Airplane!
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50 free Airplane! trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Airplane! arrived in 1980 as a low-budget send-up of disaster movies and became one of the most quoted comedies ever made. Its trick was simple: hire dramatic actors known for stern, heroic parts, hand them ridiculous dialogue, and tell them never to wink at the camera. This quiz covers the whole flight. There are questions on the plot and the running gags, the lines people still repeat, Leslie Nielsen and the rest of the straight-faced cast, the surprise cameos, the older thriller the script was built on, the music, the release, the awards and polls, the sequel, and what the writer-directors did next. It is written for anyone who has seen the film, whether once on television or twenty times with friends. The early questions are the ones most viewers remember, and the later ones are for fans who know the production stories. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Lakers star plays co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!, a part meant for baseball's Pete Rose?
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar drops the pilot act when a boy says his dad thinks he doesn't work hard enough on defence. Casting an athlete copied the 1957 original, which put a football star in the cockpit.
Q 02In Airplane!, Leslie Nielsen's doctor says he is serious, then adds "and don't call me" which name?
Shirley
Shirley is his comeback to "Surely you can't be serious", an exchange ranked 79th on the AFI's list of the 100 greatest movie quotes. Nielsen never expected it to become his trademark.
Q 03Which future late-night host screen-tested for the lead role of Ted Striker in Airplane!?
David Letterman
David Letterman kept telling the directors he couldn't act, and after the screen test one of them agreed. They later pranked him by playing the audition on his own talk show.
Q 04In Airplane!, which in-flight dinner choice gives both pilots and many passengers food poisoning?
Fish
Fish is the dish that fells everyone who picks it over the steak. The idea was lifted from the 1957 thriller the film copies, where grilled halibut does the damage.
Q 05In Airplane!, what name does the inflatable dummy autopilot go by when it takes the controls?
Otto
Otto is even billed in the cast list as playing himself. He can keep the jet in the air but cannot land it, which is why a terrified passenger has to.
Q 06In Airplane!, the captain asks young cockpit visitor Joey if he likes movies about which heroes?
Gladiators
Gladiators is one of several wildly inappropriate questions the captain puts to the boy. Another is whether he has ever been in a Turkish prison.
Q 07In Airplane!, Steve McCroskey picks the wrong week to quit smoking, drinking, amphetamines and what?
Sniffing glue
Sniffing glue is the last and wildest of his confessions. The first, about smoking, was a perfectly serious line in the 1957 drama that the comedy copies.
Q 08In Airplane!, which Bee Gees hit plays in Ted Striker's Saturday Night Fever-style disco flashback?
Stayin' Alive
Stayin' Alive soundtracks a routine the two leads practised until it was perfect. The 2012 comedy Ted later recreated the whole flashback.
Q 09Which film series, based on TV's Police Squad!, made Airplane! actor Leslie Nielsen a comedy lead?
The Naked Gun
The Naked Gun revived Frank Drebin, the detective Nielsen first played on television in a series cancelled after only six episodes. Critic Roger Ebert called him "the Olivier of spoofs".
Q 10In Airplane!, what does washed-up pilot Ted Striker's so-called "drinking problem" turn out to be?
He misses his mouth
He misses his mouth, splashing each drink anywhere but into it. The gag comes with a fear of flying that has kept the former fighter pilot from holding a responsible job.
Q 11In Airplane!, which city is the stricken flight bound for when Ted Striker takes the controls?
Chicago
Chicago is the destination, and one tagline ran with it: the plane is going there, the pilot is going to New York and the passengers are going to pieces.
Q 12Which job does war veteran Ted Striker walk out on at the start of Airplane! to follow Elaine?
Taxi driver
Taxi driver Ted leaves a passenger in the cab with the meter running for the entire film. The fare is played by Howard Jarvis, a campaigner famous in California for his tax-cutting Proposition 13.
Q 13Which 1957 thriller did Airplane! copy so closely that its writers bought the remake rights first?
Zero Hour!
Q 21In Airplane!, Ted and Elaine's romantic beach scene echoes a famous one in which 1953 war romance?
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity is the obvious model, yet all three directors swear they had never seen it when they shot their version. Most of the script's borrowing came from a single 1957 thriller instead.
Q 22Which TV show tested the Airplane! finale and ruled a talked-down novice landing plausible?
MythBusters
MythBusters had to use a NASA flight simulator, since they could not afford to test the idea in a real airliner. The hosts also noted that modern autopilots can land a plane by themselves.
Q 23Which director cast Leslie Nielsen as Dracula after seeing Airplane! years after its release?
Mel Brooks
Zero Hour! was taped by accident while the writers recorded late-night television to find adverts to spoof. One of them later called it the serious version of their own film.
Q 14Which star of the ABC sitcom Angie won the Airplane! lead role of reluctant pilot Ted Striker?
Robert Hays
Robert Hays played an airline pilot again decades later in Sharknado 2: The Second One. In between, he voiced Iron Man in a 1990s animated series.
Q 15Which newcomer beat Sigourney Weaver and Shelley Long to the Airplane! role of Elaine Dickinson?
Julie Hagerty
Julie Hagerty had filmed a small part in All That Jazz, but it was cut, so this became her screen debut. The directors told her and her co-star to play every line straight.
Q 16Which Sea Hunt star took the Airplane! role of tower boss Steve McCroskey on his children's advice?
Lloyd Bridges
Lloyd Bridges was recruited for his straight-arrow screen image, and the film also spoofs his earlier television role as an airport manager. The part reinvented him as a comic actor.
Q 17In Airplane!, which Untouchables star plays Rex Kramer, Ted Striker's former commanding officer?
Robert Stack
Robert Stack first played the part differently from what the directors wanted, so they showed him John Byner's impression of him. He ended up doing an impression of the impression.
Q 18Which Mission: Impossible star rejected Airplane! as tasteless before agreeing to play the captain?
Peter Graves
Peter Graves, brother of actor James Arness, had played mainly serious roles in the 1970s, which is exactly why the directors wanted him. He returned for the sequel.
Q 19Which Leave It to Beaver mother plays the Airplane! passenger who offers to translate jive?
Barbara Billingsley
Barbara Billingsley had been largely absent from the screen for 17 years. She said the brief cameo brought her as much publicity as her famous sitcom and revived her career.
Q 20Which Broadway legend's last film role was an Airplane! soldier who believes he is her?
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman leaps out of bed singing "Everything's Coming Up Roses" as orderlies rush to sedate her. Variety reckoned she had starred in more hit Broadway musicals than any other performer.
Mel Brooks had put off Dracula: Dead and Loving It for a long time because he could not find the right Count. Once he caught up with the comedy, he knew he had his man.
Q 24Where is the shuttle bound in Airplane II: The Sequel, made without the original directors?
The Moon
The Moon has been colonised in the sequel's near future, and the shuttle Mayflower One is rushed into service. The makers of the first film had no involvement and said on its DVD commentary that they had never seen it.
Q 25Which Star Trek actor joins the cast of Airplane II: The Sequel as base commander Buck Murdock?
William Shatner
William Shatner used the part to mock the cavalier, almost superhuman persona of Captain Kirk. The same year he became a television lead again in the police series T. J. Hooker.
Q 26Which 1990 supernatural romance did Airplane! co-director Jerry Zucker later make on his own?
Ghost
Ghost, with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, became the highest-grossing film of 1990, a sharp turn away from spoofs. It also earned a Best Picture nomination.
Q 27Which mismatched noise does the jet make all through Airplane!, as a running background joke?
Propeller engines
Propeller engines are heard because the directors wanted an old prop plane and the studio insisted on a modern jet. The droning soundtrack was the compromise.
Q 28Which title did Airplane! take abroad after Universal complained it was too like its Airport films?
Flying High!
Flying High! was agreed after an arbitration board reviewed the complaint. The 1982 follow-up was likewise sold as Flying High II in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
Q 29In which US state did the Airplane! creators found their Kentucky Fried Theater troupe as students?
Wisconsin
Wisconsin was home: the three knew one another as children in Shorewood and opened the theatre in 1971 while at university in Madison.
Q 30In Airplane!, which singer of the disaster-film theme "The Morning After" plays the nun?
Maureen McGovern
Maureen McGovern also sang the theme to Angie, the sitcom that made the film's leading man famous. The directors first wanted Helen Reddy, who had played the nun being spoofed in Airport 1975.