Airplane! watch as "Otto" takes control of the plane, inflates a female companion, and takes off. Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker (collectively known as Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, or ZAZ), wrote "Airplane!" while they were performing with the Kentucky Fried Theatre, a small theatre they had founded in 1971. To obtain material for comedy routines, they routinely recorded late night television and reviewed the tapes later primarily to pull the commercials, a process Abrahams compared to "seining for fish". During one such taping process, they unintentionally recorded the 1957 film "Zero Hour!", and while scanning the commercials, found that
Nicholas-Beazley Airplane Company Nicholas-Beazley Airplane Company In 1921, the Nicholas-Beazley Airplane Company was founded by Russell B. (Penny) Nicholas and Howard Beazley. Nicholas started Central Aviation Company reselling surplus propellers, and in 1924 renamed the company to reflect the addition of Howard Beazley as partner. Nicholas-Beazley Airplane Company started as a reseller of surplus Curtiss OX-5 parts through mail-order catalogs, expanding into a wide variety of airplane construction materials. Nicholas-Beazley resold 57 Armstrong-Siddeley Genet engines originally sold by Fairchild, becoming the US distributor. Surplus Standard J aircraft were modified and marketed by the company. In 1927, Walter Barling was hired to engineer the