I absolutely love his performance in Airplane, the facial expressions are perfect and the way he looks around after “the hell I don’t” shows he really has great comedic timing and movement.
Incidentally, for anyone that didn’t know, the film Airplane was an almost shot for shot remake of a film called Zero Hour [1] and the copilot in the original film was a famous NFL player (Elroy ‘Crazy Legs’ Hirsch), hence why they’ve got Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to play the copilot in Airplane.
We have clearance Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our vector Victor?
Airplane! was just on The Rewatchables, one of The Ringer podcasts, and the co-pilot role was originally written for Pete Rose but he couldn't do it because they filmed during baseball season.
It seems funnier with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar because at 7’2” the idea he’d be able to slyly get away with moonlighting as an airline pilot is even more ridiculous!
Who's the guy who, late in the movie, jumps from the left side of the frame, grabs Leon's love handles, shakes them, saying "Leon's getting too fat! He's too fat!" and then jumps back out of the frame, leaving Leon astonished and speechless, staring to the left? And who is Leon?
It looks like an ad-libbed scene to me: "Leon" was absolutely struck dumb by the move.
Incidentally, for anyone that didn’t know, the film Airplane was an almost shot for shot remake of a film called Zero Hour [1] and the copilot in the original film was a famous NFL player (Elroy ‘Crazy Legs’ Hirsch), hence why they’ve got Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to play the copilot in Airplane.
We have clearance Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our vector Victor?
[1] https://youtu.be/8-v2BHNBVCs?feature=shared