What kind of comedy do you like? Unless you’re looking for something high-brow, Blazing Saddles has it. It may not be the top comedy on my Top 100, but it is without a doubt the funniest. The movie is so rapid-fire and vicious with its jokes, the viewer is likely to get whiplash, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend trying to keep track of all the gags. From racially-charged satire, to film and genre parody, to anachronism, to fourth-wall breaks, to blue humor, to simple toilet humor – Blazing Saddles has something for everybody. In fact, in my years of polling people, I have only come across one person who could say with a straight face that they didn’t find Blazing Saddles funny, and their epitome of humor is Gus Johnson videos on YouTube…so I’m pretty sure their opinion doesn’t count. I also know that the film has come under more scrutiny in recent years (not that it was free from it when it was released) for its offensive portrayal of stereotypes and use of the n-word. I’m not going to sit here and bemoan that comedians can’t be funny anymore or whatever, or “you could never make Blazing Saddles today” blah blah blah, but there is something to be said of nuance in regards to these offensive jokes – it’s not all black and white (a pun, I think? Kinda?) And I would argue that the people who make such claims regarding the race-related humor miss the point entirely. There’s more to it than this, but I can safely say part of the reason for the frequent use of the n-word is to make you uncomfortable and sick of hearing it, and I’m unsure how anyone could see that as anything but an absolute positive. Dang it. I bemoaned and I said I wasn’t going to. Anyway, for those who can admit something is funny even when it’s inappropriate, Blazing Saddles is the film to see.

It’s the Old West and the town of Rock Ridge is in danger of being demolished to make room for a rerouted railroad. To get the townspeople gone, Hedley Lamarr gets his flunky, Taggart, and his men to raid the town and kill their sheriff. The townspeople hold a town meeting and decide the governor should send them a new sheriff. Lamarr intercepts the idea and convinces the governor to send them Bart, a Black railroad worker who was about to be hanged, thinking a Black sheriff will so offend the people of Rock Ridge that they’ll leave on their own. The townspeople are immediately hostile to Bart upon his arrival and so Bart holds himself hostage to get away and into the sheriff’s office. With the help of the Waco Kid, an alcoholic gunfighter who had been sleeping off a hangover in a jail cell, Bart earns the town’s respect and subdues Mongo, one of Lamarr’s hired thugs, and Lili von Shtupp, a sexually-charged saloon singer. Through Mongo, Bart learns of Lamarr’s plan to take the railroad through Rock Ridge, and so Lamarr recruits an army of criminals, including motorcyclists, Nazis, KKK members and Methodists to wipe out the town. Bart devises a plan to build a replica of Rock Ridge laced with dynamite to get rid of the army. The fight between the two groups literally breaks the fourth wall and spills out into another movie set where a song-and-dance number is being rehearsed. The fight then moves to the commissary and turns into a food fight. Lamarr escapes and goes to Mann’s Chinese Theater and sits in on the premiere of Blazing Saddles. Through the movie, he sees Bart arriving at the theater. Lamarr tries to escape again, but Bart guns him down. Bart and The Waco Kid decide to catch the ending of the movie, which is Bart saying goodbye to Rock Ridge and riding off with the Waco Kid, in a limousine, into the sunset.

Blazing Saddles has to be one of the few instances where a comedy is just as funny in production as in the viewing. So many anecdotes associated with this movie are off-the-wall hilarious. First, there’s the casting. Richard Pryor (who was working with Mel Brooks on the script) was the original choice for Bart, but was uninsurable. Probably for the best since Pryor, while hilarious, tends to overact. Brooks’ original pick for the Waco Kid was John Wayne! But Wayne declined because it didn’t fit in his family-friendly image. The role was given to Gig Young, who was fired after his first scene because he was too drunk to get it right. Honestly, dodged a bullet there. Hedy Lamarr – sorry, that’s “Hedley” – was originally supposed to Johnny Carson, but Harvey Korman is hands down the better pick. What a different movie this would have been if the original casting choices went through. Mel Brooks made sure he had final cut on the production before he took it on, and thank goodness he did, otherwise, the studio would have cut it to shreds or just not release it. Brooks put himself in a position to ignore all suggestions made by executives across filming. Brooks was looking for a “Frankie Laine-type” to sing the theme song, and got the actual Frankie Laine to do it. If you hear the song, you know just how much passion Laine gives…probably because he was not informed the film was a parody. I imagine if he had heard all the random whip-cracking throughout the song, he would have picked up on it.

It’s that parody that gives the movie its heart, though. Parody is the sincerest form of flattery. You have to love something deeply to successfully parody it, otherwise, you just come off as mean. And there’s parody galore in Blazing Saddles. There’s the opening theme song. There’s Madeline Kahn’s impression of Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again. There’s the name-dropping of Randolph Scott and Cecil B. DeMille. There’s the casting of Mel Brooks as a Jewish Indian chief (check out Chief Scar in The Searchers). There’s the character of Gabby Johnson (a reference to Gabby Hayes, who appeared in nearly 200 films, most of them westerns). There’s the opening shot of the film mirroring the final shot of Once Upon a Time in the West. And there’s the campfire flatulence scene. Honestly, there is so much attention to detail in this movie, it’s a shame that people – even those who enjoy it – can see it as less of a movie for being a comedy. Blazing Saddles is more than a lot of other movies can claim to be. Blazing Saddles is infinite possibilities.

Bonus Review: Young Frankenstein

1974 was the year for Brooks and Wilder. While working on Blazing Saddles, Gene Wilder came up with a story idea about a young Frankenstein who hates his grandfather’s work and legacy. He presented it to Brooks, who thought it was hilarious, and used his affinity for the old monster movies to springboard another parody into existence. Young Frankenstein was filmed and released that same year. Just like Blazing Saddles parodies the Western genre, Young Frankenstein parodies the Universal Monster movies of the 30s and 40s, focusing particularly on the different remakes and sequels to the original Frankenstein. Like with Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein pays attention to the details for its parody, whether it’s by parodying specific scenes (the girl at the well scene or the hermit scene with a Gene Hackman cameo), or getting the aesthetic just right by filming in black-and-white and using old school film transitions like swipes, fade outs and irises. Many of the gags in the film have gone beyond the film itself, such as Igor’s forever-changing hump placement (“What hump?”) and the “walk this way” joke (Aerosmith even wrote a hit song after watching it), but the single-greatest bit in the movie is when Dr. Frankenstein displays the monster’s cognitive abilities for a crowd with a duo performance of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” with matching canes, top hats and coats with tails. Originally, Mel Brooks thought it was too goofy a scene to keep in the final film (if you can believe that), but Gene Wilder fought hard for it, and won. Thankfully.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced “Fronk-in-steen”) is a professor at a medical school giving a lecture. He flies into a fury whenever his grandfather, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, is brought up. However, a man from Transylvania comes to America to see him and inform him he has inherited his grandfather’s estate. Frankenstein bids his girlfriend, Elizabeth, goodbye and somehow takes a train from America to Europe. At the Transylvania station, Frankenstein is met by Igor (“Eye-gor”), who is to be his assistant, as well as Inga, another assistant. They travel to the estate and are met by the housekeeper, Frau Blücher (“Neigh!”). At night, the playing of a violin wakes everyone up and they follow the sound through a secret passageway and into the laboratory. After reading his grandfather’s journals, Frankenstein believes reanimating the dead is possible and decides to continue his grandfather’s work. Frankenstein and Igor steal a corpse from the cemetery, and Frankenstein has Igor steal the donated brain of a great scientist named Hans Delbrück. Frankenstein puts the brain Igor gives him into the corpse and brings the monster to life during an electrical storm, but when the creature is spooked by fire, he goes into a rage and has to be sedated in order to not choke Frankenstein to death. Only then does Frankenstein find out that Igor dropped and ruined the brain of Hans Delbrück and replaced it with one labeled “Abnormal”.

The townspeople grow restless at the thought of a Frankenstein in town, so Police Inspector Kemp visits him to get his assurance that he will not create another monster. After he leaves, Frankenstein goes back down to the lab and sees Frau Blücher setting the monster free. The monster escapes the castle and runs across a little girl and a blind hermit. Frankenstein gets the monster back to the castle with violin music and promises to train him to function in society. They put on an exhibition for the town so they can witness for themselves that the creature is not a killing machine, but during a performance of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, a stage light explodes, scaring the monster and making the townspeople run away. The police capture the monster, but he escapes and kidnaps Elizabeth who has shown up for a surprise visit. Frankenstein again lures the monster home with music and transfers some of his brain power to the monster before a mob of villagers can get to him. And that’s where I’m gonna end it.