Legendary screenwriter and director Jim Abrahams, whose zany wit elicited laughs in comedy spoofs like Airplane! and The Naked Gun, has died. He was 80.
The comedy legend died of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica, California, his son told the Hollywood Reporter.
Part of a writing team that included childhood friends Jerry and David Zucker, Abrahams had his first feature film in 1977 with the sketch comedy The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), directed by John Landis - who went on to win fame with Animal House.
Taking inspiration from Mel Brooks, the "Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker" trio emphasized parody, slapstick, and sight gags to create absurd, silly comedy.
A trademark of their style was the use of dramatic actors to create comedic effects. No actor embodied that dynamic better than Leslie Nielsen, who had his breakthrough in the disaster spoof Airplane! (1980).
Nielsen delivers the iconic reply, "I am serious. And don't call me Shirley," a joke that is so famous, the punchline stands on its own.
The movie starred Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen, who were known as dramatic actors on TV.
“The biggest struggle was to cast straight actors as opposed to comedians,” Abrahams said in a 2019 interview.
“At first, Paramount was resistant to that idea. They didn’t quite understand why we wanted to do something like that. There was something very endearing about those four actors spoofing themselves in the movie. In essence, they had had full careers, and they were kind of having a laugh at their own expense.”
After Airplane, the Abrahams-Zucker-Abrahams created a short-lived crime parody, Police Squad. The 1982 show lasted only one season, but it earned Emmy nominations and introduced Nielsen in the role of the bumbling detective Frank Drebin.
Over the course of the 1980s, the "ZAZ" team continued to delight audiences in Top Secret! (1984) Ruthless People (1986) and especially The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) and its sequels, featuring Nielsen in the role of Drebin.
The writing team honed their style in the 1970s, when many comedians were focused on political subjects. ZAZ took a less serious approach - and the results were rewarding.
“There were a bunch of groups in that era who were making political jokes, and there were lots of easy, obvious targets,” Abrahams said. “But that was just never our instinct. Our instinct was always to watch a movie and say, ‘Isn’t’ that silly?'”
Abrahams is survived by his on Joseph, his wife, Nancy Cocuzzo, his daughter, Jamie another son, Charlie, and his grandchildren, Caleb, James and Isaac.
