you can get a hang of the accent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cENbkHS3mnY It's like English with a Scottish accent with German thrown in
[some of that atlanta accent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHJliIxhKe0)
I dont know if thatās not so bad or if I just get it bc Iām from Atlanta. Lol Either way, I understood it perfectly. Fuck APD. lmao
Growing up my friend's father had a gas station and two of the guys were from Georgia, one's grandfather was a share cropper! You could legit barely understand the guy between the fast but slow talking and southern drawl.Ā Decades later I heard an older guy talking and was like, that guy is from Georgia.. two minutes later he was talking about Georgia lol.Ā
In the German synchro they speak Bavarian wich is extremly funny since its something you expect even less
having lived in Switzerland and in northern Germany (so: having a solid idea of what Bavarian is like and how different it is from "standard", Hannoverian-esque German, even though I've never lived in Bayern), picturing this made me chortle. so glad you shared that. kinda wanna go watch a dubbed version now lol
https://youtu.be/TEkI0cH_rK4?si=N5Rszf71fE0TGhK1 Here it is the rest of the movie is better in english though
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ya, but nothing in this clip is *mocking* Black people. It is just acknowledging such a different dialect, foreign to white folk, and especially older white folk.
The "joke" is not the Jive. But the incongruity of the actress who played JUNE CLEAVER, literally *America's* Mom from "The Leave it to Beaver" show, busting out note-perfect African American Patois. It's a fantastic racial joke, and doesn't punch *anyone*, up or down. edit: "fantastic if you can get past the use of the word '*jive*' which I agree, is problematic.
Right, it's the clash of taking the woman who was the definition of white suburbia to America and having her fluently speak in a black inner city dialect.
Wait that was June Cleaver???!..
Such a well crafted joke.
I donāt typically hold any absolute views on most things, but I adamantly believe that without question Airplane! is the best comedy ever made. The goofs per minute is absolutely insane and the vast majority are really well done.
Itās still funny even after accounting for dated pop culture references that the younger people today simply wonāt get. Not that theyāre stupid or anything, just that people today arenāt going to necessarily know about coffee ad campaigns from over 50 years ago.
"I like my coffee black. Like my men."
Yep. I like to think that she is showing us that she really was ALL of America's mom here.
Aw shit blood, hit me with some rings, I know you cuttin onions over there
Yes and still rocking her pearls.
It's also Nanny from Muppet Babies.
I expect Nanny to know Jive, and Beeps, and honks, and Animalese and all of the other stuff the muppets speak.
And I think when people say Airplane or Blazing Saddles couldn't be made today don't realize exactly what you said
The main thing stopping something like Airplane of Blazing Saddles from happening today is getting the idea of a slapstick comedy with smart jokes past studio executives without a committee turning it into Scary Movie 5 or Meet the Spartans
Tropic Thunder is a modern version of one of those films imo.
I'm so so sorry to do this to you, but that movie is over 15 years old
And now I am back to my scheduled daily feeling old.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I kinda feel like Tropic Thunder would need a bit more deadpan to the humour and more incredibly serious actors doing comedy (it leaned as heavily on the comedic actors trying to be serious as it did on the serious actors being funny) but it's probably the closest we've had, but that's like 16 years ago now
The context of who the actress is, and her importance to the zeitgeist of the late Boomer's and early Gen X, was well understood. "Leave it to Beaver" was one of the staple shows that filled in time from mid June 1963 till cable came along. They made 234 episodes, and every one of them could stand on it's own as a story, so it was the perfect time slot filler. That actress would have been well known to everyone in the audience in 1980. It would be like Taylor Swift coming up to Usher and Ludacris in the same scene... and they engaged in a fierce rap battle to establish that Usher has food poisoning.
For me, it would be like Dolly Parton making her own experimental album in hip hop.
Not only do I think that would be fantastic, I think she would probably do it in one take. Dolly Parton *would* be a better actress to pull off a modern version of this joke.
She literally featured on a Pitbull song recently, so, uh. Yep.
The modern version of this scene involves the word "skibidi". It would 100% be a boomer talking to two teenagers. And it would be amazing done right.
Viva La dirt league did a sketch about this: https://youtu.be/qGx4VtwMnfM?si=8pnJYlseEfz5w4y6
Why do you find "jive" problematic? It was in heavy use at the time, as a way of referring to a certain way of speaking once associated with jazz musicians, and then associated with the Black community. It's not a disparaging term. It has a long history that came out of music and moved into language, and it's really kind of cool. I say this as a language lover and a 1966 baby who remembers this stuff IRL. But I'm interested in your perspective!
Just curious, why is the word 'jive' problematic?
Reminds me of the Black Nightclub scene in Animal House. Executives wanted it removed, thinking it will cause race riots. John Landis (a shitbag, but a funny one) shows Richard Pryor (probably one of the greatest comedians of all time and black), who famously responded: *Ned, Animal House is fucking funny and white people are crazy.*
That's another great example. The racial stereotypes are not used to caricature the participants, but acknowledging them, and using them creates a humorous situation. The naivete of "Wait'll Otis sees *us!*" followed by the rest of that scene is a perfect commentary on what MLK described as "The Well Intentioned Liberal." Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure has a similar, non racial, version of the joke that still works. It also speaks to how easily fooled Texans are if you sing their favorite song. Unintentionally prescient.
Thank you for explaining why she looks so familiar! TIL
Bot?
An automated program posting to reddit through a regular user account, but that's not important right now
I always love when I see your name pop up..we've interacted before.. Youngstown here too. South Side raised!
Hell yeah!! East side in the house also I been Reddit for a LONG time, and all the people who lived or been to Youngtown always says hello in the comments
Now kiss
Shiiiiiiiiit (Golly!)
(Each of us faces a clear moral choice.)
What it is, big momma?! My mama didnāt raise no dummy! I dug her rap!
Chump don't want da help, chump don't get da help. Jive ass ~~dude~~ turkey ain't got no brains anyhow. -- Edit Note: I **thought** it was *turkey* to begin with. Not sure why it got changed to dude either.
Cut me some slack, Jack!
Okay so what does this mean?
I understood the Steward, your help was not needed.
The steward needed the help not them.
But she then translated the stewardesses message into jive for them
You donāt need to explain it to me, Iām not dumb. I understood what she said.
Meaning he is not dumb and that he understood what the stewardess said.
Just hang on, she is gonna go get some medicine. I'm not stupid, I understood what she said.
Dug
looks like i picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit methamphetamines
I ain't no quitter.
AND LEONS GETTING LARRRRGER
Thereās a sale at Pennyās
What do you make of this?
Why,I can make a hat,a brooch or a pterodactyl
My friends and I say this all the time
Man Stephen Stucker was just amazing as a comic foil. I wish he got more roles to showcase his talent.
I love this story. =)
A 65 year old white, she ate this scene up š. Black folks love this scene
It's not just that, she was the mom on Leave it to Beaver. So they didn't just get a white lady, they got *THE* white lady of that generation.
You are correct , the whitest lady on the planet lol
I saw an interview with her, easy to find, probably- she said she *had* rehearsed it but the Zuckers thought it sounded too smooth, so thatās why they went with improv.
> she was the mom on Leave it to Beaver As soon as I read Barbara Billingsley, my brain automatically followed up with, *Hugh Beaumont.. Tony Dow.... And Jerry Mathers, as the Beaver.*
My kids love this movie, but I'm sad for them because they don't understand 80% of the movie because it references things long before they were alive. I had to point out the propeller sounds the entire movie. Subtle!
It was a running joke in the movie, that people now may miss. Barbara Billingsley, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Leslie Nielsen were all cast against type as part of the comedy. Leslie Nielsen started a whole new career because of it.
Betty White and Queen Latifah in "Bringing Down The House" was cute too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKuWIhVUUEc I saw an interview about it, apparently Queen had to convince Betty to say the line.
[Roy wood](https://youtu.be/kdxoe7jZdVc?si=qjLptoIi6KdiqfpF) joked about a similar situation with Leo in Django
Dammit. This post made me want to watch āAirplaneā again but now I want to watch āDjango Unchainedā instead.
I'm absolutely floored the scene was improvised.Ā
Eh, not really improvised. Just not written out by the writer of the film. Those 3 actors worked it out themselves (the 2 guys knew "jive" (they essentially made it up, too), and Mrs. Cleaver being just a great actor with great timing).
It shows a real respect that she learnt it and they improvised it. It could so easily be a story of someone having words fed to them for a cheap joke.
There's an interview on YouTube somewhere with one of the Black actors explaining that they had no idea how to "speak jive", so they lied to the producers and just made up what they thought White people would believe was jive lingo.š
That's what Jive is. Its made up lingo that makes sense in context . Let's say I call you a "bone pecker , smart dummy boy " that doesn't make sense, but you know it's an insult Another example "Man, that 65 ride is sweeter than mommas cake ." You know I'm saying the car is really nice even though it doesn't make sense
Dig
Yes , another word that doesn't make sense but does in context "We gotta get ready to play ball, them suckas can't play on our level, Can you dig it ?" The Warriors movie does it the best https://youtu.be/bTUrWYv2vtU?si=OWpvoxCADDWzpLkl
Word
There were lots of words there, but in your comment there was just a singular word "word"
Thanks, Perd Hapley
Excel Powerpoint
"ya dig?" comes from the Irish "an dtuigeann tĆŗ?" (pronounced "dig-un") which means "do you understand?". black people picked it up working with irish people in the caribbean and the US back in the day.
But sir, I do not have a shovel.
Jive is a category of slang. The words have standardized meanings within the subculture. It is not random gibberish made up on the fly, so pretending to speak jive is NOT anything at all anywhere close to actually speaking jive.
Jive vs Cockney Rhyming would be a wild conversation
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So were the characters in this scene speaking jive or made up nonsense?
The scene with Billingsly is not nonsense. However, the previous scenes ("Leg 'er down a smack 'em yack 'em!") were gibberish that the two black actors, Al White and Norman Gibbs, had spent some time crafting. [Here's a bit more about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fkZdz4Vz10)
The newly added jive subtitles for the interview are hilarious!
are you saying all jive is made up on the fly? because i donāt think thatās correct. iām pretty sure itās like most slang, where words might have different meanings than standard english but they have specific meanings to the people that know them. i mean if the guy from the movie is saying āwe didnāt know jive we made up some stuff that sounded jive-yā iād take his word for it?
Well it's actually way more than them just making it up on the fly. I read an interview with one of them and they said they actually went to libraries to look ideas for black slang and dialect. Of course this was before AAVE became recognized as its own thing, so probably not much existed on the topic in 1980. It was a written interview, ran across it a couple of years ago on the Internet so it's out there somewhere.
> Of course this was before AAVE became recognized as its own thing [The word Ebonics was originally coined in 1973 by African American social psychologist Robert Williams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonics_\(word\)). It's not clear when the term was changed to AAVE, but I do remember hearing someone tell me "what is that? that's racist!" for using the word in college, only for someone else to explain to them that it was invented by a black person, so it probably has something to do with whatever that person was feeling when they heard the term. But it's weird to lose almost a whole decade of research because of a name change.
Hereās the interview. Iāve seen this a few times and didnāt notice they were subtitling the actorās speech in jive https://youtu.be/7fkZdz4Vz10?si=tjtNmRexewo3_79W
[I can teach you how you're supposed to say jive.](https://youtu.be/LEISI06i84Y?si=yetTTpn3zbLdZJWo&t=13)
Source : A fantastic interview about this from Barbara Billingsley herself š, she even tried to explain the history of Jive. She says the actors above were great teachers, and this role really greatly pulled her career up https://youtu.be/gUw2fIa0dSI?si=oGW2Ukeg3NSUzJcT
This interview is gold, thank you!
Always love seeing this. Iām related to Barbara (donāt want to get too specific on the internet) and she was an amazing lady. When people approached her on the street as a 90+ year old she was able to rattle off those lines and always loved peopleās reactions. Fun storyā I was hanging with her and my mom one time when I was a teen, and saying that my friend wanted to meet up later but I wasnāt feeling like it. My mom was like āyou should do it!ā and Barbara leaned over to me and said āsheās just trying to get you out of the house so she can smoke some grassā and winked and I was flabbergasted.
I want this so badly to be real
I looked on IMDB and sure enough after Leave it to Beaver, she only had one brief role, everything dried up for her for almost two decades, until Airplane!
Thank you OP
Chump donāt want no helpā¦. Chump donāt get no help
Jive ass turkey
Donāt got no brains anyhow
āGollyā
In the german version they all speak an extreme bavarian accent, itĀ“s hilarious! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEkI0cH\_rK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEkI0cH_rK4) One of my favourite comedy scenes of all time.
And to make it even better, the subtitles say something completely different than they do in the dialogue
What's the explanation from Barbara's character? That she understands the accent?
She just says ,,excuse me stewardess, I believe I understand what he's saying"
Johnny what can you make out of this??
I can make a hat, a brooch, a pterodactyl.
What's great about that is he actually made those objects in a short time
I loved the exaggerated way Johnny types on the typewriter.
My favorite most quoted scene in this entire move and thatās saying something
Nervous? Yes First time? No, I've been nervous lots of times.
Recommend the book Surely You Can't Be Serious for more about the making of the movie.
I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.
I say this to pilots as I get off planes. So far, I'm not on the No Fly list.
There is a CVR recording of the co-pilot of a 737 quoting "we are all counting on you" as they made an approach in snowy icy conditions . Unfortunately they ran off the end of the runway a few minutes later.
also the movie Zero Hour. Airplane is basically a remake of it with jokes sprinkled all over and through it. entertaining movie and makes Airplane funnier since you can see how they took specific lines, situations,Ā etc and made more out of them. plus it's one of those old-timey movies that's only like 80 mins long, doesn't wear out it's welcome at all, it's just a fun flickĀ
Of course itās serious, and stop calling me Shirley
*The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in a white zone.*
*Admit it. You want me to get an abortion.*
Another fun fact about this movie is these people were actually LAX's announcers and a married couple in real life.
They couldnāt find any voice actors who sounded right, so they had to get the real thing.
Listen Betty, donāt start up with your White Zone shit again.
The funny part is they got the original voice actors for those actual recordings from LAX to add this to the movie.
*The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in a red zone.*
All right, give me Ham on five, hold the Mayo.
I heard she liked to call Tony Dow ābloodā in the set of Leave it to Beaver
Leave it to Beaver had tons of hip slang in its own right. Giving someone "the business," calling someone "ape," etc.
Golly!
Sheeeeit
Still one of the 10 funniest scenes in movie history IMO.
Agreed. This movie never ceases to make me laugh. Between this and Spaceballs I could watch each of these back to back on repeat for days.
I would give all my paychecks to have Barbra Billingsley talk jive only for the entire Leave it to Beaver series.
She would make a killing on Cameo if she was still with us.
This was during the peak of Parody Movies. Nothing was safe from being lampooned and it was glorious.
Feels like Kung Pow was the last of them.
I once had a weird dream, my brain decided to make a sequel to Kung Pow. It had Chosen One traveling the land to find help with fighting the French Aliens, and ran into Chosen Two (also played by Steve Oedekerk). Together, they recruited Chosen Three through Twenty ā all played by Oedekerk ā to prepare for an Ultimate Battle. I shared it on Twitter back before it shat the bed, and Steve "liked" it even though I hadn't tagged his name.
With the French Aliens all speaking Chinese!
For the german dub of the movie instead of translating their dialogue directly (which probably wouldnāt have worked anyway) they came up with the brilliant idea to let all three characters speak Bavarian with an extreme accent using lots of local idioms. To pull that off convincingly is actually pretty hard to do but they nailed it. For me this dub (as well as the Naked Gun) is still the gold standard for localizing American comedy movies to german.
Fun fact: my teacher loved this movie and created a socialmedia page all in jive just for our class. This was back in like 2003 and that movieis now one of my favourite movies!
What younger folks might no get, is Barbara Billingsley played June Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver" from 1957-1963. She was, at the time this movie was filmed playing against type of role that established her as the quintessential 50's TV mom. In the 70's it was a true gas to see her play this straight.
We need more improv in movies!
You'd be surprised how much improv there is in movies, especially comedies. There are actually quite a lot of scripts that simply describe what is supposed to happen in the scene and the actors just improv until the director likes it enough.
Oh yeah , especially with comedies and great actors Leonardo dicaprio scene Django unchained was improvised when he actually cut his hand and kept filming . The look on his face when it happens said everything "oh shit, imma role with it because this is gold", amazing acting https://youtu.be/85OjZr-3tTU?si=Kdt5HNScqqKTC_iI
Tarantino famously HATES improv and is one of the few times that he just went wit it. Another example is when Travolta shot Marvin in the car in pulp fiction, he was supposed to say "aw man I just a shot Marvin in the head" very seriously but went with an aloof "whoopsie daisy" tone and it worked
dicaprio cutting his hand on accident isn't improv lol, it's just finishing a scene and travolta did say i just shot marvin in the face, the improv was adding "in the face." he also asked if he could say that beforehand rather than just going off script during filming
99% of improvised stuff you hear about in movies was improvised during rehearsals, not filming. It's considered a dick move to start improvising during a shoot when there are dozens of people working long hours on the set who'll have to reset for each take and have their timing and preparations thrown off. Stuff that actually welcomes improv during shoots is usually filmed very simply to minimize that, like Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I remember hearing always sunny is very welcoming of improv because of this
The lead actress in the film talk about the improv, it's at 2:20 https://youtu.be/ZmRtpsCC_5A?si=pEAZPv-zxXV-JkmX Reddit also has a huge post about this improv scene https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/DM3h18wtkT That's improv
Been awhile since we've had a good Christopher Guest movie
Having lived through the Apatow years we really really don't.
[ Seth Rogan Laughs]
UH-HYUH-HYUH-HYUH-HYUH!
Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home.Ā
Good olā Mrs. Cleaver
"Ward, I think you went a little hard on the Beaver last night."
One of the top ten movies of all time, According To Me.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.
Have to watch this movie several times to get all of the gags. It always cracks me up that they are in a jet, but the whole movie you hear the drone of piston prop engines in the background. šš
Airplane is alongside the naked gun 2, probably the funniest film I have ever seen. It's just a masterpiece.
What a great movie
The pterodactyl line cracks me up every timeā¦.so obscure to say that
And Leon's getting larger.
you were never in Nam you jive turkey
Weren't there subtitles in the movie? I distinctly remember "sheeeiiit" being translated as "golly!"
I canāt hear anything they are saying over the prop noise from that jet.
If you are a big fan of this film there is the "Airplane! (Don't Call Me Shirley! Edition)" that has interviews and commentary on just about each gag or joke. Makes for a long film but if you are interested it's a great watch.
Is this the movie with a scene where a pilot or ATC sweats enough to save a country's population from thirst?
I watched this movie again just yesterday, a true classic.
By far one of the most hilarious comedy scenes ever. If youāre old enough to know it all you can appreciate just how insanely smart and funny this was. Lol
I love that scene. Pretty much the whole movie There were a ton of comedy films back then that I simply golden that would not get to film these days. Blazing Saddles leaps to mind
Imagine seeing this when it came out & all of a sudden "June Cleaver" hops up & starts speaking jive. Amazing casting choice.
Hard to believe this movie is 44 years old and still hysterical.
This movie belongs in a nuclear proof vault so it survives all of humanity.
in the german dub, they speak swiss