2024 Speaker
David Zucker
Writer, Director, Producer
With a string of worldwide box office hits and a few classic comedies to his credit, director/writer/producer David Zucker has established himself as one of Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers.
Starting out after college in Milwaukee, with a borrowed video tape deck and camera, David, with brother Jerry, and friend Jim Abrahams, created the Kentucky Fried Theater, setting up shop in the back of a Madison bookstore. Moving the show to Los Angeles in 1972, with their groundbreaking style of outrageous sketch comedy, they quickly became the most successful small theater group in Los Angeles history.
After only three years onstage at KFT, David, Jim, and Jerry conceived a movie idea that would invent a whole new genre. Airplane! broke all conventions, featuring dramatic actors like Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen performing zany jokes with straight-laced sincerity. The spoof became the surprise hit of 1980, continuing a streak of hilarious movies including Kentucky Fried Movie, Top Secret! and Ruthless People. David took off on his own to direct The Naked Guns, BASEketball, Scary Movies 3 and 4 and produced two more hits, A Walk in The Clouds and Phone Booth.
Most recently, David, Jerry and Jim have co-authored the best selling Surely You Can’t be Serious, the True Story of Airplane! (St. Martins Press) He is now in pre production for two new feature comedies, an international spy thriller, spoof, “Counter Intelijence!” and a Film Noir thriller, The Star of Malta.