Airplane (1980) - 6 questions

Question: I hear this film has nudity in it and yet it only has a PG rating. Even if it was brief, how did this film avoid an R rating?

Answer: To some extent, it depends upon the rater. However, there is some clarification in the PG description which says "Parental Guidance Suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children. This signifies that the film rated may contain some material parents might not like to expose to their young children - material that will clearly need to be examined or inquired about before children are allowed to attend the film. Explicit sex scenes and scenes of drug use are absent; nudity, if present, is seen only briefly, horror and violence do not exceed moderate levels." As seen in the movie - the nudity was seen only briefly - not more than a second. The rater felt it didn't deserve an "R" rating for that. At the time there was no PG-13 rating, which is what it would probably get today.

Question: When Over's wife gets the call about her husbands plane having problems, there is a horse in bed with her and she tells the horse to let himself out. This is the only joke in the movie I didn't understand. Is there anybody out there who got the joke and can help me understand it?

Answer: She's having an affair, or it seems like it. Only, being Airplane, the twist is that she's having an affair with a horse. It's just one of those random things that don't really make a whole lot of sense, like the watermelon slamming into the desk, or the spear shooting into the wall.

Question: Captain Oveur was saying things to Joey. What I didn't understand is the jokes behind the lines "Have you ever been in a Turkish Prison" and "Do you like movies about gladiators." What are the jokes behind these? Please explain. Thank-you.

Answer: All of his questions to Joey are filled with homosexual innuendos; the perverted captain is trying to see if Joey has any such tendencies. In a Turkish prison, men who are sexually frustrated will resort to "companionship" with other men (even forcefully). Movies about gladiators depict ripped, muscular men, and the question about seeing a "grown man naked" obviously fits the pattern.

Question: What is the name of the song at the beginning after the Jaws theme?

Answer: It's the "Theme to Airplane", composed specifically for the movie by John Williams. Incidentally, the "Jaws" intro is part of the theme, not a separate piece of music. Guess he can use it if he wants, seeing as how he was the composer for "Jaws" as well.

Question: Right after Ted is dumped by Elaine, was that Harrison Ford that played the religious zealot he punched out?

Answer: No, that was David Leisure, who was the Joe Izuzu Guy.

Question: In the flashback scene in the bar, Striker throws his hat, but it comes back to him like a boomerang. He then throws his jacket, and it also comes back to him like a boomerang, but this time you can see the hand that throws it at him. Is the hand a crew member's, or it is intended to be somebody throwing it back at him?

Answer: Too hard to say - potentially both. I'm guessing the hand wasn't meant to be seen, but at the same time there's no reason why someone couldn't have just hurled hat back at him, so seeing the hand isn't really a mistake]