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The Creator of ‘Airplane!’ Spent $60,000 to Pull Off a Dirty Practical Joke

David Zucker spent years and roughly $60,000 trying to engineer one horse-racing call, finally pulling off the gag in 1993.

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David Zucker first made a name for himself in the 1970s as one-third of the filmmaking trio known as ZAZ. Alongside his brother, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams, Zucker wrote such revered comedies as The Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane!, and The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! That’s in addition to directing two of the Naked Gun sequels on his own and having a hand in cult classics like BASEketball and Scary Movie 3. As it turns out, though, Zucker wasn’t just content with getting laughs for his on-screen efforts. 

At some point in the 1980s, Zucker developed an interest in horse racing.........

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