Jim Abrahams was part of the Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker (ZAZ) filmmaking team, known for such comedies as “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun.”
- Died: November 26, 2024 (Who else died on November 26?)
- Details of death: Died at his home in Santa Monica, California of natural causes at the age of 80.
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Jim Abrahams’ legacy
Abrahams grew up in Shorewood, Wisconsin alongside brothers David and Jerry Zucker. The three went on to college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where they began the comic creativity that led to their signature spoof comedy style. In the early 1970s, they founded the sketch troupe Kentucky Fried Theater. They focused on parodying media; the trio would set a video recorder to tape television overnight, catching odd old movie reruns and low-budget commercials that became fodder for their jokes. As their ambitions began to outgrow their Wisconsin audiences, they relocated to Los Angeles and began working on their first movie.
“The Kentucky Fried Movie” hit theaters in 1977. Written by Abraham and the Zucker brothers and directed by John Landis, it put their sketch comedy style on the big screen, with sketches that included faux news segments and commercial spoofs alongside movie parodies and other skits. Created on a shoestring budget, it was a box office success, allowing ZAZ to dream bigger.
For 1980’s “Airplane!” the team became directors as well as writers, crafting a groundbreaking comedy that remains near the top of many lists of the funniest movies of all time. The highly quotable parody was based on a straight-arrow 1957 disaster film, “Zero Hour!,” as well as other disaster films of the era. The key to the success of “Airplane!” was that the leads played their roles just as seriously as the original films’ actors did. Critics and audiences alike loved it, and Abrahams and the Zucker brothers began applying their winning formula to other genres.
They followed “Airplane!” with the short-lived TV series “Police Squad!” Though the show didn’t hit with audiences quite the way their movies did, it became the jumping off point for a later movie, “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” In between, ZAZ wrote and directed the musical spy/war film “Top Secret!” and directed “Ruthless People.” Striking off on his own, Abrahams directed the 1988 movie “Big Business” solo.
“The Naked Gun,” released a few months after “Big Business,” proved to be the last film ZAZ worked on as co-directors before an amicable split. The Zuckers continued the “Naked Gun” series with two sequels, for which Abrahams was an executive producer. Meanwhile, he continued to write and direct other projects.
His next move was to direct “Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael,” a straightforward comedy-drama unlike the ZAZ team’s spoofs. He returned to the silly side as the director and co-writer of 1991’s “Top Gun” spoof, “Hot Shots!” He went on to direct and co-write its sequel two years later. Abrahams directed the 1997 TV movie “…First Do No Harm,” and the big-screen spoof “Mafia!” a year later, then collaborated with David Zucker on 2006’s “Scary Movie 4.” It was his final film.
Alongside his wife, Abrahams founded The Charlie Foundation to Help Cure Pediatric Epilepsy.
Notable quote
“We have this internal discussion among the three of us about whether ‘Airplane!’ is parody or satire. I’ve always taken the position that we don’t aim for anything higher than: you don’t have to take this seriously. There’s no political meaning. It’s not ‘Dr. Strangelove.’ And I think this is a good message for all of us forever, that there are things we don’t have to take seriously.” — from a 2023 interview for NPR’s “Morning Edition”
Tributes to Jim Abrahams
Full obituary: The Hollywood Reporter
