Forget PC! There's something to offend everyone

Simply put, this is the funniest movie ever made. Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens and Madeline Kahn deserved Oscar's for their supporting roles... I'm serious. I've watched this movie regularly for 20 years and know most evry line, but still laugh out loud everytime I see it.

Hilariously Politically Incorrect But a Bit Aged

In what I see as Mel Brooks' trilogy of no-holds-barred hilarity, "Blazing Saddles" just doesn't seem to age as well as 1968's "The Producers" and what I consider his filmmaking high point, his other 1974 film, "Young Frankenstein". There are definitely funny moments, but his Western take-off seems intent on being a pointed satire on racism and prejudice at the same time it wants to be a parody of old Western movies. Since neither of the other two has such significant aspirations, this one seems somewhat more weighed down by its dual purpose. So as an offset, Brooks goes for the comic jugular and tries to make this as politically incorrect as possible. Toward that end, he succeeds in spades with farting cowboys around a campfire, a heavy use of the N-word and sight gags galore like the appearance of the Ku Klux Klan on the prairie, an old lady getting gut-punched (granted a racist one), a horse being felled by an upper right from a hulk named Mongo and on and on.

The plot revolves around the premise that a black member of a railroad chain gang named Bart becomes the sheriff in a bigoted, all-white town in the Old West. Cleavon Little is the right choice for this role as he maintains a nice, easy balance between rule-breaking hero and straight man for all the shenanigans around him. As funny and comically stoic as he is supposed to be, Gene Wilder plays a mere supporting role stepping in at the last minute to play Jim, the drunken Waco Kid. Brooks himself plays the cross-eyed governor in typical Borscht Belt fashion, and Harvey Korman plays state procurer Hedley Lamarr as if he just walked right off "The Carol Burnett Show" set. However, as in "Young Frankenstein", the biggest laughs come from the gifted Madeline Kahn, who does a spot-on Marlene Dietrich impersonation as chanteuse Lily Von Shtupp seducing the black sheriff and enjoying it almost as much as she did with the monster in the other comedy. A number of celebrity cameos and period-insensitive non-sequiturs are sprinkled throughout. It's probably the liberal use of such comic devices and the resulting inconsistencies that make me like this somewhat less than Brooks' other two comic masterpieces.

The 30th Anniversary DVD package provides audio commentary by Brooks that doesn't really sync up to the scenes in the movie. In fact, he doesn't seem to be watching it as he speaks, and his narration abruptly ends less than an hour into the movie. Brooks is still funny and full of insight about all aspects of the production, such as the film's original title (not "Black Bart" as generally believed but "Tex X" as a pointed reference to Malcolm X) and the ill-fated casting of Gig Young as the Waco Kid only to discover his raging alcoholism incapacitated him on his first day. There is also the obligatory making-of feature, "Back in the Saddle", produced in 2001 and about half an hour long, and it includes the surviving cast members and writers reminiscing about their good times on the set. There are also a few dispensable additional scenes, a three-minute excerpt from a Lifetime Intimate Portrait on Kahn (not clear why they wouldn't have included the entire program in tribute to her), and a 1975 TV series pilot called "Black Bart" starring Lou Gossett in the title role (I am amazed the producers got away with the N-word on TV, but then again, it was not picked up by the networks either). Definitely worth revisiting for the big laughs.

Work,Work,Work,That's all I ever do!

When Rock Ridge needs a sheriff,they bring in a Black sheriff[There's nothing wrong with that!] On Cops Jackson is a Sheriff or a Officer. When he comes,An old guy says The Sheriff is[The Bell rings] The guy says "The Sheriff's Near" The Old Guy says No,The Sheriff is a [Censored] We give a hardy handshake to our new[Censored].You dummy,We don't need to lose any horses you dummy,Send a couple of [censored] When the pre-Sheriff hit the guy, Tell him I said Ow!! When the Congegation is swearing in the church after the song. Sheriff said,Here's my impression of Jesse Owens and Runs. The Infamous Campfire scene. The scene where the bartender spits in a glass and burps.