Airplane! Director Accuses Hollywood of ‘Destroying Comedy’ to Please People ‘With No Sense of Humor’

David Zucker knows a thing or two about comedy, having directed hit satires like Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and two of the Scary Movie sequels. He’s now joined other entertainers like Monty Python’s John Cleese to take issue with woke culture’s influence on the arts.

In a video for PragerU, Zucker recalled his beginnings in comedy, saying audiences weren’t as offended at the start of his career as they are now. The bigger problem though, according to the filmmaker, is that Hollywood producers are bowing to the sensitivities of a humorless minority.

“They’re destroying comedy because of nine percent of the people who don’t have a sense of humor,” Zucker said.

The director recalled pitching a James Bond and Mission: Impossible satire and being shocked at what executives took offense with, having not previously worried about offending with humor when he made his Naked Gun or the more recent Scary Movie films. One joke that raised alarms in Zucker’s proposed script was a female character saying she needed a breast reduction to fit into her kevlar vest.

“It was pure oatmeal, so mild,” he said. “I thought, ‘if this was the criteria for it, we’re in big trouble.'”

Zucker has long been a vocal conservative voice, having ditched Democrats after 9/11. He even directed An American Carol, a satire where Kevin Farley portrayed a bumbling Michael Moore-like filmmaker.

Zucker theorized his most famous film, Airplane!, could still be made in today’s cautious climate on one condition.

“Just without the jokes,” he said.

Zucker did predict comedy will make a return in the future.

“Comedy is in trouble, of course, but I think it’s going to come back,” he said. “There’s a pendulum, and the pendulum will swing back. I’d like to see comedy filmmakers do comedies without fear.”

Watch above via PragerU