Four years before the successful take off of Zucker and Abraham's smash hit spoof Airplane! (1980), director James Frawley's The Big Bus explored remarkably similar territory, lampooning the popular disaster genre in a crazy scatter-shot style. The film's titular vehicle is the world's first nuclear powered bus, a giant, luxury, 32-wheeled metallic titan called Cyclops embarking on its maiden journey travelling non-stop from New York to Denver; unfortunately for the passengers and crew, a crazed oil magnate is out to discredit the bus by putting it permanently out of service by any means necessary.
Like Airplane, the absurd goof-ball gags come thick and fast, but The Big Bus's batting average isn't quite as high, a lot of the humour falling rather flat. The film's best bits are its more subtle, throw-away humorous moments, although I imagine that a lot of these might easily be missed on the first viewing. As the film thunders towards its conclusion, the bus loses its brakes and picks up speed, careening round perilous mountain roads; when the bus eventually grinds to a halt (over the edge of a precipice) so do the film's laughs, the remainder of the action being dull and predictable.
Like Airplane, the absurd goof-ball gags come thick and fast, but The Big Bus's batting average isn't quite as high, a lot of the humour falling rather flat. The film's best bits are its more subtle, throw-away humorous moments, although I imagine that a lot of these might easily be missed on the first viewing. As the film thunders towards its conclusion, the bus loses its brakes and picks up speed, careening round perilous mountain roads; when the bus eventually grinds to a halt (over the edge of a precipice) so do the film's laughs, the remainder of the action being dull and predictable.