Airplane! Art and Culture Quotes

This scene from Elaine and Ted's time in the Peace Corps may seem like something of a throwaway, but speaks to the strange cultural phenomenon of the "Tupperware party," people (mostly women) meeting at each other's homes to buy plastic storage containers. It's also a commentary on the frequent obliviousness of westerners when it comes to helping "civilize" the non-western world. You couldn't name something less relevant to the lives of the women Elaine's talking to than Tupperware. We doubt that leftovers are anything they have to worry about.

Here's another case of a couple serious actors bringing clever dialogue to life with some deadpan hilarity. It's a jab at the cultural stereotype of the family doctor, who you can tell all your secrets to. Because doctor knows best.

Inspired by the Blaxploitation classic Shaft, ZAZ's original Jive Dude dialogue sounds nothing like it's final form; fortunately, the actors rewrote their lines themselves. Also, one doesn't need to know that the Old Lady was played by Barbara Billingsley—a.k.ae. Beaver Cleaver's 1950s mom from Leave it to Beaver—to find this scene funny. Lots of people who saw this film in 1980 had watched "Leave it to Beaver" as kids and would have recognized her right away. Mrs. Cleaver was the last person in the world who you'd expect to know anything outside her own conventional little suburban world.