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
Airplane! films based on the six-episode television series "Police Squad!", in which he also starred and which was created and produced by the Abrahams–Zucker–Zucker team behind "Airplane". This also led to his casting, many years later, in Mel Brooks' "". Brooks had wanted to make that film for a long time, but put it off because, as he said, "I just could not find the right Dracula." Brooks said he had never seen "Airplane!" until years after its release. When he did, he knew Nielsen would be right for the part. When it was suggested that his role in "Airplane!" was