R.I.P. Jim Abrahams: 13 Stories From Kentucky Fried Movie, His Breakthrough

Without Kentucky Fried Movie, the first film from Jim Abrahams and his partners, Jerry and David Zucker, we might never have gotten Animal House, Airplane!, or The Naked Gun films.

On the occasion of Jim Abrahams' death, at the age of 80, here are 13 behind the scenes stories from Kentucky Fried Movie, one of the most important comedies of the 1970s, because of all the doors it opened.

But First

1977's Kentucky Fried Movie was the first film written by the comedy team of Jim Abrahams and brothers Jerry and David Zucker, three self-described "nice Jewish boys from Milwaukee" who started a comedy theater in Wisconsin, brought it to Los Angeles in their 20s, and soon broke into the motion picture business.

But it was a bumpy ride. They couldn't make the film they really wanted to make — Airplane! — until they proved themselves with the raucous, ridiculous Kentucky Fried Movie. The film also opened doors for director John Landis, who went on to direct Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Coming to America, and other comedy classics.

Here's how the bold, bawdy Kentucky Fried Movie came to be.

Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker Grew Up Making Fun of Serious Shows

Jim Abrahams and brothers Jerry and David Zucker grew up together, and their dads were business partners in a real estate company.

In their 2023 book Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!, Jerrry Zucker explained that they spent hours, growing up, watching serious TV shows like The Untouchables, Sea Hunt, and Mission: Impossible — "shows where the characters just took themselves so seriously, and we'd blurt out ridiculous lines for them to say."

And in Airplane, "we actually got those same tough-guy actors to say the lines we always wished they would have said."

That was the origin of their approach to comedy — play it totally straight, and totally absurd.

They Were Hardcore Leave It to Beaver Fans, Too

Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker — collectively known as ZAZ — also grew up loving Leave it to Beaver, the wholesome black-and-white family sitcom that aired from 1957-63. It starred Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver, Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver, Tony Dow as his their teenage son Wally, and Jerry Mathers as the Beaver, aka Theodore.

ZAZ happily enlisted Tony Dow (above, left) for the courtroom scene in Kentucky Fried Movie, while Jerry Zucker played Theodore.

Of course, in their next film, Airplane!, they would famously bring in Barbara Billingsley for the jive scene.

They Influenced a Four-Time Oscar Nominee

As young men, they founded a comedy theater in Madison, Wisconsin with their friend Richard Chudnow. They named it Kentucky Fried Theater after the fast food chain.

A young Willem Dafoe was among those who saw an early Kentucky Fried Theater Show in the early 1970s, when his older sister Dee Dee took him to see one at the University of Wisconsin.

“That really made me think, I could be doing this,” he told Esquire in a 2018 profile “You don’t have to be a card-carrying industry person.”

Soon the team moved to Los Angeles and started a new theater.

The Fourth ZAZ

Chudnow left the Kentucky Fried team to pursue a relationship back in Wisconsin — something that would later cause him some angst.

When he would return to L.A. and see billboards for The Kentucky Fried Movie, "that was hard. That took therapy to get over," he said in Surely You Can't Be Serious.

But he rebounded by starting the beloved Comedy Sportz improv schools and theaters, which are still going strong.

They Had No Idea How to Write a Script

They had an idea for a disaster movie parody, inspired by the 1957 airplane drama Zero Hour, but weren't sure how to start. Then they saw John Landis on The Tonight Show in 1973, talking about his low-budget monster movie tribute Schlock, of which Johnny Carson was a fan. Landis had made the film at 21.

Zucker called him up, invited him to a show, and ZAZ told Landis about their movie idea. But they didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, so he gave them a copy of his own An American Werewolf in London, which he would finally get to make into a movie in 1981.

ZAZ used it as a template as they wrote Airplane. But when they couldn't find backing for Airplane, they decided to make a film based on their live comedy sketches — which became Kentucky Fried Movie.

Kentucky Fried Movie Was the End of the Kentucky Fried Theater

"The day the check cleared for Kentucky Fried Movie, we closed the theater. Finally, we were in the movie business!" David Zucker said in Surely You Can't Be Serious.

"And we dove headfirst into preproduction — whatever that was," Jim Abrahams jokingly added.

Who Was Samuel L. Bronkowitz?

The phrase "A Samuel L. Bronkowitz Production" appears during many of the fake movies and trailers in Kentucky Fried Movie. He is not a real person.

Kentucky Fried Movie producer Bob Weiss said that because the ZAZ team and Landis were "unknowns" when they were making the film, they would often be refused equipment like dollies, cranes and lighting — or charged a premium for it.

"So the guys came up with the idea of naming our production company Samuel L. Bronkowitz Productions, a name they just made up" Weiss said in Surely You Can't Be Serious.

The name sounded Old Hollywood enough to give the production a hollow feeling of legitimacy. Weiss recalled that he once gave the company name to a woman at a costume company, and she replied, "Gee, is he still making pictures?"

They Loved Jokes Involving Girl Scouts

One of the film's highlights is the ridiculous kung-fu parody A Fistful of Yen. The film-within-a-film that devolves into a Wizard of Oz parody. The Wizard of Oz sequence ends with martial arts master Loo (Evan C. Kim, above), dressed as Dorothy, turning to the camera and suggests that people don't need to search far for happiness.

"You can always look for happiness, but there is really no need to look past your own front door," he says. "There are plenty of things that you can do right here in your own community. You can visit a dairy and see how milk is handled and prepared for delivery. Or plan a series of window displays on home safety. Or help start a library. Or discuss with your dentist what you can do to make your teeth more attractive."

Those suggestions are from the Girl Scout Handbook, and were included in the Kentucky Fried Theater program on a page entitled, "Things to do after the show." They never explained the origin of the suggestions.

Callback

Later, ZAZ went back to the well by featuring two Girl Scouts in a bar fight in Airplane.

Again, no one mentions the weirdness of it.

John Landis Added the Infamous Kentucky Fried Movie Shower Scene

The eye-popping shower sequence during a parody of '70s exploitation movies was added by John Landis, Jim Abraham explained in Surely You Can't Be Serious.

He said it was "one of the scenes that gave KFM its R-rating — and probably half the box office."

The book also notes that the Zucker boys' mom, Charlotte, appeared in the courtroom scene in Kentucky Fried Movie, and loved to tell people she was in the film. When they asked which part she was in, she alwats replied, "the shower scene!"

We see where they got their sense of humor.

Kentucky Fried Movie Has a Pretty Woke Joke About Whitewashing

In recent years, Hollywood films have come under fire for their habit of casting white people as Native Americans, Latinos, Asians, and people of other groups who have historically been underrepresented in Hollywood.

But today's audiences weren't the first to call out the practice of whitewashing — A Fistful of Yen includes a pretty terrific joke in which Swedish model-actress Agneta Marie-Anne Eckemyr plays a character named Ming-Chow.

The blatant miscasting is never addressed, in keeping with the ZAZ tradition.

The Film Was a Breakthrough for Landis

"When we were in postproduction, I got the job to supervise the rewrite of Animal House," Landis said in Surely You Can't Be Serious. "I got Animal House because of Kentucky Fried Movie."

Landis was eventually promoted from supervising the writing of Animal House — which was written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller — to directing the film.

Of course, if Landis hadn't directed the film, someone else would have — but it wouldn't have been the same. And given Landis' comedy track record, it likely wouldn't have been as successful.

The Kentucky Fried Movie—Out of Africa Connection

When ZAZ and Landis were trying to get funding to make the movie, they got help from a friend they knew from Wisconsin, Kim Jorgensen, who ran L.A.'s beloved Nuart Theater. He had connections in the San Francisco theater business who helped them raise the budget, which was just over $600,000.

The Kentucky Fried Movie made more than $7 million and became a cult classic. As Landis explained in Surely You Can't Be Serious: "Jorgensen ended up making a pile of money from Kentucky Fried Movie, which he used to buy the rights to his favorite book."

That book was Out of Africa, which became the basis for the 1985 Meryl Streep and Robert Redford film that won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and best director for Sydney Pollack.

ZAZ Wanted More Control

Though they were happy with The Kentucky Fried Movie, Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker came out of the experience determined to direct their next movie themselves. So they held out in negotiations with Paramount for the right to be the first directing trio, and entered a protracted appeals process with the Directors Guild of America to make sure they would all be allowed to direct Airplane together.

"I think that not having control on Kentucky Fried Movie probably spurred them to approach Airplane! saying, 'We're directing this one ourselves!"

Things worked out OK, as you know if you've ever seen Airplane.

Liked These Kentucky Fried Movie Behind the Scenes Stories?

You might also like this list of Stories About the Jive Jokes in Airplane.

Rest in peace, Jim Abrahams, and thank you for the laughter.

Main image: Kentucky Fried Movie. United Film Distribution Company

Editor's note: Corrects spelling.