Is this that this film doesn't age well or?

What examples of what not to do in a film does it contain?

Part of the reason it's considered a classic is because it's so quotable.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I strongly disagree with all most all of the OP. It's a great movie. The fact that it's one of the first of its kind counts for something to me. The jokes may seem unoriginal these days, but they were original at the time. It's an important movie that has influenced the type of comedy we have today.

Before this movie, the ZAZ team had written KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE. That movie had the same type of humour, but since it was made of skits, you could say that this movie was the first of its kind.

It's not about it aging well or not. If that was true, you would've liked it because you grew up with other 1980s comedies, right? Everyone has their own taste in humour.

My cousin is about your age. I was surprised about 8 years ago when he hadn't seen the movie, and I showed it to him. I naturally assumed he would think it was the funniest movie ever made, but instead I had to explain almost every non-obvious joke; everything from how you could formerly smoke on planes and that Reagan was a B movie actor before he was president, to the color of the old Tylenol capsules. Who June Cleaver was and why it was funny that she could speak jive. That Leslie Neilson (or most of the other actors, for that matter) had never done comedy. Who Kareem Abdul Jabbar was. And so on...

Anyway, no, I'm not surprised at all that you didn't like it - it spoofs a lot of culture that you were never exposed to. It would be like me trying to watch a Hindi comedy that spoofs popular Indian culture.

I was born in 1982, and this is one of the funniest films I have ever seen. Sure, there are a couple of jokes that don't age well. For example "Jim never vomits at home" and beating up the solicitors at the airport which don't exist anymore like they did in the 70s and 80s, but most of the humor is timeless. Even though those jokes are from another era, I still found them hilarious only partially getting them.

Here's my theory: It's just your sense of humor. This movie is not for you. And unlike other types of posters, I'm not going to say there's anything wrong with you not liking this movie since it's only a matter of taste, but to most people this movie is a legend of comedy.

I was born in 1984 and saw the movie as a kid; I thought it was hilarious then. Now I saw it for the second time and found the jokes dated. Didn't really laugh at all.

What is 1st degree humour?

I was 14 when this movie came out and I loved it. I was flipping channels last month when I came across it again and stopped. I found myself watching it until the end. There are so many sight gags that even after 50+ viewings, I still find new gags I've missed. The same thing with their other spoof movie "Top Secret" which still makes me laugh.

A younger generation doesn't get Airplane! because most of the actors were not known comedic actors like today and they were playing their roles "straight". This was part of the joke, as opposed to being over the top like most comedies today. You also had to have seen the movies they were spoofing to get a lot of the jokes. However, while I agree some of the references are dated, I didn't understand a lot of them at 14 and it didn't stop me from enjoying the movie in 1980.

Over time, I think it also suffers a bit from the glut of "spoof movies" that have come along recently. This has soured viewers on these types of spoofs and Airplane! gets lumped in with them. These spoof movies today take a subject and just throw in a ton of unrelated pop culture references that have nothing to do with the main topic. Watch Airplane! again. The ZAZ boys stick with their subject matter and the movie has a linear quality to it. Then go watch something like Epic Movie which is just all over the place. Jokes come out of nowhere and are so disjointed the movie has no cohesion. A great spoof should be very similar to the subject matter it is spoofing with just a slight step to the left of reality. That is where pure comic gold resides.