Rumack Quotes in Airplane! (1980)

Rumack: You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.

Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it?

Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.

Rumack: Can you fly this plane, and land it?

Ted Striker: Surely you can't be serious.

Rumack: I am serious... and don't call me Shirley.

Rumack: What was it we had for dinner tonight?

Elaine Dickinson: Well, we had a choice of steak or fish.

Rumack: Yes, yes, I remember, I had lasagna.

[repeated line, to Ted and Elaine]

Rumack: I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.

Rumack: Captain, how soon can you land?

Captain Oveur: I can't tell.

Rumack: You can tell me. I'm a doctor.

Captain Oveur: No. I mean I'm just not sure.

Rumack: Well, can't you take a guess?

Captain Oveur: Well, not for another two hours.

Rumack: You can't take a guess for another two hours?

[Randy is crying]

Rumack: Randy, are you all right?

Randy: Oh, Dr. Rumack, I'm scared. I've never been so scared. And besides, I'm 26 and I'm not married.

Rumack: We're going to make it, you've got to believe that.

[a woman passenger comes in]

Mrs. Hammen: Dr. Rumack, do you have any idea when we'll be landing?

Rumack: Pretty soon, how are you bearing up?

Mrs. Hammen: Well, to be honest, I've never been so scared. But at least I have a husband.

[Randy cries harder]

Ted Striker: I flew single engine fighters in the Air Force, but this plane has four engines. It's an entirely different kind of flying, altogether.

Rumack, Randy: [together] It's an entirely different kind of flying.

Rumack: The life of everyone on board depends upon just one thing: finding someone back there who can not only fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner.

[an epidemic of food poisoning is sweeping the plane]

Captain Oveur: What is it, Doctor? What's going on?

Rumack: I'm not sure. I haven't seen anything like this since the Anita Bryant concert.

Jack: What's going on? We have a right to know the truth!

Rumack: [to the passengers] All right, I'm going to level with you all. But what's most important now is that you remain calm. There is no reason to panic.

[Rumack's nose grows an inch long]

Rumack: Now, it is true that one of the crew members is ill... slightly ill.

[Rumack's nose continues to grow longer and longer, à la Pinocchio]

Rumack: But the other two pilots... they're just fine. They're at the controls flying the plane... free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.

Rumack: I won't deceive you, Mr. Striker. We're running out of time.

Ted Striker: Surely there must be something you can do.

Rumack: I'm doing everything I can... and stop calling me Shirley!

Rumack: Extremely serious. It starts with a slight fever and dryness of the throat. When the virus penetrates the red blood cells, the victim becomes dizzy, begins to experience an itchy rash, then the poison goes to work on the central nervous system, severe muscle spasms followed by the inevitable drooling.

[Oveur does all of the above as Rumack describes each one]

Rumack: At this point, the entire digestive system collapses accompanied by uncontrollable flatulence

[Oveur begins to fart uncontrollably]

Rumack: Until finally, the poor bastard is reduced to a quivering wasted piece of jelly.

Rumack: Well, I don't have anything to say, you've done the best you could. You really have, the best you could. You can't expect to win em all. But, I want to tell you something I've kept to myself through these years. I was in the war myself, medical corps. I was on late duty one night when they brought in a badly wounded pilot from one of the raids. He could barely talk. He looked at me and said, "The odds were against us up there, but we went in anyway, I'm glad the Captain made the right decision." The pilot's name was George Zip.

Ted Striker: George Zip said that?

Rumack: The last thing he said to me, "Doc," he said, "some time when the crew is up against it, and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to get out there and give it all they got and win just one for the Zipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Doc," he said, "but I won't smell too good, that's for sure."

Ted Striker: Excuse me doc, I got a plane to land.

Rumack: Elaine, you're a member of this crew. Can you face some unpleasant facts?

Elaine Dickinson: No.