Posted on 01/26/2024 3:07:23 PM PST by Rummyfan
What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-going on here? I hired you people to get a bit of track laid, not to jump around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots!
That was railroad boss Taggart (Slim Pickens) in Blazing Saddles, which opened on February 7, 1974, a full 50 years ago next month. The Mel Brooks film would not be made today, more reason to revisit the original.
The villainous Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) wants to build a railroad through the frontier town of Rock Ridge but he has a problem. “Unfortunately there is one thing standing between me and that property; the rightful owners.” So the story is based on property rights and offers political insight. For example, when Gov. William J. LePetomane (Mel Brooks) gets word that Rock Ridge has been sacked he cries out, “We’ve got to protect our phony-baloney jobs, gentlemen.”
LePetomane is reportedly named after a French fart artist, an hommage to the famous farting scene. The governor agrees with Lamarr’s plan to send Rock Ridge a black sheriff, wonderfully played by Cleavon Little. Initially rejected because of his race, Bart wins over the townfolk by outwitting the evil Mongo (Alex Karras). Bart also resists the charms of Lili Von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn), tasked by Lamarr to “seduce and abandon” the sheriff. After Lili’s failure, Lamarr seeks a new gang:
I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, mugs, pugs, thugs, nit wits, halfwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit kickers and. . . Methodists!”
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
Yuppers!
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IDIOCRACY IS scarce around There !
Arguably tied with Airplane!...
Somebody’s gonna need a sh*tload of dimes!
This story of Brooks antedotes was not often mentioned but it bears repeating.
In 1944, a reporter for the United States Department of Defense writes that Brooks arrived in France in November 1944, and later to Belgium, serving with the 78th Infantry Division as a forward artillery observer. So obviously he was very close to the German lines many times. As his unit moved close to his locations he was making them aware of placements so they could support the infantry for frontal attacks. In one instance he got so close he could hear them singing in camp.
He found a gramaphone record player and a long strand of wire so he hiked up an expulsion pole left by the Germans, used the speaker on the pole, and wired to record player to the speaker. A couple of days before the allies were to hit the location, he started playing Eddie Cantor records just to piff them off. It worked.
wy69
I was 13 when it came out. We lived in a test market for a wacky idea called “cable TV,” and they showed first-run movies in heavy rotation. Good times....
Mel Brooks (97) is the only one still alive......................
However, I showed one of my sons (and his wife) the "Blazing Saddles" movie a couple years back and they were utterly shocked that this movie came out nearly 50 years ago.
Their generation was taught that it was absolutely evil to poke fun like "Blazing Saddles" did. But they found it funny, nonetheless.
How much better race relations would be if we could all laugh at each other in good humor.
We almost got to the point where blacks and whites were getting along just fine until the woke and perpetually offended crowd stepped in.
Oh yeah, I remember ‘cable TV.’ It was a way to deliver television directly to you for money so you wouldn’t have to endure time wasted on rediculous commercials. I wonder why it never took off.
<IMG SRC=”https://imgs.search.brave.com/EiIiLhWRpgm9nhincKTZ7HysQUZuzgtd0GQsAM0Vk3g/rs:fit:860:0:0/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly9pLmt5/bS1jZG4uY29tL3Bo/b3Rvcy9pbWFnZXMv/bmV3c2ZlZWQvMDAw/LzQwNS85OTEvMmI5/LmdpZg.gif“...The French are masters of the (f)art........................
I had the pleasure of seeing Cleavon Little live in a play in LA. God Rest His Soul. He only got the part because Richard Pryor was unreliable wrt showing up.
We can’t have racial harmony - it would put a lucrative business out of same! Booker T Washington realized that over one hundred years ago.
“Imagine the death threats that Mel Brooks would get if he released this today.”
Yeah, no kidding! The only thing that they could show today is the opening and ending credits!
Not so fast, Miss Stein, Gov. LePetomane’s secretary is still alive.
I don’t even remember her.........
Mel said the studios were trying to shut him down while they were filming it!
Mel Brooks: People often say “You couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today” I tell them “We almost couldn’t make it back then!”
LePetomane was the inspiration for Joe Biden.
She’s the red head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXlOqLh5a98
Richard and Mel were friends, and Mel wanted Richard to play Bart. But Richard had a drug problem at the time, and the insurers for the production wouldn’t insure him. So they dropped him back to writer. That’s why the racism humor bites so hard.
Watch the link at post 18.
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