Blazing Saddles

baby please, i'm not from havana.

after reading many Abbott "jokes" on ILE, it makes total sense that she likes "Not Another Teen Movie" more than "Blazing Saddles."

Blazing Saddles = a movie with a lot of good stuff that is also not a good movie.

chaki, oh, you. Oh you.

teehee

you know ... morons.

Where the white women at?

I think it's one for the elders; a lot of the humor is quite dated now.

yeah, fuck the Marx Brothers too!

Call me an elder, I love Blazing Saddles

I used to rate it with Young Frankenstein. I know better now. Still, "I Get a Kick Out of You" for the win.

Auf wiedersehn, baby...

They said you was hung!

And they were RIGHT!!!

Gentlemen, we've got to save our phoney-baloney jobs!

i didn't get a harrumph out of that guy.

Wow. Not Another Teen Movie, huh. Wow.

I am crappy?

I think so.

Can we narrow this down to my taste in eat-up-an-afternoon lazytime movies? Not that I mind being generally crappy.

Can we narrow this down to my taste in eat-up-an-afternoon lazytime movies?

See, now this makes me even angrier. I haven't spent an afternoon just watching movies in MONTHS.

"not another teen movie" is terrible and unfunny anytime of the day.

as is Blazing Saddles.

Your statement brings me relief.

i think NATM is funny & BS is less funny that its rep but abbott yr statement is still preposterous, sorry

No one has to agree. I do not enforce challops.

I have not seen NATM but I have seen Blazing Saddles and I thought it was shit. The fact that it happens to be a Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder film does not make it less so.

this movie really doesn't stand up as well as YF.

i mean i guess i respect it and all but it didn't make me LOL. sure a lot of that has to do with how many ppl ripped it off but still.

yf is an absolute classic but bs has more cutting social commentary? i guess thats what you mean by it not standing up as well tho, not that its even close between the two

If you 'respect' a movie like Blazing Saddles, I think you may be missing the point.

i dissagree. there is actually some surprising depth to blazing saddles in addition to the hijinx, which i think are mostly funny but apparently many people do not

See, I know from some AMC special it is supposed to have some Important Social Commentary, but what? People hated black people? It was totes okay to make fun of gay people?

Westerns were inaccurate?

abbott i fucking hate amc & have not read any crit of blazing saddles so its not like im trying to tow any line but ill refer you to this scene which is one of my faves, despite not being partic LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4YLuv0k4jk

a scene like that is unrelated to anything you mentioned & has way more depth than any in YF & you gotta realize that even around the time of this movies filming some newspapers still referred to blacks as 'negros' & this followed v quickly on the 'western' era, etc; so yes i do think the mocking of social & filmic constructions is pretty fantastic as well

also refer you to morbs quoting of the "morons" punchline

That line wz very good.

I guess I just don't get the '70s and race.

Like that one SNL sketch w/Chevy Chase where it's a 'negroid'/'honky' escalating nameslinger. I watch it and get two replies:
1. Wow, sure couldn't do that today! WOW.
2. ... ... ...?

I will never understand what is allegedly "funny" in Mel Brooks movies...

big surprise: dell doesnt get it

Me either. Except in 'History of the World,' the "You can't Torquemada anything!" line.

Do I have to be blazed to get the Saddles, chaki?

waitasec abbott you dont like young frankenstein either???

I've only seen Blazing Saddles & History...

xposts

No, I just don't know how to write clearly. The thing is, I "get it", but I don't find it to his films to be funny. Didn't think so as a kid; don't think so now.

maybe the problem is abbz just doesnt have enough respeck for gene wilder

big surprise: dell has no sense of humor

Well for fucksake, watch Young Frankenstein!

I love Gene Wilder so, so much, but yeah, I didn't dig the Sherlock Holmes one either. He is by far the most wonderful and redeeming part of those movies, but he still can't make up for the flat jokes around him. (NB have not seen his stuff w/Richard Pryor).

Is YF the one with 'Abbie Normal'? Teachers would always call me that.

big surprise: dell has no sense of humor

lol

It is. See, you already have a deep personal connection of long standing.

:(

aw, there there

Seriously, you really need to see YF. Gene Wilder does like, what, 3 or 4 slow burns in it?

Also, watch the extra dvd bits. During the scene where they first enter the castle, the cameraman is laughing so hard you can see the frame beginning to shake.

YF is great; The Producers is my favorite. But both of those are loaded to the gills with old vaudeville comedy tropes (same as a Marx Brothers movie).

But really. Not many people know it, but the Fuhrer was a terrific dancer.

echoing everyone here, YF >>>>> Blazing Saddles.

Also, YF was intended to be a very different flick than BS, genre considerations aside. BS is far more of-the-moment, whereas YF is deliberately classical, if you will.

FAR more of-the-moment. Not even Mel Brooks could get by with the big-black-dick jokes today.

Mongo pawn in game of life.

mongo is eternal.

Worth mentioning somewhere in here that Richard Pryor wrote that line. BF gets even better with time and viewings for me.

Or I mean BS!

as great as mongo is, alex karras as mongo vs. peter boyle as frankenstein's monster is no contest.

totes okay to make fun of gay people?

though Wilder plays his shootist as gay

I like YF but I love BS...

Where the white women at?

Have used this line so many times. Struggling to comprehend the idea that people don't find "Blazing Saddles" funny.

"Now, go do that voodoo that you do so WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!"

Struggling to comprehend the idea that people don't find "Blazing Saddles" funny.

The only acceptable reply to that statement is, clearly, that I have no sense of humour.

It's best to avoid saying that when people don't find the same things funny as you do... but kinda hard to avoid here

"Hell I was born here. And I was raised here. And dad-gummit I'm gonna die here. And no side-windin' bushwackin' horn-swagglin' crugger-croager is gonna roaul me brishnin cutter!"

I think it's one for the elders; a lot of the humor is quite dated now.

-- not_goodwin, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 20:13 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

This is probably true. Certainly a lot of the race-based humour in it has to be seen in the context of other race-based "humour" back in the seventies, which if you remember it, was pretty horrible a lot of the time. (see also:"Rising Damp") I watch it about once a year, and still laugh at plenty of bits in it. I agree it's not as good as "Young Frankenstein", but I still like it loads. Fave bit is Lily Von Schtupp's song. Also Cleavon Little is total man-crush of shame.

Jim: Look at my hand
[raises hand and holds it level]
Bart: Steady as a rock.
Jim: [raises other wobbling hand] Yeah but it shoot with this one.

I guess even Lily's song is "one for the elders" - I remember seeing "Destry Rides Again", Lily being a takeoff on Marlene Deitrich in that, on TV in the late '70's/early '80's more than once. I cannot imagine a film like that being shown on any mainstream TV channel in the last decade (TCM excluded, obv) Maybe I'm wrong about that, I don't know.

Where the white women at?

this is my myspace tagline!

also not comprehending how there are people who don't find blazing saddles to be really really really funny

I think the thing was, all my friends were all "OMG LOL They sit round a campfire farting!" and I thought, hmm if that's the funniest thing about it, include me out.

(oops, there goes Abbot's butt)

But no, this is a fine film.

Don't like fart jokes but that is the greatest ever. Just thinking about all the funny lines in the this film and, all of a sudden, my mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives...

Tom D, You use your tongue purtier than a twenty dollar whore.

Blazing Saddles is not in my top 3 Brooks movies, but it's quite a bit funnier if you're very familiar with westerns of the '40s and '50s, which I suspect isn't true of many folks here.

that is, re Pashmina's post, Destry Rides Again was 35 years old when BS was made, and BS is now 34 years old.

When BS came out, all anyone in my class talked about was the unprecedented farting scene. There are about 50 comedies w/ farting scenes every year now.

blazing saddles is in my top 3 fave movies of all time, and also not really informed about 40s/50s westerns

well, imagine the degree of worship you'd indulge in if you were!

"Randolph Scott!"

Blazing saddles is a collection of jokes and funny set pieces, most are good, some are all time good, and quite a few are just flat and unfunny.

young frankenstein is a great film all the way through, and while it doesn't have as many high points as BS, it' has't nearly as many duff notes and is mmuch more consistent.

Not another teen movie is probably better all the way through than BS, yeah I'd go with that.

it's no three amigos, that's for sure.

TS: Posse vs. Young Guns vs. Young Guns II

the man who shot liberty valance vs city slickers

The sheriff is near!

Student?

Are you kidding?

no irish!

voila!

^^ SPOILERS

my grandmother was dutch!

mel brooks overt jokiness is always a bit grating - cant say i like the guy no i cant - tho i did as a lad

I didn't know your grandmother was dutch!

There are two kinds of Mel Brooks, Your Show of Shows thru High Anxiety (and I'm being generous there), and the mess that followed.

You ain't gotta tell me. I saw "Life Stinks" in the theater!

thru High Anxiety

the lyric, "oooo! ang-ZIETTTTYYYY!!!" kills me every time.

I take it you've been watching those Sinatra '60s TV specials, then?

"the cuc-koo breeze through her hair..."

If only all the mentions of Not Another Teen Movie were instead Scary Movie or Wet Hot American Summer, then I'd be gung ho with that.

though Wilder plays his shootist as gay

waht? plz explain, I thought it was just straight-up regular Wilder.

When BS came out, all anyone in my class talked about was the unprecedented farting scene. There are about 50 comedies w/ farting scenes every year now.

Yeah I'm too much of a simp to get its revolutionary fartypants humor.

No, I mean, I see what you're saying. I was talking to my dad about this in regard to "Animal House," which I didn't even find halfway entertaining (whereas Blazing Saddles is at least pleasant). "Why did so many people find that movie funny?" I said. "I mean, I know it's been ripped off dozens of times since then, the whole underdog frat thing, but what did people see in it?"
He said, "You know that scene where he fills his food full of mouth and squeezes his cheeks, then says, 'I'm a zit?' No one had ever seen anything like that before..." And then he trailed off and was quiet for a few seconds.

folks will be telling their kids the same thing about cum as hair gel 20 years from now.

(however, I saw Animal House in '78 and didn't think it was anywhere as funny as Movie Movie)

Actually I don't think any other movies have stolen the zit or hair gel bits...

http://www.theseriouscomedysite.com/images/year-old-man.jpg

http://www.general-anaesthesia.com/images/chloroform-bottle.jpg

I wonder whether the view that the race humor in BS is dated comes from the fact that the country is less of a viciously racist place than it was in the '70s, or from the fact that the country just talks about it less now, or more now, or more carefully now. Either way, I think both this and Animal House age well on the issue, and make a lot of what came after look tame.

All I remember from NATM was the falling through the stairs, but no way was it as funny...

Not as funny as "Not Another Teen Movie."

Not true.

big surprise: some unfunny British dude, dell and some chick from bumfuck usa do not find Blazing Saddles funny.

Don't knock my town, chaki!

Actually I remember only one scene from Not Another Teen Movie, but I remember enjoying it/obtaining much more satisfaction from it way more every time I have seen it than the times I have watched Blazing Saddles. I suppose I should not open a can of worms re: my opinion on Goonies.

I wonder whether the view that the race humor in BS is dated comes from the fact that the country is less of a viciously racist place than it was in the '70s, or from the fact that the country just talks about it less now, or more now, or more carefully now. Either way, I think both this and Animal House age well on the issue, and make a lot of what came after look tame.

I think it's the latter, that it's way cautious (or just doesn't make any sense at all alá 'White Girls'). And I guess I am so accustomed to the mod-ren way of dealing with race that stuff like Blazing Saddles/early SNL doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand its approach.

Don't worry about Goonies, Abbott. The whole world will go to bat for Goonies.

I think the thing about 70s race stuff is that it depended on this sense of freedom - the sense that people were really allowed to do and say ANYTHING. The more uncomfortable or weird, the better. Saw an R. Crumb exhibit at a local museum the other week, and it was very strange. All this sleazy porn, violent misogyny and super-questionable race humor plastered over the clean white walls, with all these arty/liberal Seattle museum folk walking around "mmm-hm, mmm-hm." I wondered what everybody was thinking. I was thinking, "Holy shit! You could never Never NEVER do shit like this nowadays and get away with it. Much less make a career of it, become some kind of eminence grise because of it."

It made me kind of uncomfortable, not 'cuz I thought it shouldn't exist, but because we (the people in the museum) were all being so blase about something that so clearly and so radically violated the contemporary social agreements that we observe in the rest of our lives. It made the elephants in the room feel very large and very ominously present.

People back then were so willing to expose the uncomfortable shit in their heads, and we go to such ridiculous lengths nowadays to hide it. I think the modern approach sucks, though I don't like Blazing Saddles much, either.

No, I dislike Goonies.

It made the elephants in the room feel very large and very ominously present.

OTM!

No, I dislike Goonies.

There's something of the R. Crumb aspect of just airing shit that hadn't been aired, I agree. But BS is anti-racist, even if it gave white audiences permission to laugh at the N-word. I imagine it was a huge release of tension.

a lot of comedy dates badly. that is why some old comedies don't seem as hilarious to young folks. the end

Are people here aware that Richard Pryor co-wrote "Blazing Saddles"?

whoa, i had no idea

a lot of comedy dates badly as soon as it's performed.

Pryor was supposed to play Bart at one point too.

And I guess I am so accustomed to the mod-ren way of dealing with race that stuff like Blazing Saddles/early SNL doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand its approach.

I honestly don't have any idea what this modern way is you see. Maybe I've read / seen too many recent interviews with "I'm not for the Muslim n*gger" Hillary voters.

The #1 TV show (for 2-3 years prior) at the time of BS's release was the slur-peppered, antiracist "All in the Family," which Norman Lear correctly surmises could never get on the air today.

Search Lenny Bruce's "how to relax your colored friends at parties" routine.

I guess my modern way is I sit in my house and ignore everything that doesn't strike my fancy. So, I suppose, the moral here is that people should basically take my statements with an entire salt lick, if they already don't.

studio execs thought prior was too threatening for the lead role, or he was too unreliable to cast in a lead, depending on the version you hear.

and then he signed with the padres, so he wouldnt have been able to be in the movie anyway

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YcqqJ3MNx4A

Currently on CMT, airing on bar tv.

Asked the bardude to turn on the CC, then realized I could quote it line by line anyway.

i don't know how i feel about that

---I guess my modern way is I sit in my house and ignore everything that doesn't strike my fancy

So don't talk about stuff that doesn't revolve around you and yr house maybe? BS rules!

Abbott, that's a very frustrating thing for me to read about you, even if its somewhat in joking exageration. You seem a very smart and curious person - ignoring things that don't strike your fancy is no way to foster and perpetuate that state of mind.

I really don't mean to sound pedantic AT ALL - I just get frustrated by folks that get so rolled up in their own mental carpets that they can't break out and try new stuff. I am, of course, projecting to a major extent here.

BS is a great, albeit dated, comedy. YF is a great movie that happens to be a great comedy that has aged VERY well. And DAMN Terri Garr was hot.

Mongo RIP

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PkTyzj3xpAc/TY3wvMdPwnI/AAAAAAAABgE/8iHVPIZB7fk/Blazing%2BSaddles.jpg

So, I take it that this film will never be broadcast ever again?

Why?

I saw it on TCM or AMC or one of those channels like a year or so ago.

It uses the n word a fair bit..

yeah and they always just censor it

Never seen that version

40th anniversary Blu Ray coming out this month.

The humor in Blazing Saddles is very crude... and proud of it. Toilet jokes, fart jokes, sex jokes, racial jokes, ethnic jokes, wretched puns, pratfalls. The plot is absurd and any resemblance to reality is accidental. It's an unholy union of the Marx Brothers and Three Stooges. But if you meet it on its own level, it's a funny and entertaining movie all the way through. It even has a heart.

I saw Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin the other night, which on the provocation scale makes BS look like Sanford & Son

BS is on TV all the time, just bleeped

Bleeped? As I say, never seen that, is it a US thing?

We have puritanical ears.

we don't show nipples either

well, strictly you just charge for them on HBO, seems like the American way

monetizing nipples since 1993

Mad Men has nipples

curious what you thought of Coonskin Morbz

it's not really...funny?... but it certainly has its moments and drew quite a nerd audience across the racial spectrum at BAM.

it's pretty bleak

Instead of bleeps, they should just do this in all cases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZ9ku_wInw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZ9ku_wInw

the farting around the campfire scene is a special blend of nothing happening at all on television

BS is on TV all the time, just bleeped

1981 (1982?) dubbed TV-version featured the old lady growing "Out of my way, n-----!" so as not to offend people with anuses

The farting scene is a whole load of nothing in any version I've ever seen

When it was shown on network TV in the 80s, the farting was masked by horse whinnying, but the n-word stayed put.

xxpost GROWLING

you need to understand '40s/50s westerns to 'get' the farting

Are you even allowed to make TV comedy without farting these days?

Farting simply hadn't been seen/heard in films or TV at all up to that point. As difficult as it may be to imagine now, it was revolutionary for 1974.

a wind of change blowing thru cinema

none of this makes it funny tho

xp a breath of fresh air

none of this makes it funny tho

there's no answer for that. but there never is, regardless of where that opinion is aimed.

need lex to weigh in on this

not funny

harrumphing becomes darraghmac

Every since we had done The Producers, Gene was my best friend. So he knew I'd cast Gig Young as the Waco Kid; Gig had won the Oscar for They Shoot Horses, Don't They, so he was considered a dramatic actor. But if you see some of the stuff he did earlier, like the Doris Day movies he was in, you'd see he had a real light comic touch. And the Kid is a alcoholic, and so was Gig. He knew how to do it.

Then we have the first day of shooting, he literally started throwing up green stuff all over the set. I thought, "We aren't shooting The Exorcist, are we? I think something's wrong here." I sent him to the hospital, and called Gene in tears. I heard him sigh over the phone: "I know, Mel, I'm the Waco Kid, you need me, I'll be there." This was a Saturday; he flew out on Sunday, tried on the costume, tried on the gunbelt, tried on the horse … [laughs] it all fit. By Monday, he was shooting the scene where he's hanging upside down next to Cleavon. It all worked.

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/mel-brooks-on-gene-wilder-and-making-blazing-saddles-w436989

Finally watched this. Grinned several times, laughed twice I believe. It passes by amiably even with the number of scenes that don't contain any jokes, just bits of plot mechanics. But maybe kind of a "you had to be there'' movie for me, very different from the ease with which I've gotten right into ths sprit of Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety

Which were your two laughs?

Ummm... one was definitely the Gene Wilder fast-draw gag up against the big group of toughs. The other, hrm, maybe one of the bits with the Gabby Hayes type, or one of Madeline Kahn's ''wed wose'' lines, not sure. Idk in general I was expecting something denser with jokes, but it's more one of those movies with just a generally comical atmosphere, too laid back to really yield belly-laughs but usually leaving you sitting there more or less comfortable to be spending an evening with this likeable cast. Maybe if I'd seen more old Westerns I'd notice more cliches being sent up?

It's fine - but its place in ''all time funniest movies'' lists really does leave me scratching my head.

I was expecting something denser with jokes

The first 5 minutes alone includes "I Get A Kick Out Of You," the cowboys singing "Camptown Ladies," "my grandmother was Dutch," "tell the governor I said 'ow'" plus a bunch of others. I think it's physically impossible for this movie to be more dense with jokes.

One joke that didn't make it, under threat of an X rating:

"Oh, it's twue! It's twue, it's twue!"

"...you're sucking on my arm."

idk, I think Young Frankenstein is denser, and then something like Airplane IMO really sets the bar higher by piling on more visual and background jokes. Not every comedy needs to be a high-density thing obviously!

Also, I'd have to go back and check but I'm not convinced those are all in the first five minutes, since even setting up and delivering the "I Get A Kick Out of You" and "Camptown Ladies" bits took quite a bit of screen time. But I'm sure if I'd been laughing at any of that it wouldn't have felt as sluggish and pokey as it did. "Tell them I said 'ow'" was cute though.

yf is less dense with jokes imo but they are far better integrated into plot

Yeah, probably more like 10 minutes...and you're right, it doesn't have the background-gag thing of something like Airplane! (the series Angie Tribeca is the most joke-dense show or film I've ever seen).

I don't see it as sluggish so much as working up to some of the jokes; if there's a joke, or a background gag, immediately before the horse gets punched out, the horse getting punched out isn't nearly as funny.

xp

otoh, Airplane! makes Blazing Saddles look directed.

I will definitely allow that I was probably expecting a different style of direction/editing - there are a fair number of superfluous reaction shots (to things like the horse-punching) which are probably there to give the audience time to laugh, and I get that, it just didn't work so well for me in a movie that often seems to be expending a lot of effort to get us to where the next gag can happen.

I'm thinking of things like all the cutaways to the bad guy going "Well that last plan didn't work, time for another approach - I've got it!" where you really don't need that at all, and I guess they tried to turn those into comedy scenes by having him leer boringly at Madeline Kahn, or having him really want his rubber frog to bathe with... Oh, my sides. Or, like, when Cleavon Little is mobilizing the different parties for his overnight plan at the end, I feel like a long stretch goes by with almost no gags at all - just plot mechanics played about as they would be in a non-comedy film (though I did get a kick out of the one townsperson really painstakingly walking through the plan that everybody else has already grasped).

I'm thinking of things like all the cutaways to the bad guy going "Well that last plan didn't work, time for another approach - I've got it!" where you really don't need that at all, and I guess they tried to turn those into comedy scenes by having him leer boringly at Madeline Kahn, or having him really want his rubber frog to bathe with...

Froggy bit was fun silliness, thought it's not my favorite bit. But "Why am I asking you?" is so perfect.

One thing I loved about BS when I rescreened last summer was the Looney Tunes-like anarchy of the final act--the fight bursting onto the musical set, chasing Headley into the movie theatre, going off in the limo at the end--not only are you laughing at the gags, you're laughing at the audacity to go there in the first place.

Yeah, I enjoyed those moves also - though very unsure how to take the gay stereotyping of the musical bit.

I think you were OTM about this being a "you had to be there" kind of movie

Maybe I have an odd family, but I always saw this as a classic Jewish family movie, the sort of thing you all watch together after Christmas dinner when you're all too tired to talk anymore. The grandparents dig the Yiddish jokes and the slapstick, the parents dig the filthy stuff, the kids love the farting and the horse-punching (and the filthy stuff), and everyone loves Slim Pickens being hit on the head with a spade.

Later as an adult I just appreciate the incredible laid-back chemistry in the quieter Cleavon Little/Gene Wilder scene.

Offhand the only dud aspect I can remember is Mel Brooks's character mugging, although he gets some amazing reaction shots out of Pickens and Harvey Korman.

Korman is the film's secret comic weapon.

Don't know how much of a secret that is tbh.

In that no one ever talks about his performance (at least not to the extent of Wilder, Kahn, etc).

its a badly written character and the performance doesnt save it

"Student?"

can't believe Mel didn't swipe the scalping gag at 12:25 here

(Buster Keaton plays the Indian chief)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ZESmgxjUc

So, um, kill your idols. I hadn't seen Blazing Saddles in over 30 years and over the decades whatever I recall about it just got tossed into the "you don't need to have an opinion about this" bin in my head. So what the hell... ungh. Felt like a slog - older style gags that are more schtick than satire. (biases: I was always a Get Smart/YF guy and I fucking love The Twelve Chairs)

Definitely need to rewatch The Twelve Chairs at some point.

is the title a double entendre for farts?

Blazing Saddles has definitely aged badly. But I could never hate a movie that makes room for a Richard Dix joke.

If I could add one gag scene to Blazing Saddles, I'd love to see Dick Shawn show up in his 'hey daddy o beatnik' persona dressed as Eastwood's "Man with no name". Then have it end up with a gun showdown between him and Sherriff Bart in the middle of the main street.