As the countdown to Samuel L. Jackson Should Have Said "Muthafuckin" A Few More Times continues, I am being irritated from all sides by anticipatory Snakes On A Plane coverage. But until now there has been one angle that has been overlooked: Snakes On A Plane happened to me!
Now, thanks to USA Today, that angle has been thoroughly explored in the article Snakes On A Plane Isn't Just A Movie.
(Monty Coles, the original Samuel L. Jackson)
Since reading the entire thing is like watching 12 episodes of
Dateline, here are a few highlights:
—"Monty Coles thought he was alone in his four-seat Piper Warrior when he took off from Charleston, W.Va., over Memorial Day weekend. Until he saw a tiny head poke out of his instrument panel."
—"In the much-talked-about Snakes on a Plane, opening Friday, Samuel L. Jackson's character battles scary vipers that threaten passengers during a flight.In real life, too, serpents have been known to sneak aboard planes with sometimes hair-raising results."
—"In July, Dutch customs officials at the Amsterdam airport thought they were looking at a plastic snake in a parcel marked "toys" being sent from Hong Kong. Wrong. It was a live poisonous Fea's viper sent airmail to a Netherlands collector. Luckily, no one was bitten."
—"When the snake wrapped around Coles' arm like a blood-pressure cuff, he stayed calm and remembered his flight instructor's mantra: 'Just fly the plane.' He called the control tower at the nearest airport, in Gallipolis, Ohio, and asked to make an emergency landing. 'I've got a handful of snake, and I've got a handful of plane,' he told the controller."
That is priceless dialogue. Do you think we can get the director to add it to Snakes On A Plane before Friday?