‘Airplane!’ And ‘Naked Gun’ Co-Creator David Zucker On Creating Comedy

If he wanted to, David Zucker could happily rest on his laurels.

As a member of the famous ZAZ creative collective alongside the late Jim Abrahams and his younger brother, Jerry Zucker, he created some of the funniest and most enduring comedy films of all time: Airplane!, Top Secret!, and the Naked Gun trilogy (to name a few).

Surely, such a side-splitting résumé is more than worthy of retirement. But for David, things aren’t over…and don’t call him Shirley.

Even at the age of 78, his mind moves a mile a minute, always honing in on the best way to make people laugh. “When I see a serious scene, I want to spoof it,” he recently told me over Zoom. “I always think of a gag.” And now, he’s sharing his uproarious wisdom with the world through a MasterClass-like comedy course dubbed MasterCrash.

“I get a lot of inquiries about, ‘How do I get started? How do I write a script?’” he said. “I didn’t want to just say, ‘I’m too busy, don’t bother me.’ So we thought we could actually do an online course, somewhat like MasterClass, but make it a community [where] I can have personal interactions with the students.”

Those interested in taking the class (there’s now a free tier available) will learn the “15 Rules of Comedy” Zucker developed while writing and directing films with Zucker, Abrams, and Zucker. “We evolved a set of rules because even though it’s crazy and zany and sh** is hitting the fan, there still is a discipline to it,” he explained.

In true ZAZ fashion, however, the fifteenth rule is that there are no rules, befitting the “little bit of anarchy” the trio (raised on a steady satirical diet of Mad Magazine spoofs and Marx Brothers movies) always brought to their work.

“It gets a little complicated,” David conceded, “but we know you can’t just go off and do this because they tried [and failed] to do Airplane II and the recent Naked Gun. It just doesn’t work if you don’t know what you’re doing … [It’s] not enough to merely be clever or get a smile out of something, you have to get a laugh.”

Given his track record, it’s safe to say the man knows a thing or two about good comedy. So, what makes him laugh these days? Well, it doesn’t come from the big screen. “Impractical Jokers or South Park,” David revealed, “because those guys are original, daring, and willing to push the envelope.”

Just as the Alamo was the last refuge of Davy Crockett (a personal hero of the elder Zucker brother), television is one of the last bastions of quality humor, with David crediting risk-averse, algorithm-dependent studio executives who “don’t know what they’re doing” for the decline of the spoof genre on the theatrical side.

Today’s industry climate, he noted, is a far cry from the one ZAZ encountered when they made Airplane! over 40 years ago.

“When, Jerry, Jim, and I went to Paramount in 1980 it wasn’t just this sterile studio with a bunch of suits,” he recalled. “It was really smart executives like Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg , Frank Mancuso, and Barry Diller. These guys were sharp and asked us to rewrite the script. They [also] put one of their story guys on the script and … [in the end], the studio made it better.”

He actually pitched a fourth Naked Gun film to Paramount, which rejected the idea in favor of the Seth MacFarlane-produced reboot directed by The Loney Island’s Akiva Schaffer. The unused script, which Zucker co-wrote with Pat Proft, has since been renamed Counter Intelijence. Ironically, David sees it as the perfect vehicle for another Lonely Island member.

“It’s [for] a young actor, somebody like an Andy Samberg,” he said. “You can’t replace Leslie Nielsen. Trying to replace Leslie Nielsen is merely a producer trying to paint by the numbers and copy something that was new and fresh 35 years ago … I wouldn’t even think of trying to do that over again.”

In the meantime, he’s currently ramping up production on a low-budget spoof project entitled Star of Malta, which he believes will “bring back movie comedy.”

Written alongside Proft and Michael McManus, the movie will serve as a parody of the 1945 black and white film noir Detour—much in the same way Airplane! and Naked Gun were intentional caricatures of Zero Hour! and M Squad, respectively.

“The big thing about this movie is it really puts story over jokes,” David teased. “It’s the first time that I’ve done it that way. It’s pretty much the breakthrough that Woody Allen had when he did Annie Hall. It wasn’t just jokes with a thin story like Bananas or Take the Money and Run. It’s the next level for spoof and I’m very excited to do it.”