Chinatown :: James Hong :: Airplane!

Another great character actor, James Hong, gets me from Chinatown (Evelyn's butler) to Airplane! (suicidal Japanese general).  Looking at his resume, Hong seems to have been the go-to actor for the token Asian role in every film or TV show of the past four decades.  All in the Family, The Rockford Files, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Taxi, St. Elsewhere, The A-Team, Big Trouble in Little China, The Golden Child, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, Miami Vice, Tango & Cash, MacGyver, Wayne's World 2... and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Where do you start with a movie like Airplane!?   (And yes, I'll be including the exclamation mark every time).  It stands alongside Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Shaun of the Dead (all films I own and will be discussing later on this blog) as one of the greatest parody films of all time. Airplane! re-launched the career of Leslie Nielsen as comedic actor, giving us the Naked Gun series of films.  Airplane! showed us Mrs. Cleaver speaking jive, Lloyd Bridges sniffing glue, Kareem Abdul-Jabar threatening a small child, an inflatable co-pilot receiving oral service from Julie Hagerty, and two Girl Scouts beating the holy hell out of each other in a bar fight.

And it has some of the most quotable lines of any film, ever:

• We have clearance, Clarence.  Roger, Roger.  What's our vector, Victor?
• The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the red zone. 
• "The fog's getting thicker."  "And Leon's getting laaaaarrrrger!"
• "A hospital?  What is it?"  "It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now."
• Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?
• Oh, it's a big pretty white plane with red stripes, curtains in the windows and wheels and it looks like a big Tylenol. 
• "Johnny, what can you make out of this?"  "This? Why, I can make a hat or a brooch or a pterodactyl..."
• Oh stewardess! I speak jive.
• Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud and get kicked... in the head... with an iron boot? Of course you don't, no one does. It never happens. Sorry, Ted, that's a dumb question... skip that.
• Wait a minute. I know you. You're Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. You play basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers.
• I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you. 
• I am serious.  And don't call me Shirley.

I can't think of much more to add right now.  Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.