The sneak preview

Rating: 8/10 (12 December 2006)

In the spring of 1984, I got to attend a sneak preview of a rough cut of "Top Secret!", several months before it was released. Since ZAZ had attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they did a preview at the student union there, to gaga audience reaction to the various gags.
One of the Zucker brothers was sitting directly in front of me during the screening. Early in the movie, when Nick and Hillary are dancing, Hillary says, "My grandfather used to live in America. He escaped in a balloon during the Jimmy Carter administration." The audience laughed, and Zucker turned to the person he was with, and said, "See! I told you that was funny!" After the movie, ZAZ did a question-and-answer period. They said that, after the success of "Airplane!", Paramount wanted them to do a sequel. "No, we've done all the funny airplane jokes; we want to do something else." And, so, Paramount went and did "Airplane 2" without them. For their next project, they had debated whether to spoof WWII movies, spy movies, or Elvis movies...and decided to do all three at once, which is how "Top Secret!" came to be.