“I’m in command of 18 competitively selected super-perfect physical specimens with an average age of 24.6 who have been locked up in hyperspace for 378 days. It would have served you right if I hadn’t… and he… oh go on, get out of here before I have you run out of the area under guard – and then I’ll put more guards on the guards!” — Commander John J. Adams
Dr. Rumack (Nielsen): “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 (Julie Hagerty): “A hospital? What is it?”
Rumack: “It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important right now.”
“It’s true what they say: Cops and women don’t mix. It’s like eating a spoonful of Drano; sure, it’ll clean you out, but it’ll leave you hollow inside.” —Detective Frank Drebin
Frank: “It’s the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day.”
Jane (Priscilla Presley): “Goodyear?”
Frank: “No, the worst.”
Mayor: “Now Drebin, I don’t want any trouble like you had on the South Side last year, that’s my policy.”
Frank: “Well, when I see five weirdos, dressed in togas, stabbing a man in the middle of the park in full view of a hundred people, I shoot the bastards, that’s my policy!”
Mayor: “That was a Shakespeare-in-the-Park production of ‘Julius Caesar,’ you moron! You killed five actors! Good ones!”
“I’m sorry I can’t be more optimistic, Doctor, but we’ve got a long road ahead of us. It’s like having sex. It’s a painstaking and arduous task that seems to go on and on forever, and just when you think things are going your way, nothing happens.”
“I’d known her for years. We used to go to all the police functions together. Ah, how I loved her, but she had her music. I think she had her music. She’d hang out with the Chicago Male Chorus and Symphony. I don’t recall her playing an instrument or being able to carry a tune. Yet she was on the road 300 days of the year. In fact, I bought her a harp for Christmas. She asked me what it was.”
“Go ahead, threaten me like you have the American people for so long! You’re part of a dying breed, Hapsburg, like people who can name all fifty states! The truth hurts, doesn’t it, Hapsburg? Oh sure, maybe not as much as landing on a bicycle with the seat missing, but it hurts!”
“Oh, it’s all right. I’m sure that we can handle this situation maturely, just like the responsible adults that we are. Isn’t that right, Mr… Poopy Pants?”
Rumack: “Can you fly this plane, and land it?”
Ted Striker (Robert Hays): “Surely you can’t be serious.”
Rumack: “I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley.”
Rumack: “Captain, how soon can you land?”
Captain Oveur (Peter Graves): “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?”
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 (Lorna Patterson): [together] “It’s an entirely different kind of flying.”
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!”
