“Roger, Roger. What’s our Vector, Victor?”
Proceed direct to National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. The 1980 movie, "Airplane!" is one of 25 films judged to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically" significant and therefore added to the Film Registry in 2010. The spoof of 1957's "Zero Hour" was named number 10 on the American Film Institute's 100 top comedies; it was number 2 on Britain's 50 Greatest Comedy Films Channel 4 poll, where "Monty Python's Life of Brian" took top honors. The film marked a rebirth of Leslie Nielsen as a superb physical comedian, and was the last film in which Ethel Merman appeared.
Bar Bets trivia: Which religious zealot panning for cash in the terminal later starred in a season of "24"?
(Gregory Itzin, as the nefarious President Charles Logan)