'Naked Gun' director David Zucker credits Milwaukee childhood with creating sense of humor

David Zucker is one of the most influential voices in comedy, and it all comes back to his childhood in the Midwest.

Zucker, along with his brother Jerry and the late Jim Abrahams are known by the acronym ZAZ, hails from the Milwaukee area, something that was noted in the earliest reviews of their work.

“When we came here to L.A. and we opened our theater [the famous “Kentucky Fried Theater”] and we got our first reviews, and the reviewers just were blown away by the show, which is great, because they'd never seen anything like it. And one reviewer said, I remember ‘from Madison, Wisconsin, of all places, comes this talented group.’”

Zucker scoffed at the reviewer’s confusion, explaining, “The cool guys were from New York and L.A. and even Chicago. And so, growing up in Milwaukee, we have to make fun of ourselves. So that kind of translated [into] ‘Airplane!’ we had, Leslie Nielsen and Robert Stack making fun of themselves. So it was that self-deprecatory sense of humor that we that was the water that we swam in.”

The writer and director still visits Milwaukee regularly too.

“My younger daughter just graduated from the University of Wisconsin last year. And then before that, my son was there. So, for about six years, I was there twice a year.”

Zucker added, “And just last week, I was back there just visiting my high school friends who, I just love these guys so much. And four of them live in Madison, and five of them live in Milwaukee, and we met in this little town called Delafield, which is halfway in between, and we just had a nice time.”

And for any first timers visiting the city, Zucker has a specific destination in mind.

“I would take them to Solly's hamburger place on Port Washington, and they have on the counter, they have plaques with famous people from Milwaukee, Bob EuchreOrson Welles, and I'm very proud to say my, my name is on it as a producer, director.”

“Airplane!” celebrates its 45th anniversary this year, and remains one of the most quoted, beloved, and influential comedies to date.

Zucker wrote a book on making the film, “Surely You Can’t Be Serious: the True Story of Airplane!” along with his brother and Abrahams, recalling that it was a “struggle” to make the movie on top of it being their directorial debut.

“On the set, we didn't pretend that we knew everything. And so everybody, the whole crew, was very helpful, as long as we weren't, you know, pretending that that we knew anything,” he said.

Working with the late Leslie Nielsen, who delivers the film’s classic line “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley,” was a “dream.”

“He was a real gift. He knew where the joke was but never tried to be funny. And, I mean, he didn't write his own lines, but somehow he was able to do the lines with such serious-ity that it just worked.”

Zucker has translated that sense of humor into his “Mastercrash” course, a series of detailed lessons on how to master the kind of spoofing he and his cohorts became famous for.

“You can't really teach anybody to be funny, but you can avoid a lot of the mistakes. And spoof is a very specific type of comedy, and it's just, it's not, it's not like the comedy, which is written by professional writers and acted by comedians,” he explained.

He continued, "So that's what most comedies are, and most comedies are great. I don't dispute that, but spoof is very particular, because all the jokes have to come from behind the camera.”

Zucker directed the original “Naked Gun,” starring Nielsen, and admitted he’s not entirely on board with the rebooted version, starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson.

“They don't know the rules,” Zucker said. “So I thought, I'm going to teach the rules this so [that] we have in the book,” referring to the memoir about “Airplane!”

He did compliment director Akiva Schaffer, saying he is “a very nice and very talented director,” but has not seen the movie and has no interest in doing so.

Instead, he’s focusing on teaching and his new project, “The Star of Malta,” a “1940s style film noir, action movie, rom com” currently in pre-production.

Zucker also expressed support for the Wayans Brothers relaunching the “Scary Movie” spoof movies starring Anna Farris and Regina Hall. He directed “Scary Movie 3” and “Scary Movie 4” and is excited for them to take the movies back, saying, “I love the Wayans, and I think they're very funny, and they're doing their own franchise, and they originated it, and they have every right to do it, and they're talented.”

“I don't want to make any predictions, but, ‘Scary Movie 6’I expect will be good that may bring people back. I think people were just really hungry for a theatrical movie comedy,” he said.