MovieChat Forums > Angie Tribeca (2016) Discussion > The writers should be ashamed for steali...

The writers should be ashamed for stealing the jokes wholesale

posted 8 years ago by lwilson-68148
19 replies | jump to latest

Watching episodes and saying to myself that's a joke stolen from "The man with two brains", that is "Airplane", that is "Top Secret"or that is "Police Squad". So derivative, I guess a younger generation might not realize how much is plagiarized from reading some comments here. I think the final straw for me was the comment about what someone was saying and they said "I am just saying mumble mumble" when the Man with Two Brains had "murmur murmur". This is how close the scripts are to being just copied.

[–] EricaRene-Price 8 years ago

That's not plagiarism, it's deliberate homage to those shows and im sure the disparities outweigh the similarities.

"Honestly, who's gonna compete against me? Fork girl? Lizard lady? Ha ha ha!"
—Pacifica Northwest

[–] pdbrat 8 years ago

That's the whole point!!! That's exactly what Aurplane and Naked Gun were.

[–] NexusFields 8 years ago

They've also stolen liberally from SLEDGE HAMMER with sight gags lifted and the AV Club busted them for stealing POLICE SQUAD's "say..." routines. There are GET SMART rip offs in there, but the worst was a joke stolen from Abbott & Costello which no young people will ever recognize. Both POLICE SQUAD and SLEDGE HAMMER were original in their approach and sui generis. It's shocking to see how derivative this copycat is.

[–] rycki1138 8 years ago

The movie Airplane was a remake of a movie called Zero Hour! (1957) and it used many lines verbatim from the original movie. So don't claim Airplane was purely original material itself.

Quotes from Zero Hour (1957)

Dr. Baird: Our survival hinges on one thing - finding someone who not only can fly this plane, but didn't have fish for dinner.

Treleaven: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking

Capt. Bill Wilson, Pilot: Come on, move up here, you can see better.

[takes out a toy DC-4]

Capt. Bill Wilson, Pilot: Joey, here's something we give our special visitors. Would you like to have it?

Joey Stryker: Thank you! Thanks a lot?

Capt. Bill Wilson, Pilot: You ever been in a cockpit before?

Joey Stryker: No, sir! I've never been up in a plane before!

Lt. Ted Stryker: [enters the cockpit] Oh doctor, the stewardess said...

[Stryker sees the pilot and co-pilot seats empty and the plane on automatic pilot]

Lt. Ted Stryker: BOTH pilots?

Dr. Baird: Can you fly this airplane and land it?

Lt. Ted Stryker: Not a chance!

[last lines]

Treleaven: Ted, that was probably the lousiest landing in the history of this airport. But there are some of us here, particularly me, who would like to buy you a drink and shake your hand. We're coming over.

Ellen Stryker: Ted, what are you doing? You can't fly this plane!

Lt. Ted Stryker: That's what I've been trying to tell these people, Ellen. But they seem to have other ideas.

Lt. Ted Stryker : I was a fighter pilot during the war. I flew a little combat plane with one engine, this has four. It's an entirely different kind of flying altogether.

Here's a comparison video that shows the similarities between Airplane! (1980) and Zero Hour! (1957).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BjU-e01zQ4

Sis Boom Bah! Describe the sound made when a sheep explodes 

[–] NexusFields 8 years ago

Where in ZERO HOUR did the pilot ask a kid if he'd ever seen a grown man naked?

[–] rycki1138 8 years ago

I never said it did and if you look at the quotes I put in my first post it doesn't list that one as being in Zero Hour!.

But the OP is complaining about Angie Tribeca "stealing" lines outright from Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker films and shows and even mentioned Airplane! as one of the movies that was "stolen" from. The quotes I showed in my first post prove that Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker did the exact same thing in Airplane!. They used quotes from Zero Hour! verbatim in many different scenes. They may have added more to the dialogue in some scenes, but they still used the quotes.

It's because they were satirizing the original movie just as Angie Tribeca is satirizing previous movies and shows, which was my point.

Sis Boom Bah! Describe the sound made when a sheep explodes 

[–] NexusFields 8 years ago

This blogger was trying to be polite.

http://www.elisbergindustries.com/blog/the-angie-tribeca-marathon-limited-edition

[–] Blathnat69 8 years ago

Zero Hour is a drama and a serious movie. Airplane is a spoof of that. You know what a spoof is right? Part of the humour comes from the fact that it pokes fun at what was a very serious movie.

Directly taking ideas, jokes and situations from one comedy and putting in another is not clever or funny, and a supposed "comic genius" like Carrel should know better.

If you aren't replying to my post, don't click reply.

[–] dawnbaxter34 8 years ago

They actually bought the rights to the film Zero Hero and made Airplane out of it. Zero Hour was tailor-made to be spoofed.

[–] veil182 8 years ago

Seriously? Because Airplane was soooo original .......

[–] GrammarMatters 8 years ago

Surely, you can't be serious.

[–] haneykr 8 years ago

I've seen several posts like this. I think the point of the show went right over some people's heads. I'm not speaking of the OP here specifically, incase you thought I was. I'm just saying in general.

[–] SentientCrab 8 years ago

Yeah like episode 8, when they're on an Airplane. I can't believe this show!

Just kidding, love this show. Sure there's similar jokes, but it's unique enough that it's clear this is more of a spiritual successor than a rip-off.

[–] MurphAndTheMagicTones 8 years ago

The cast does a good job (especially Rashida Jones and Hayes MacArthur), but I counted a number of jokes that were definitely lifted from Police Squad! and even National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, like the "I'm cold" joke and they take the ice bags off of the victim. And the "Let's say" gag was used in the original Police Squad! TV series.

If the jokes were parodies of crime shows (and a number of them are), that's one thing. But if you're getting the jokes from prior parodies, that's a different story.

There's potential there to be sure (as evidence by my sig line) but they need more original material. And know when to not overdo a gag, like running through the plane.

---
"I've had 236 partners & I've fallen in love with every single one of them."---Angie Tribeca

[–] SentientCrab 8 years ago

That scene was perfect. It was the same length that a normal chase scene would last, except it was the same thing over and over. Prime example of Tribeca satire.

[–] MurphAndTheMagicTones 8 years ago

The problem with the gag wasn't the gag itself, but the length of it. As soon as you get the laugh from the plane being so long, cut it and go to the next joke. That joke probably ran twice as long as the cockpit instrumentation shot in Airplane or the pan of Spaceball One in Spaceballs. And those two still made the joke funny.

Sometimes less is more.

---
"I've had 236 partners & I've fallen in love with every single one of them."---Angie Tribeca

[–] Con-Deuce 8 years ago

I'll admit that I've only seen six episodes so far but I don't recall any gags lifted from "The Man with Two Brains". Maybe it's in later episodes?

[–] oscarunger 8 years ago

airplane was spoofing zero hour
angie is spoofing crime shows (CSI etc..) and in doing so throwing in an homage or two to naked gun/airplane etc..
its pretty good so far (only watched two eps)