WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
  • Robert Hays said Leslie Nielsen used a hidden fart machine during the filming of Airplane!
  • Nielsen deployed the prank while Hays filmed the famous cockpit exchange between Ted Striker and Dr. Rumack.
  • Hays said resisting laughter during the serious scene was the most difficult part of filming.
  • A flight attendant’s uncontrollable laughter while reading the script convinced Hays the movie had a chance to succeed.

Robert Hays had one job during a crucial Airplane! close up: keep a straight face while Leslie Nielsen did everything he could to make that impossible. The prank unfolded during one of the comedy's most famous cockpit exchanges.

Now 79, Hays recalled the filming challenge in an exclusive interview with People. He said Nielsen regularly entertained castmates with a fart machine concealed in his hand, adding ridiculous sound effects while everyone else tried to continue working.

The joke became especially difficult when Hays filmed a scene as Ted Striker opposite Nielsen's Dr. Rumack. The sequence required Hays to deliver a serious performance while Nielsen turned the moment into a private comedy routine.

In the scene, Hays said, “Surely, you can’t be serious”, prompting Nielsen's celebrated response: “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.” The exchange would become one of the movie's most recognizable moments.

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Nielsen was not visible during Hays' close up, giving him complete freedom to use the hidden machine. Hays remained in front of the camera as Nielsen repeatedly added fart sounds to his dialogue.

Hays remembered exactly how the lines sounded from his position in the cockpit. Nielsen apparently found several opportunities to deploy the prank within a single sentence.

“Every line that he said to me: ‘Mr. Striker [fart sound] can you [fart sound] fly this plane [fart sound]?'” Hays recalled.

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The performance placed Hays in a brutal comic predicament. He found the prank hilarious, but laughing would have ruined the serious delivery the scene demanded.

“I had to just sit there. And it makes me laugh, but I couldn’t laugh. So that was the most difficult thing in the filming.”

Airplane! was released in 1980 and parodied the disaster films that had dominated Hollywood during the 1970s. Its humor paired absurd situations with actors delivering their lines in a deliberately serious style.

The movie follows Striker, a former pilot who must confront his fear of flying. He is forced to land a passenger jet after food poisoning incapacitates the crew and passengers.

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Nielsen's deadpan performance as Dr. Rumack helped establish his reputation as a comedy star. He died in November 2010 at the age of 84.

Hays suspected the movie could be special long before audiences saw the finished result. His confidence began when he first read the script, which reached him under a fitting set of circumstances.

He happened to be aboard an airplane when he received the script. After finishing it, Hays offered it to a flight attendant so she could read it as well.

At first, the flight attendant maintained her professional composure. That restraint quickly disappeared as she continued reading and began laughing uncontrollably at the material.

Hays described the dramatic transformation in vivid terms. “By the time she finished it, her bun had come undone, her knees were flying everywhere, and she was just dying laughing.”

Her reaction convinced Hays that the comedy had a genuine chance of succeeding. The script had reduced someone who initially remained professional to helpless laughter before the movie had even been made.

The Starman actor remembered the conclusion he reached after witnessing the response. “So I thought, ‘Oh, this is funny. This has got a chance because this is funny.'”

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More than four decades after its release, the movie's mix of absurdity and deadpan humor remains its enduring legacy. The cockpit exchange between Hays and Nielsen continues to rank among its most recognizable scenes.

Behind that perfectly serious moment, however, Hays was battling a fart machine operated by a comedy star who was safely outside the camera's view. His struggle not to laugh became one of the toughest challenges he faced while filming Airplane!