Title? I Don't Need No Stinking Title.

May’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, Blazing Saddles is a movie I hold close to my heart as it was the very first R-rated movie my parents ever let me see. And after quoting certain lines from the movie, it was the last R-rated movie they let me see for a while. The movie worked on so many levels and every age group. As a pre-pubescent boy, how could you not love the farting scene or the Road Runner type physical comedy with Mongo? As an adult, I have grown to enjoy the social satire of the mid-1970’s set in the 1870’s. This is a movie that will always be funny.

With every generation, there is a movie that every male knows and can quote by heart. My generation can spout Happy Gilmore lines on cue. For the previous generation, that movie was Caddyshack. Sadly the next generation seem to be able to quote Napoleon Dynamite ad nausea (I’m hoping that I’m just out of touch, and there is actually a different movie for them. One movie that every generation can quote, of course, is Blazing Saddles. It seems like every couple days a line from the movie comes out of my mouth. "Where all the white women at?" "Excuse me while I whip this out." "My name is Scooter, but most people call me… Scooter." And there are the quotes that kept my parents from letting me watch R-rated movies. Not to mention, there was a Law & Order show (Lord knows I can’t remember which one) that used the, "Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges."

Last year marked the 30th anniversary of Blazing Saddles and a special edition DVD was release to commemorate the movie. On the DVD was one of the worst audio commentaries with Mel Brooks just talking about the movie not necessarily talking about the scene that is going on then for a reason unbeknownst to me, the commentary stops long before the movie is over. There was an interesting documentary that points out that Richard Prior helped co-write the film (rather than writing foe Black Bark, he instead spent most of his time writing for Mongo) and was originally meant to play the sheriff before the studio nixed that idea. At least he got to work with Gene Wilder in the deaf/blind comedy, See No Evil, Hear No Evil. The DVD also includes some additional scenes, mostly with Mongo, and it also included the TV censored version of the campfire scene with horses neighing instead of the farting which is surprisingly funny hearing a different sound than what you know you should be hearing. The highlight of the special was the pilot for the Blazing Saddles spin-off, Black Bart staring Lou Gossett as the sheriff. I didn’t even realize that this existed until this disk came out. Granted, I hadn’t been born yet. The show, in itself, isn’t as good as the movie as the name Mel Brooks doesn’t appear in the credits. But it was interesting to see, nonetheless.

With Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, among others, Mel Brooks has done the best at making fun of other genres. Sadly, no one has seemed to capture the brilliance of the Brooks’ parody. So today we are left with the horribly not funny Scary Movie franchise. The problem with today’s parodies is that that try too hard to mock other blockbusters, they ignore the story to get it, whereas, the Brooks’ films cared more about the overall stories, and the jokes will come from that.