My beloved and indulgent family gave me a copy of Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! for Christmas. I think part of the motivation for this (other than it being on my wish list) is that everyone in my family wants to borrow it when I’m done. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Fun fact I’ve learned from the book, which I did not know previously. Remember “Gunderson”?
Whatever happened to that guy? Would you believe he went on to bigger things?
“Airplane!” wasn’t even an early credit: Jonathan Banks’s resume goes back to 1974, and includes “The Waltons”, “Little House on the Prairie”, and “Carter Country” before “Airplane!”. He was also one of the hospital guards in “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension”, just as a side note.
Seems like he’s another one of those folks who took 35 years to become an overnight success.
He was great on Wiseguy.
He’s not just ANY hospital guard in “Buckaroo Banzai.” He’s the one to whom Lord John Whorfin utters the immortal line, “Laugh-a while you can, Monkey Boy.”
One of our favorite quotable lines to throw out at random times at our house.