this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2026
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Airplane! doesn't have a dumb name, but the German dubbed version does:
"Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verrückten Flugzeug" (The Incredible Journey On a Crazy Airplane)
And The Big Bus was called "The Hair-Raising Journey On a Crazy Bus".
Even though the movies have nothing to do with each other, apart from being comedies set in vehicles.
this is like how The Producers were shown in sweden using the name of the musical in the film, Springtime For Hitler, and then the name stuck. every Mel Brooks movie is called Springtime For X in sweden; Springtime For Mother-in-law, Springtime For The Sheriff, Springtime For Frankenstein, Springtime For The Lunatics, Springtime For World History, Springtime For Space...
No, that's actually a lot worse!
we had a real hard-on for translated titles for a while. two of my faves are 1) translating the bond film "from Russia with love" to "agent 007 sees red" 2) changing the title of "it could happen to you", a movie that has a guy win two million at the lottery, after which we learn he's an undercover police officer, and which ends with him giving the money away to a waitress in a heartfelt moment of empathy, into "cop gives waitress $2M tip"
Nice. Here are some more ideas for your translators:
(Warning – Spoilers for movies old enough to drink beer in the US)
Boy talks to dead psychologist
Everyone dies at the end
Earth
right? some others:
and my favourite, which i had forgotten until looking up these things:
German movie Titel Translations are so bad, I feel like it could be its own community
Hey, we sometimes avoid translation by giving the movie a completely different English title!
(See Crossroads -> Not a Girl)
Yeah and German->English translations have the same problem
There's no reason that 'Fuck you, Goethe!' had to be Anglo-washed into "Suck me, Shakespeare" which isn't even how we'd put that phrase in English. "Suck it, Shakespeare" would make more sense - "suck me" is an invitation.
Interesting film, btw. But English speaking people have probably heard of Goethe - and even if they haven't, knowing about Goethe is not in the slightest critical to understanding the movie.
That's hilarious!
In Spain, if it had Leslie Nielsen on it, it would be "(whatever action summarizing the movie) however you can!"
Naked Gun - Agárralo como puedas (catch it however you can)
Airplane! - Aterriza como puedas (land however you can)
... And so on. I think it applies to all of the movies with Nielsen.
Funnily, it is not a cultural quirk. It was usually part of regional marketing. Copyright and distribution deals of exported movies are very complex. Many countries have laws with mandatory dubbing. Contracts sometimes includes local translation, marketing, and theater distribution deals all in one. So, they would do all that they could to promote the movie for the local culture. It's akin to how some voice actors have dubbing contracts, so only they are allowed to dub a particular actor for a particular market. Because that market associated the voice with the actor. If it is a big celebrity, changing the voice could sour audiences to the new film. Mix that with a pre-Internet era and you get that sort of quirky name translations. It simply sold more tickets in that market, according to marketers at least.