The line comes from the 1980 comedy Airplane!, spoken by Leslie Nielsen as Dr. Rumack during a tense cockpit exchange that plays the disaster film completely straight. The gag depends on the pun between 'surely' and the name Shirley, and it became one of the film's most quoted jokes as Airplane! grew into a cult favourite on television and home video. Decades later, short clips and soundboards kept the exchange alive, because the dry delivery still works as a quick correction in reaction videos, edits and memes.
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Leslie Nielsen's deadpan 'don't call me Shirley' line from Airplane (1980), used as a dry punchline when someone takes a joke too seriously.
This is the clipped exchange from Airplane! in which a straight-faced doctor corrects a passenger, delivering the line 'don't call me Shirley' with flat, unflinching seriousness after being told 'surely you can't be serious.' Nielsen's voice is calm, low and deliberately matter-of-fact, with almost no pause for laughter, which is exactly why it lands. The joke works because the correction is treated as more important than the crisis around it, turning a simple misunderstanding into a deadpan punchline that still makes viewers smile decades later.
