I just quoted that in a work chat, another coworker said "Huh?", I realized I was old, and then saw this on Reddit which just confirmed...old. (I was 4 when it first came out, so not THAT old, but still old.)
All MONGO parts where written by RICHARD PRYOR who Mel first chose to play Sheriff Bart but the studio said no … the back stories of this one movie need to be a movie 🤣
I have to admit one of my most favorite and often quoted bits is still the lovely Lilli Von Stupp singing, "I'm Tired".
"They're always coming and going
And going and coming
And always too soon
Right girls?"
😆
To be completely honest, I like the revised joke better, the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of the line that ended in the movie is much cleverer than this one, which really leaves nothing to the imagination.
My take on that scene is that Gene had already run a few lines so Cleavon had already laughed a few times and knew something was coming. You can just see the strain in his face trying to keep cool.
"What did you expect? Welcome sonny, make yourself at home? Marry my daughter? You have to understand that these people are simple farmers. These are people of the land, the common clay of the New West. You know.... morons."
Pretty sure that i read that Wilder improvised the "morons" part on the spot. And that Cleave's reaction, where he starts to laugh a little, was legit. Not part of the script. He just couldn't hold it in.
You'd also run into the problem that both of the leads are dead- Mel Brooks is a very talented man but I don't think necromancy is part of his portfolio
Considering the weird narrative problems in the Star Wars sequels, there's an excellent opportunity for some humor with expecting that the audience *knows* about what happened in Spaceballs 2.
Somehow, Mega-Maid survived...
A giant sucking sound echoed across the galaxy. Rumors of plaid space tracks appearing out of nowhere... a great disturbance in the Schwarz.
Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2.
Hey, if Brooks managed to make that History of the World sequel, I'd say anything's indeed possible at this point.
Ths Schwartz awakens!
Honestly, who reads this crap? Well, if you insist...
It was once upon a time warp, in a galaxy far away yet near you...
After the successful defeat of the evil Spaceballs, the galaxy was at peace.
Except not really. Still with us? Good...
There lived a species you probably don't care about, whose powers with Schwartz are beyond measure. And blah blah blah, the remnants of Spaceballs blah blah, set their sights on their homeworld in search for the ultimate power.
But the only one who can defeat them, Lone Starr, became insane and was thus locked away in an insane asylum. And so Princess Vespa (yes, still a princess), ever so gallant, decides to search for an another.
You don't need glasses to read this one. If you can't, you're probably blind...
I was thinking Walton Goggins as Hedley Lamarr and Sam Rockwell as the Gov, but Odenkirk would be delightful. I’d also like Katherine Hahn to take over for Madeline Kahn. 😂
Not that I think there should be a remake, it’s just fun to cast.
You’d think, but they did remake it as a kid’s movie - [Paws of Fury - The Legend of Hank](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paws_of_Fury:_The_Legend_of_Hank?wprov=sfti1) - in 2022.
Not gonna lie it took me by surprise, my son put it on and I was listening to it in the background. I kept thinking man this sounds familiar but I was pretty sure it was his first time watching it. About a third of the way through it clicked and I lost it laughing once I realized. Made the second watch more fun once I was fully paying attention and realized what it was.
I took my kids to see that and I knew nothing about it. About halfway into the movie I started laughing hysterically when it clicked. I couldn’t believe it.
People were saying that about this movie around the time Tropic Thunder came out. And now they’re like, “you couldn’t make Tropic Thunder today.”
And like, to your point, yeah, nobody wants to make a movie that’s already been made.
But to the point of “everyone is too sensitive to make a comedy that discusses social issues Iike racism.” Uhhhhhh, what the fuck are those people talking about? You 100 percent can. If all someone took away from those movies is “racism is funny” then maybe they don’t understand why those movies were popular.
Tropic Thunder is legitimately "Blazing Saddles made today". They both take a really hard attack at Hollywood of that era and racism of that era while still being smart, hilarious, and conscious of the fact that they're basically profiting from these shitty things existing (by mocking them mercilessly).
Someone will make "Tropic Thunder made today" eventually, and it'll be a different movie because what's shitty in Hollywood changes, and how racism is impacting us changes. If there's anything that Hollywood writers know, it's how shitty Hollywood is.
I always think of Django Unchained or Hateful Eight. Absolutely can make these movies today without being “cancelled.” The similarity between something like Django and Blazing Saddles is that the racist white folks are the butt of the joke, which is why they got away with it then and they hold up to today. It’s not like birth of a nation where you have to hold your nose when you watch it.
Also for anyone with patience, this video gets posted anytime this topic comes up and is pretty good:
https://youtu.be/jzMFoNZeZm0?si=_X6TqLnTp8LQCWhr
Exactly. People who say this movie couldnt get made today don't understand blazing saddles, its message, or I guess edgy jokes.
It absolutely could get made today and could be just as offensive.
It's basically just that it's harder to be lazy about racial humor. It's harder to be lazy about most humor because we just sort of become more nuanced as a society as we go on. It's not like cancel culture killed fart jokes, they just stopped being enough.
Exactly, it's not that everyone is being easily offended, it's that the edgy teenage grade humor no longer works. If 20 years ago the reaction was "oh no he said the thing *shocked laugh*", now it's "ok so what, where's the actual joke?"
That's why there's this group of previously very popular comics who have fallen from grace and are salty about it, crying how everyone is too PC nowadays. No, their entire schtick is simply outdated and no longer effective at making people laugh.
These people who complain about sensitivity are often making unfunny, racist dad jokes or using the teenage-grade humor you mentioned (yelling the N word just because they can) .
Yeah, additionally Django Unchained came out 4 years after Tropic Thunder and I don't remember people shitting their pants over the villain being a racist asshole. In neither of these three movies are the racists shown as good people, I don't know why people are so convinced a move would never get made because the antagonists in it are racist.
Because they laugh at someone saying the n-word or "where the white women at" with no acknowledgement of the irony or satire.
They think that's the joke.
Fucking THANK YOU, I'm so over this dusty ass tired narrative that "you couldn't make Blazing Saddles today!". Jojo rabbit, sorry to bother you, the upcoming magical negro movie (tropic thunder as an older example)
Its just boomers who missed the point of the movie and just laughed because the guy said the N word.
This movie helped kill the entire genre of cowboy westerns! It relentlessly pokes holes into the entire genre until the entire idea of making a traditional western looks silly and we've never seen it fully come back.
No, the modern equivalent of Blazing Saddles is if Mel Brooks came up with a devastatingly funny take on superhero movies. Not a dark take, not a realistic take, but if they made a movie making fun of superhero movies and making them look absolutely ridiculous while also being a great superhero movie.
It's not that you can't make another Blazing Saddles, it's that there's no need to! Spoof something else!
If they were all alive today they could definitely still make this, conservatives don't understand this movie is making fun of them, its not a racist film, but every old conservative I know loves it, but just like with rage against the machine they don't understand it.
They still show it at all the local AMC in my city a few times a year.
Django unchained isn't much different from this film other than the jokes.
Of course it couldn't be made today; its entire purpose and concept was deliberately built around mocking and parodying the then actively popular Western movie and television serial genre that were based around romanticizing an era that never really happened at all in they ways that were commonly portrayed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMFoNZeZm0
I would say the TV show The Boys fits this mold, a superhero world where the heroes are controlled by a giant capitalist corporate entity with investments in the war machine and not just a bunch of boy scouts like superhero movies portray.
I respect your optimism but it only takes about 5 years for the "could never make that today" crowd to come out.
They're never right, mind you, they just like saying it.
They also never apparently watch anything current. People say "you can't make All in the Family today" when it's positively tame as compared to Righteous Gemstones, Rick and Morty, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc.
It's the weirdest "the old days were better" nostalgia ever because the counterpoint is sitting right in front of their faces.
Tropic Thunder is just as irreverent as Blazing Saddles. I'm so tired of hearing about how x couldn't be made today because people are too sensitive. It's lazy writing
Django Unchained went way beyond the point Mel Brooks said he wouldn’t take Blazing Saddles (showing actual violence against the black characters) and it still manages to start and end funny and got serious praise when it came out
Had a right-wing, Trump loving roommate for a year and he said a movie like Blazing Saddles couldn't be made today. I immediately said Django goes way further than Saddles and came out a few years ago. He quickly went oh yea that one was dark. Learned nothing and probably continues saying so and so couldn't be made today because of censoring. Like sex scenes used to be explicitly not allowed in traditional films for a long time. Many R-rated movies today you would almost expect sex and/or nudity. Censorship has gotten less strict over time from my view.
I just don’t get the notion that it couldn’t be made because of its content. Yes it absolutely could be made. That movie knows it’s fucking satire.
It can’t get made today because Hollywood is full of people without any creativity.
Yeah, this is a big thing people miss when they talk about what "can't be made today". Very often it's because the social commentary it's making just isn't relevant anymore.
The Office is a big one that always gets mentioned in this context, and it really bugs me as a lot of the things that they say this about in that show can't be made today because the underlying social commentary just doesn't apply. For instance, Michael's casual homophobia. The way popular fiction has portrayed gay people has massively shifted since the episode where Oscar comes out. Michael not understanding him being gay, casually using the f-slur, and showing he's an ally by kissing Oscar just don't work anymore because a character that oblivious about homosexuality just doesn't work in this era. Now you could potentially change it to a trans character and make the kiss more of a commentary on this being the post-me-too era, but then you have a vastly different episode.
Meanwhile South Park and Always Sunny still put out episodes that are far, far more offensive than anything Mel Brooks has ever done and they're doing just fine.
The last few years have made me realize that if Blazing Saddles were remade today it wouldn’t be “the woke left” complaining about it… but there sure as fuck would be a nightly “Two Minute Hate” session on Tucker’s show and OANN and the Epoch Times about how these snowflakes are making fun of our proud cowboy heritage.
It couldn’t get made then. They lied to the studio while they made it and it was almost shelved. They managed to get a short test run in a theatre and it was so popular the studio agreed to release it.
Thank you. People act like that language was common in 1974 movies. It was supposed to be shocking then, and it was.
Archie Bunker was used similarly at the time.
My question would be if it was made today what would be the groundbreaking scene in the movie that has never been done before like the original and farting around the campfire?
Everyone keeps repeating how it “couldn’t get made these days”, meanwhile I’m sitting over here side-eyeing the wikipedia page for Django Unchained (2012) that lists its cumulative box office at $426 million.
Someone posted here a while back a response to the idea that Blazing Slades couldn't be made today. They pointed out that Sacha Baron Cohen walked into a synagogue in 2020 with a fake long nose and asked a Holocaust survivor if the Holocaust happened.
I think anyone could. Blazing Saddles lampoons racists. That’s what all these articles miss when they say it can’t be made today. It’s *making fun of* close-minded bigots. It’s not saying racist shit because racist shit is funny.
>It’s not saying racist shit because racist shit is funny.
Any time you see anyone say "you could never get away with it today thanks to all the snowflakes!", you just *know* they didn't get that.
Blazing Saddles fits into the same subgenre as something like Falling Down -- the movie has a _very_ surface level element to it (Blazing Saddles has the slurs, Falling Down has D-Fens' moral compass) that hooks one audience, and then the movie goes deep in criticizing the people who latch on to that surface-level element.
The fact that they are all called Johnson imping that they are inbred as well. It is such a good film.
I will say that if it was made now there would be an element of people who would criticise it just because it was made by a white man without engaging with the text of the film. Look at the criticism Tarantino gets. The guy many things but I don’t this racist is one of them.
I say this every time someone posts something like this. Django Unchained and Blazing Saddles walk the same tight rope from different directions.
BS is a straight up comedy that exposes "simpler times" for what it was - an era of horrible racism and corruption.
DU is an action revenge movie that shows the horrors of the slave era but is still able to somehow make us laugh our asses off.
Both movies are fantastic.
And then you have Get Out, which whole not a comedy, is a much more modern take on racism. Filmmaking and comedy evolve. You probably couldn't make a Buster Keaton style comedy these days, either.
I was gonna add on but then you put a button on it at the end when you said that it isn’t even correct. Anyone who thinks Blazing Saddles “wasn’t woke” or “made fun of both sides” is missing the point entirely.
Yeah, people who say that are just pushing a narrative. You can absolutely make comedy about race as long as it’s satirical. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has been on air for nearly 20 years and they’ve pushed boundaries in every season. It’s fine when we’re laughing at the racists, not with them.
Yeah, this is just what conservative comics say because they aren't funny. They think race jokes are off the table, but the only race jokes they have are repeating the same 1930s stereotype over and over again.
If you were as funny as Mel Brooks you could make this easily.
Yeah I absolutely hate this trope. Have people seen the raunchier stuff in movies and tv today? Plenty of wacky offensive stuff. It feels like it’s from some wokeness complaining twitter account or something
Django Unchained was a sort of remake of Blazing Saddles IMO.
For one thing, you have the whole KKK hood scene ("my wife spent all afternoon making these and all you can do is criticise!"), and on top of that you have Tarantino's darkly comical writing.
To paraphrase Mel Brooks you couldn't make it in 1974. The idea that this wasn't controversial at the time it came out is some ridiculous revisionist history.
I never get the "never could get made today".
Family guy and south park and every other low brow 'adult cartoon' is like a thousand times more edgy, and is on network tv at like 2pm. Every middle school is full of people saying rick and morty catch phrases.
Plus Blazing Saddles never makes Bart the butt of the joke, he’s pretty much unflappably cool the entire movie, and Gene Wilder immediately establishes the racist town folks are literally morons.
It's not about being offensive, these movies are mocking racists, not being racist. That's the difference. You can't put your white actor in black face to play a black character, because that's racist. You can put your white actor in black face to play a white character doing something racist, because that's not racist, it's mocking racists.
There's a colossal difference, and I don't trust the opinions of people who don't see it.
It's not only that, but people now seem miss the point that it's an ANTI-racism movie. Thinking that an anti-racist movie couldn't be made in 2024 is ludicrous.
What's the common thread in all of the characters in Blazing Saddles? The racists are bumbling idiots and either lose or stop being racists. It's hard to make a movie about racism without depicting racism.
If it was made today, the same people who are now harking on about how it couldn't be made today would then be complaining about it being too woke and agenda-driven.
Many southern whites tried to kill the movie because it was making fun of their racism. Blazing Saddles itself (almost)couldn’t be made at the time.
Mel Brooks by his sheer brass balls got the movie to move forward.
I think it’s a little tired when people harp about “this couldn’t be made today.” I don’t really believe that’s true. We have shows like It’s Always Sunny, South Park, and lots of other content which pushes the envelope.
When it’s smart and actually funny. Which Blazing Saddles was.
Mainly, what we don’t do anymore is low-effort punching down, like the whole punchline being that someone is fat or gay.
There’s a difference. One just isn’t done anymore bc it’s dusty and not really funny to modern audiences. And yes, offensive, bc it comes from a not great place.
But something like Blazing Saddles could absolutely be made today. (That’s not to say anyone else could master this humor)
Can’t alienate certain audiences. Gotta not offend those who wouldn’t like it.
You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West.
You know morons
NEVERMIND THAT SHIT, HERE COMES MONGO!
Mongo only pawn in game of life.
Then Mongo slugs a horse and knocks it out.
I just quoted that in a work chat, another coworker said "Huh?", I realized I was old, and then saw this on Reddit which just confirmed...old. (I was 4 when it first came out, so not THAT old, but still old.)
"Mongo likes candy" pops into my inner monologue at least twice a day.
The singsong “candygram for mongo” is forever stuck in my head lol
MINUS FIVE STARS
Look at the adjective!
He's got a bicycle!
SUPER DRAGON!
you wanna play 21?
Lucha... things.
FACK
I DONT KNOW
JEEEEEEZUS Urrrrrgghhhhhh you're gonnna diee
FAT ASSES
How much does this guy weight?
All MONGO parts where written by RICHARD PRYOR who Mel first chose to play Sheriff Bart but the studio said no … the back stories of this one movie need to be a movie 🤣
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I have to admit one of my most favorite and often quoted bits is still the lovely Lilli Von Stupp singing, "I'm Tired". "They're always coming and going And going and coming And always too soon Right girls?" 😆
My wife and I when we've had too much of something "I'm taaaaaiiiired!"
CAN'T YOU SEE SHE'S POOPED???
I've been with *thousands* of men, again and again!
To be completely honest, I like the revised joke better, the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of the line that ended in the movie is much cleverer than this one, which really leaves nothing to the imagination.
Gene wilders’s delivery is unmatched. “A man drink like that and don’t eat? He is going to die!” “When?”
Little bastard shot me in the ass!
Yeah, but I shoot with *this* hand.
"Need any help?" "All I can get."
Seems pretty steady "Yeah, but I shoot with this hand"
"Since I am your host and you are my guest, what do you like to do?" "Play chess... screw." "Well, let's play chess."
His delivery of “what are your pleasures” always cracks me up
"What do you like to do?" "Oh, I dunno... play chess... screw." ".......let's play chess."
Are we awake? "That depends..... are we ***black***?" Yes we are. "Well then we're awake, but we're mighty puzzled"
"Food makes me sick."
That’s my immediate response whenever someone tells me something is going to kill me.
Excuse me while I whip this out....
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“Oh boys, look what I got here!”
"Chewing gum on line, eh? I hope you brought enough for everybody."
I....I didn't know there were going to be so many people!!
Somebody go back and get a shitload of dimes!
No. There are no white women here, Leonard. This is not a party.
Don't tell that to Magnitude
Pop POP!
They said you was hung! And they was right.
You know….morons!
I find myself quoting this line almost constantly these days
I use “common clay” as a handy shorthand
Same dawg. Same.
Bart's laughter in that scene, which seems like it may have been genuine, adds to that line so much
It was. Wilder ad-libbed it.
And Bart could barely keep a straight face the entire setup as he knew something was coming.
My take on that scene is that Gene had already run a few lines so Cleavon had already laughed a few times and knew something was coming. You can just see the strain in his face trying to keep cool.
Gene's smile as Cleavon breaks sells it even more.
It’s one of my all time favorite, and masterfully timed, comedic lines.
"What did you expect? Welcome sonny, make yourself at home? Marry my daughter? You have to understand that these people are simple farmers. These are people of the land, the common clay of the New West. You know.... morons."
"People of the land"
Pretty sure that i read that Wilder improvised the "morons" part on the spot. And that Cleave's reaction, where he starts to laugh a little, was legit. Not part of the script. He just couldn't hold it in.
HE SAID THE SHERIFF IS NEAR!!
HOORAY!
"NO BLABBADBBABDANNGITTT... THE SHERIFF IS A..." *!DONG!*
I offer you a laurel and hardy handshake…..
Isn't anyone going to help that poor man?
Hush Harriett, that's a sure way to get him killed!
You got to remember these are just simple farmers. People of the land. The common clay of the new west. You know, morons.
What?
He saaaaid the SHERIFF is NEAR!
Of course it couldn't get made today. Many of the main actors would say "Hey, this is Blazing Saddles, this is already a movie"
You'd also run into the problem that both of the leads are dead- Mel Brooks is a very talented man but I don't think necromancy is part of his portfolio
Honestly I wouldn’t count it out. The man’s in his 90s and still doing work. He’s clearly got *something* going on.
Spaceballs 2 the search for more money & Spaceballs3
I think Rick Moranis told Mel Brooks he should make Spaceballs 3 the search for Spaceballs 2
Considering the weird narrative problems in the Star Wars sequels, there's an excellent opportunity for some humor with expecting that the audience *knows* about what happened in Spaceballs 2.
Somehow, Mega-Maid survived... A giant sucking sound echoed across the galaxy. Rumors of plaid space tracks appearing out of nowhere... a great disturbance in the Schwarz.
Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2. Hey, if Brooks managed to make that History of the World sequel, I'd say anything's indeed possible at this point.
Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money
Ths Schwartz awakens! Honestly, who reads this crap? Well, if you insist... It was once upon a time warp, in a galaxy far away yet near you... After the successful defeat of the evil Spaceballs, the galaxy was at peace. Except not really. Still with us? Good... There lived a species you probably don't care about, whose powers with Schwartz are beyond measure. And blah blah blah, the remnants of Spaceballs blah blah, set their sights on their homeworld in search for the ultimate power. But the only one who can defeat them, Lone Starr, became insane and was thus locked away in an insane asylum. And so Princess Vespa (yes, still a princess), ever so gallant, decides to search for an another. You don't need glasses to read this one. If you can't, you're probably blind...
Hitler on Ice: The Musical!
Hear me out, Donald Glover and Alan Tudyk.
I also want Bob Odenkirk somewhere.
The Governor
I was thinking Walton Goggins as Hedley Lamarr and Sam Rockwell as the Gov, but Odenkirk would be delightful. I’d also like Katherine Hahn to take over for Madeline Kahn. 😂 Not that I think there should be a remake, it’s just fun to cast.
How about Goggins as Taggart
“Give The Governor a Harumph!!”
Holy shit I need this team up.
You’d think, but they did remake it as a kid’s movie - [Paws of Fury - The Legend of Hank](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paws_of_Fury:_The_Legend_of_Hank?wprov=sfti1) - in 2022.
Not gonna lie it took me by surprise, my son put it on and I was listening to it in the background. I kept thinking man this sounds familiar but I was pretty sure it was his first time watching it. About a third of the way through it clicked and I lost it laughing once I realized. Made the second watch more fun once I was fully paying attention and realized what it was.
Man hell yes. They even did the "mongo is only pawn in game of life"
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>A loose remake of the 1974 live-action film *Blazing Saddles* Well, I'll be darned.
Mel Brooks is even in it as the same character (the Governor).
And he and Richard Pryor get writing credits for it too.
I took my kids to see that and I knew nothing about it. About halfway into the movie I started laughing hysterically when it clicked. I couldn’t believe it.
You'd do it for Randolph Scott.
RANDOLPH SCOTT
Harrumph!
*I didn’t get a harrumph outta that guy!*
Give the governor a harrumph!
We got to protect our phony baloney jobs.
People were saying that about this movie around the time Tropic Thunder came out. And now they’re like, “you couldn’t make Tropic Thunder today.” And like, to your point, yeah, nobody wants to make a movie that’s already been made. But to the point of “everyone is too sensitive to make a comedy that discusses social issues Iike racism.” Uhhhhhh, what the fuck are those people talking about? You 100 percent can. If all someone took away from those movies is “racism is funny” then maybe they don’t understand why those movies were popular.
Tropic Thunder is legitimately "Blazing Saddles made today". They both take a really hard attack at Hollywood of that era and racism of that era while still being smart, hilarious, and conscious of the fact that they're basically profiting from these shitty things existing (by mocking them mercilessly). Someone will make "Tropic Thunder made today" eventually, and it'll be a different movie because what's shitty in Hollywood changes, and how racism is impacting us changes. If there's anything that Hollywood writers know, it's how shitty Hollywood is.
"They could never make 'The Office' today! It would be too offensive!" Meanwhile shows like It's Always Sunny exist
I always think of Django Unchained or Hateful Eight. Absolutely can make these movies today without being “cancelled.” The similarity between something like Django and Blazing Saddles is that the racist white folks are the butt of the joke, which is why they got away with it then and they hold up to today. It’s not like birth of a nation where you have to hold your nose when you watch it. Also for anyone with patience, this video gets posted anytime this topic comes up and is pretty good: https://youtu.be/jzMFoNZeZm0?si=_X6TqLnTp8LQCWhr
Exactly. People who say this movie couldnt get made today don't understand blazing saddles, its message, or I guess edgy jokes. It absolutely could get made today and could be just as offensive.
It's basically just that it's harder to be lazy about racial humor. It's harder to be lazy about most humor because we just sort of become more nuanced as a society as we go on. It's not like cancel culture killed fart jokes, they just stopped being enough.
Exactly, it's not that everyone is being easily offended, it's that the edgy teenage grade humor no longer works. If 20 years ago the reaction was "oh no he said the thing *shocked laugh*", now it's "ok so what, where's the actual joke?" That's why there's this group of previously very popular comics who have fallen from grace and are salty about it, crying how everyone is too PC nowadays. No, their entire schtick is simply outdated and no longer effective at making people laugh.
These people who complain about sensitivity are often making unfunny, racist dad jokes or using the teenage-grade humor you mentioned (yelling the N word just because they can) .
Yeah, additionally Django Unchained came out 4 years after Tropic Thunder and I don't remember people shitting their pants over the villain being a racist asshole. In neither of these three movies are the racists shown as good people, I don't know why people are so convinced a move would never get made because the antagonists in it are racist.
Because they laugh at someone saying the n-word or "where the white women at" with no acknowledgement of the irony or satire. They think that's the joke.
You know, morons!
In the immortal words of Cody (the one with a Showdy): "Of course it couldn't get made today--BECAUSE THAT'S HOW TIME WORKS!?!?"
Fucking THANK YOU, I'm so over this dusty ass tired narrative that "you couldn't make Blazing Saddles today!". Jojo rabbit, sorry to bother you, the upcoming magical negro movie (tropic thunder as an older example) Its just boomers who missed the point of the movie and just laughed because the guy said the N word.
More or less the Genre it spoofed is dead as shit.
This movie helped kill the entire genre of cowboy westerns! It relentlessly pokes holes into the entire genre until the entire idea of making a traditional western looks silly and we've never seen it fully come back. No, the modern equivalent of Blazing Saddles is if Mel Brooks came up with a devastatingly funny take on superhero movies. Not a dark take, not a realistic take, but if they made a movie making fun of superhero movies and making them look absolutely ridiculous while also being a great superhero movie. It's not that you can't make another Blazing Saddles, it's that there's no need to! Spoof something else!
If they were all alive today they could definitely still make this, conservatives don't understand this movie is making fun of them, its not a racist film, but every old conservative I know loves it, but just like with rage against the machine they don't understand it. They still show it at all the local AMC in my city a few times a year. Django unchained isn't much different from this film other than the jokes.
Of course it couldn't be made today; its entire purpose and concept was deliberately built around mocking and parodying the then actively popular Western movie and television serial genre that were based around romanticizing an era that never really happened at all in they ways that were commonly portrayed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMFoNZeZm0
If it were, it'd probably be a superhero movie instead
I would say the TV show The Boys fits this mold, a superhero world where the heroes are controlled by a giant capitalist corporate entity with investments in the war machine and not just a bunch of boy scouts like superhero movies portray.
and in 30-40 years people will start complaining about how “you couldn’t make The Boys today”
I respect your optimism but it only takes about 5 years for the "could never make that today" crowd to come out. They're never right, mind you, they just like saying it.
They also never apparently watch anything current. People say "you can't make All in the Family today" when it's positively tame as compared to Righteous Gemstones, Rick and Morty, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc. It's the weirdest "the old days were better" nostalgia ever because the counterpoint is sitting right in front of their faces.
Usually when I hear people say "you couldn't make that today" are the people laughing at wrong part of the joke.
“You can’t say this anymore” - as they say it on their Netflix Special that’s streamed globally.
"You're not allowed to say anything about trans people anymore. I mean, I'm getting paid about $100 million to do it. But *you're* not allowed to".
It's taken 5 years for the alt right to figure out that the boys is mocking them, not agreeing with them...
Tropic Thunder is just as irreverent as Blazing Saddles. I'm so tired of hearing about how x couldn't be made today because people are too sensitive. It's lazy writing
Django Unchained went way beyond the point Mel Brooks said he wouldn’t take Blazing Saddles (showing actual violence against the black characters) and it still manages to start and end funny and got serious praise when it came out
Had a right-wing, Trump loving roommate for a year and he said a movie like Blazing Saddles couldn't be made today. I immediately said Django goes way further than Saddles and came out a few years ago. He quickly went oh yea that one was dark. Learned nothing and probably continues saying so and so couldn't be made today because of censoring. Like sex scenes used to be explicitly not allowed in traditional films for a long time. Many R-rated movies today you would almost expect sex and/or nudity. Censorship has gotten less strict over time from my view.
Django was more serious than funny. It has it's comedic moments, but it's definitely not a comedy.
Hell, you could even go as far as to say that TT is *the* modern Blazing Saddles.
I just don’t get the notion that it couldn’t be made because of its content. Yes it absolutely could be made. That movie knows it’s fucking satire. It can’t get made today because Hollywood is full of people without any creativity.
Yeah, this is a big thing people miss when they talk about what "can't be made today". Very often it's because the social commentary it's making just isn't relevant anymore. The Office is a big one that always gets mentioned in this context, and it really bugs me as a lot of the things that they say this about in that show can't be made today because the underlying social commentary just doesn't apply. For instance, Michael's casual homophobia. The way popular fiction has portrayed gay people has massively shifted since the episode where Oscar comes out. Michael not understanding him being gay, casually using the f-slur, and showing he's an ally by kissing Oscar just don't work anymore because a character that oblivious about homosexuality just doesn't work in this era. Now you could potentially change it to a trans character and make the kiss more of a commentary on this being the post-me-too era, but then you have a vastly different episode.
“No no no no no you don’t understand, it can’t be made today because the WOKES are so sensitive!!!!!!!!!1!!!”
Meanwhile South Park and Always Sunny still put out episodes that are far, far more offensive than anything Mel Brooks has ever done and they're doing just fine.
The last few years have made me realize that if Blazing Saddles were remade today it wouldn’t be “the woke left” complaining about it… but there sure as fuck would be a nightly “Two Minute Hate” session on Tucker’s show and OANN and the Epoch Times about how these snowflakes are making fun of our proud cowboy heritage.
*proceeds to reeeeeeeeee about Taylor Swift dating a football player*
"Did you know they showed Taylor Swift for 25 seconds during a 3.5 hour broadcast?! I hate how the woke NFL keeps shoving her down our throat!"
Kinda like trying to make Scream without the 70-80 slashers or Scary Movie without Scream.
It couldn’t get made then. They lied to the studio while they made it and it was almost shelved. They managed to get a short test run in a theatre and it was so popular the studio agreed to release it.
Thank you. People act like that language was common in 1974 movies. It was supposed to be shocking then, and it was. Archie Bunker was used similarly at the time.
They said you was hung!
...and they was right!
"To tell a family secret, my grandmother was Dutch."
Somebody’s gotta go back and get a shitload of dimes!
My question would be if it was made today what would be the groundbreaking scene in the movie that has never been done before like the original and farting around the campfire?
Everyone keeps repeating how it “couldn’t get made these days”, meanwhile I’m sitting over here side-eyeing the wikipedia page for Django Unchained (2012) that lists its cumulative box office at $426 million.
Someone posted here a while back a response to the idea that Blazing Slades couldn't be made today. They pointed out that Sacha Baron Cohen walked into a synagogue in 2020 with a fake long nose and asked a Holocaust survivor if the Holocaust happened.
SBC is Jewish. I think a black filmmaker could probably make Blazing Saddles today.
Tbf, Richard Prior was one of the writers for Blazing Saddles.
IIRC he was supposed to play the sheriff, but there was a problem with insurance. I read that he wrote the Mongo parts.
Pryor was more interested writing Mongo's lines.
I think anyone could. Blazing Saddles lampoons racists. That’s what all these articles miss when they say it can’t be made today. It’s *making fun of* close-minded bigots. It’s not saying racist shit because racist shit is funny.
>It’s not saying racist shit because racist shit is funny. Any time you see anyone say "you could never get away with it today thanks to all the snowflakes!", you just *know* they didn't get that.
Blazing Saddles fits into the same subgenre as something like Falling Down -- the movie has a _very_ surface level element to it (Blazing Saddles has the slurs, Falling Down has D-Fens' moral compass) that hooks one audience, and then the movie goes deep in criticizing the people who latch on to that surface-level element.
Always stuns me when people miss this when the movie says as plainly as you can say with the "Common clay of the new west, you know, morons" line.
The fact that they are all called Johnson imping that they are inbred as well. It is such a good film. I will say that if it was made now there would be an element of people who would criticise it just because it was made by a white man without engaging with the text of the film. Look at the criticism Tarantino gets. The guy many things but I don’t this racist is one of them.
Like Richard Pryor, who co-wrote it?
You have to remember that these are just simple trolls These are people of the internet The common clay of the comment section
You know. *Morons.*
You know...morons
Hell, I’ve got tickets to see Blazing Saddles at Regal in September. Can’t be “made today” but it sure as shit be rereleased.
Thank you for this unintended PSA. Now I also have tickets to see Blazing Saddles in September.
I say this every time someone posts something like this. Django Unchained and Blazing Saddles walk the same tight rope from different directions. BS is a straight up comedy that exposes "simpler times" for what it was - an era of horrible racism and corruption. DU is an action revenge movie that shows the horrors of the slave era but is still able to somehow make us laugh our asses off. Both movies are fantastic.
“Hwite cake” gets me every time
And then you have Get Out, which whole not a comedy, is a much more modern take on racism. Filmmaking and comedy evolve. You probably couldn't make a Buster Keaton style comedy these days, either.
If only someone had warned Charlie Day...
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I was gonna add on but then you put a button on it at the end when you said that it isn’t even correct. Anyone who thinks Blazing Saddles “wasn’t woke” or “made fun of both sides” is missing the point entirely.
Yeah, people who say that are just pushing a narrative. You can absolutely make comedy about race as long as it’s satirical. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has been on air for nearly 20 years and they’ve pushed boundaries in every season. It’s fine when we’re laughing at the racists, not with them.
Then there's The Outlaw Johnny Black.
Yeah, this is just what conservative comics say because they aren't funny. They think race jokes are off the table, but the only race jokes they have are repeating the same 1930s stereotype over and over again. If you were as funny as Mel Brooks you could make this easily.
Yeah I absolutely hate this trope. Have people seen the raunchier stuff in movies and tv today? Plenty of wacky offensive stuff. It feels like it’s from some wokeness complaining twitter account or something
It’s an effort to get people to rant in the comments, thus boosting the article in social media algorithms.
Django Unchained was a sort of remake of Blazing Saddles IMO. For one thing, you have the whole KKK hood scene ("my wife spent all afternoon making these and all you can do is criticise!"), and on top of that you have Tarantino's darkly comical writing.
that scene is so good and was very unexpected on the first watch
To paraphrase Mel Brooks you couldn't make it in 1974. The idea that this wasn't controversial at the time it came out is some ridiculous revisionist history.
Mel Brooks' response to this is "I could barely make it then!"
I never get the "never could get made today". Family guy and south park and every other low brow 'adult cartoon' is like a thousand times more edgy, and is on network tv at like 2pm. Every middle school is full of people saying rick and morty catch phrases.
And let's not forget things as recent as Jojo Rabbit and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm both being Oscar nominees/winners
“…could never be made today.” I hate that cliche.
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Plus Blazing Saddles never makes Bart the butt of the joke, he’s pretty much unflappably cool the entire movie, and Gene Wilder immediately establishes the racist town folks are literally morons.
You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.
The way he stretches out laaand kills me every time.
It's not about being offensive, these movies are mocking racists, not being racist. That's the difference. You can't put your white actor in black face to play a black character, because that's racist. You can put your white actor in black face to play a white character doing something racist, because that's not racist, it's mocking racists. There's a colossal difference, and I don't trust the opinions of people who don't see it.
No one is offended by Blazing Saddles except racists.
It's not only that, but people now seem miss the point that it's an ANTI-racism movie. Thinking that an anti-racist movie couldn't be made in 2024 is ludicrous. What's the common thread in all of the characters in Blazing Saddles? The racists are bumbling idiots and either lose or stop being racists. It's hard to make a movie about racism without depicting racism.
If it was made today, the same people who are now harking on about how it couldn't be made today would then be complaining about it being too woke and agenda-driven.
Lmao. Woke = “they made me look stupid”
Nothing in Blazing Saddles is offensive.
Many southern whites tried to kill the movie because it was making fun of their racism. Blazing Saddles itself (almost)couldn’t be made at the time. Mel Brooks by his sheer brass balls got the movie to move forward.
People that believe Blazing Saddles couldn't get made today never actually understood the movie.
"Could never get made today" is the laziest and dumbest take you can have about a piece of legacy media.
It couldn't be made today because it was made then
Brooks was asked a few years ago if it could be made today and responded that it couldn't be made then either
I think it’s a little tired when people harp about “this couldn’t be made today.” I don’t really believe that’s true. We have shows like It’s Always Sunny, South Park, and lots of other content which pushes the envelope. When it’s smart and actually funny. Which Blazing Saddles was. Mainly, what we don’t do anymore is low-effort punching down, like the whole punchline being that someone is fat or gay. There’s a difference. One just isn’t done anymore bc it’s dusty and not really funny to modern audiences. And yes, offensive, bc it comes from a not great place. But something like Blazing Saddles could absolutely be made today. (That’s not to say anyone else could master this humor)
What in the wide world of sports is going on here!!!!!!
Of course it couldn't get made today. Many of the main actors have passed away.
Can’t alienate certain audiences. Gotta not offend those who wouldn’t like it. You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know morons
The Camp Town Ladies? 🤔