preload
Mar 08

Never serve Mexican food for the inflight meal

Good Show Sir comments: Just another day at Ryanair.

Thanks to Ryan for sending this in!

Published 1957

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 4.82 out of 10)
Loading...

Tagged with:

24 Responses to “The Proving Flight”

  1. Francis Boyle Says:

    Not pictured: test anything.

    Also I question the artists understanding of the concept of “luxury”. This looks like a third class train from Moldova in 1947.

  2. Max Bathroom Says:

    Maybe they luxury up the fittings after the test flight?
    “Stop screaming and crying, people: this is the only time you’ll ever get to fly on an airline that isn’t Easyjet…”

  3. fred Says:

    Doesn’t look like this scene would fit with this cover it being 1957 and all.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXSLcYQHqFQ

  4. Tor Mented Says:

    Oh, no! He’s armed with a broken metal spoon!
    (And there’s a comment no one will understand when this gets on a future Flashback Friday.)

  5. NomadUK Says:

    Satan’s Stewardess does the seductive ‘come hither’ thing and generates an unexpected response.

  6. Tat Wood Says:

    @Francis: compared to Ryanair, this is sybaritic. They have seats and overhead lockers.

    Love the guy threading a needle..

  7. Emster Says:

    GSS project: get copies of this book, or at least print/laminate the cover 8×11, and slide them into random airplane seat pockets with the other safety information…
    Some people would not find that funny, but those who do, those are our kind of folks!

    @Tat: I had to zoom in on “mending guy” as well because he looked like he was winding his watch, sans watch…

  8. The Blue Are Coming Says:

    @Tat – He’s praying with a Catholic rosary. It does look like he’s re-threading the beads, tho’.

  9. The Blue Are Coming Says:

    Stewardess forgot to inflate the OTTO-pilot.

    Is that Leslie Nielson in the upper left ?

  10. A. R. Yngve Says:

    Paraplegic Pictures Presents
    AIRPORT 1957
    Starring a Bunch of Middle-Aged Guys

  11. NomadUK Says:

    Tat@6 & Emster@7: I see him as trying to read the fortune cookie from his airline meal:-
    YOU WILL TRAVEL FAR WITH SMOOTH SAILING
    LUCKY NUMBERS 38, 24, 36, 69, 18, 89

  12. Tat Wood Says:

    What part of ‘fasten your seatbelts’ don’t these people get?

    (oh, all right, I’ll be the one to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6grVB1xT1I)

  13. Tor Mented Says:

    Just what were they trying to prove?

  14. B. Chiclitz Says:

    He’s praying the rosary just like we were taught to do during the Cuban missile crisis, when they took us all down to the bingo room in the basement and had us sit under the tables and pray. Saying the rosary will protect you during an airplane crash just as effectively as it will protect you from a thermonuclear warhead.

  15. Bruce Alexander Munro Says:

    “This is your pilot speaking. Does anyone abroad have a number three Phillips screwdriver, eight inches of copper wire, and some duct tape?”

    I’d make a joke about forgetting to put in the seat belts, but seat belts in US airlines weren’t legally required until 1958.

    @B. Chiclitz et al: my initial impression was that he was getting really frustrated by his difficulties in rolling a joint.

  16. JuanPaul Says:

    The guy with the rosary looks like he’s covertly rolling a joint. Probably won’t be the first one they all smoked in the cabin.

  17. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Test flight full of passengers? I think they’re unclear on the concept.

    I get that seatbelts weren’t a thing yet, but you’d think they’d be clinging to what they could instead of standing up and being flung around.

    I like the insouciant stewardess. Standing braced in a doorway (sensible) while smirking at all the creeps who called her “honey” and pinched her ass.

    I’m not sure the guy down right is rolling a joint. That’s degenerate longhair stuff! However, he might be rolling his own cigarette, which is Manly and American.

    @FB: It does look like an old, bad train cabin. Or the “luxury” airplane sourced some bus benches.

    @Tor: I didn’t understand it till “The Daily Show” came on.

    @Emster: Sign me up.

  18. Bruce Alexander Munro Says:

    It’s possible that (it being 1957) the artist had never actually been on a plane and not wanting to go the trouble of finding reference photos (oh those crazy old pre-internet days) just went with the bus or train interior they were familiar with.

  19. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @BAM—But the artist should have easily been able to see THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954), with its many interior cabin shots of the beautiful old DC-4. (Interestingly, the insouciant stewardess looks a bit like Doe Avedon, who played the flight attendant in the film.)

    This classic, though totally John Wayne corny, which used to run about every six months on THE EARLY SHOW when I was a kid, is the ur-source of just about every trope or meme in every airplane disaster film ever made since.

  20. Ryan Says:

    @B. Chiclitz – Did you know that Airplane! (1980, the one with Leslie Nielsen) is actually based on The High and the Mighty? Having seen Airplane as a youth, I then watched THatM as an adult, and it was very hard not to laugh.

    I absolutely love this cover for the contrast between the insouciant stewardess and the terrified members of Masonic Lodge #352. And the fact that the artist has drawn it in such a way that the stewardess is very clearly the reason for their terror. “Holy Smokes, it’s a Woman! Dressed in Blue! Sheeaaaaaaaaghhh!”

  21. Max Bathroom Says:

    @Ryan:
    “What’s wrong with the guys on this flight? Normally when I say I’m looking for volunteers to join the mile high club there’s a queue or a fight rather than a panic…”

  22. Tat Wood Says:

    @Ryan: sort of, but a closer match is Zero Hour! (the exclamation-mark is in the title), with Dana Andrews as Ted Striker and a lot of other familiar names and lines. I defy you not to join in with the dialogue.

    The best spoof of ‘The High and the Mighty’ was Lenny Bruce’s stand-up routine.

  23. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Zero Hour! (1957) itself derives from THatM. Robert Stack provides the clearest through line from that film to AIRPLANE. Great genre, all in all.

  24. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Ryan: I had the same reaction when I saw THATM. I’m now picturing John Wayne mumbling about how he’d never get over Macho Grande.

    There’s a possibility that the passengers are Elks. Or Oddfellows. Or, with the rosary, Knights of Columbus.

Leave a Reply