Travel Wisconsin hired David Zucker and Robert Hays, the director and star of Airplane!, to create a tourism ad.
This week's strange travel news.
Surely, they can't be serious?
Forget about Milwaukee beer or Door County cherries. Travel Wisconsin has embraced cheesy humour in its new TV ad created by David Zucker and Robert Hays, the director and star, respectively, of the 1980 comedy Airplane!. The slapstick-laden, 30-second spot shows Hays out fishing, taking a pot in the back of the head and a plank in the face, among other mishaps. It culminates with a fish tail vigorously slapping him after he leers hopefully at a group of girls. The tag line? "Fun. Courtesy of Travel Wisconsin." They could also have gone with "More Fun Than Nebraska."
Fly the not-so-dog-friendly skies
An English springer spaniel named Hendrix got a free, accidental trip to Ireland earlier this month and his owner was not amused. "I felt like somebody punched me in the stomach," Edith Albach said after United Airlines mistakenly put Hendrix on a seven-hour flight from Newark, N.J. to Shannon, Ireland – instead of his true destination: Phoenix. The dog had to fly back to Newark after a two-hour layover, and then took another five-hour flight to Phoenix, where Albach's family welcomed him. United said staff walked and fed Hendrix during his odyssey and the airline offered a refund. Frankly, this story would be cooler if Hendrix had lit his guitar on fire.
Helping you roach your destination
On a March 15 Greyhound bus travelling from Atlantic City, N.J. to New York, hundreds of cockroaches suddenly swarmed out of air vents, horrifying the 48 passengers on board. "People were in the aisles literally brushing roaches off of them," passenger Dawn Alexander said. The driver pulled over and a second bus arrived shortly afterward to complete the trip. Greyhound provided full refunds and is investigating how the roaches infested the bus. Say, isn't it time for a sequel to Snakes on a Plane?
Sources: Huffington Post, CNN, New York Daily News