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There are plenty of lousy film comedies, but there are only two that I outright hate: "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." Both were released in 2006 when Hollywood's fury against George W. Bush had reached its peak, and both let the voters who re-elected him in 2004 have it with both barrels. On its face you would think that Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" chose the exact same targets (rural Red Staters) to humiliate, but he didn't. With his masterpiece (that has just been released as...

One of the finest comedy movies ever made was the Mel Brooks classic “Blazing Saddles.”  It’s a cult classic that’s still aired on TV today.  The film’s dialogue is riddled with racist, sexist, bigoted speech. The “N” word is used 17 times. Yet, 36 years after the film’s debut the “N” word is “bleeped” whenever it’s broadcast on television. It isn’t because the movie was insensitive to racism in 1974.  Quite the opposite.  The bigotry is an intentional punch line at the expense of the bigoted.  Sensitivity to mere words has neutered an extraordinarily important commentary on race in film.Mel ...

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Mel Tolkin, the long-suffering head of Sid Caesar’s celebrated television writing team, who was present from the cramped, sweaty, malodorous beginning, died yesterday at his home in Century City, Calif. He was 94... As the lead writer for “Your Show of Shows” and its successor, “Caesar’s Hour,” Mr. Tolkin presided over a team that at one time or another included Mel Brooks, Lucille Kallen, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart and Woody Allen. “Your Show of Shows,” starring Mr. Caesar and Imogene Coca, was broadcast on NBC from 1950 to 1954. A wellspring of American television comedy, the show endures to this...

Marcel Marceau, the wiry French mime who did much to revive the art of pantomime, performing as Bip, his chalk-faced character in a stovepipe hat adorned with a red flower, died Saturday. He was 84 years old and lived in France. His death was announced on French radio by Marceau's former assistant, Emmanuel Vacca. Since 1945, when he began his silent career, Marceau performed an average of 200 shows a year, most of them abroad, where he was more highly praised than in his native France. His repertory changed little over the decades, but he played to full houses in...

Fart-free beans Reuters Wednesday, 26 April 2006 Microbiologists have found the bacteria resonsible for preparing fart-free beans (Image: iStockphoto) Beans cooked with a pinch of bacteria means diners can tuck in without the explosive results, scientists say. Researchers from Venezuela say two strains of bacteria are the key to producing fart-free beans. They show how Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum can be added to beans so they cause minimal distress to those who eat them, and to those around them. Marisela Granito of Simon Bolivar University in Caracas and colleagues report their results in the Journal of the Science of...

TEL AVIV, Israel -- They are singing a song for the Fuehrer in Tel Aviv, and laughing all the way through it. The Hebrew version of Mel Brooks's Broadway musical The Producers, based on his 1968 film, has become the hottest show in town and a symbol of Israelis' ability to laugh about issues linked to the Nazi Holocaust. "Mel Brooks once told me that we, Jews, sometimes avenge our worst enemies with humor," said Dan Almagor, who translated the play into Hebrew. The new musical, unprecedented in size and cost of its production, brings together Israel's leading actors and...

Stage farce lets Israelis see funny side of the Fuhrer Stephen Farrell, Tel Aviv 17feb06 IN a khaki blur of bad taste, SS uniforms and prancing Fuhrers, the Mel Brooks Broadway farce The Producers has come to Israel for the first time. The show, in Hebrew but replete with swastikas and Nazi salutes, is playing nightly in Tel Aviv to chuckling audiences of Holocaust survivors. Even as they chat during the interval about the best lines, many recall the horror of Kristallnacht. "If ever there was a place that has full licence to make fun of Hitler, it is probably...

Over an anarchic lunch, Mel Brooks wisecracks about everything from the new-found success of The Producers to his wartime high jinks. But the recent death of his wife, Anne Bancroft, has left him bereft. To slip briefly into luvvie parlance, Mel Brooks is what is known as a trouper. This means he always gets on with the job, come sleet or snow, a goonish smile slathered across his face (even if, in some lights, the smile does look more like a grimace). His old-fashioned trouper qualities manifest themselves in all sorts of ways. At one end of the scale, there...

In a Q&A with Playbill magazine, Mel Brooks says that he's currently working on a Spaceballs sequel. Here's the clip from the interview which starts off by talking about the big screen adaptation of The Producers. Playbill: Will you have a role in it? MB: It's doubtful, but I'm writing myself back into the Spaceballs sequel that I'm now writing, so you haven't seen the last of my face. Why another Spaceballs? It wouldn't feel right have anyone else play Yoghurt and the first one was the best experience I've had making a movie since Blazing Saddles. Playbill: When can...

comPOST editorial columnist attacks Alzona for Mel Brooks-like political parody of Democrat gun control freaks...(Note: article only partially quoted) P.J. Hogans Heroes "Trivializing Mass Murder"By Colbert I. King Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page A21 Augustus Alzona of Montgomery County, a prominent figure in the news as of late, is a political wannabe who won't take no for an answer. . . . . . . . to become a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates in 1994. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Undeterred, Alzona, a self-described conservative, presented himself...

P.J. Hogan's HeroesGraphic credit: Maryland Tyranny Response Team Distributor of 'Nazi' flier urged to resign county posts by Eric Fingerhut Staff Writer Local Jewish organizations are calling on a Bethesda man who distributed a flier depicting three members of the Maryland General Assembly as Nazis to resign from two Montgomery County public positions. Montgomery County Executive Douglas Duncan has initiated proceedings to remove him from one of those posts, but Augustus Alzona says he has no intention of leaving either position. Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington and American Jewish Committee Washington chapter leaders say that Alzona is not fit...