Blazing Saddles: 12 Behind the Scenes Stories of Mel Brooks’ Absurdist Western Classic

First, a Little Background

Blazing Saddles is a 1974 Western satire about a Black sheriff named Black Bart (Cleavon Little) appointed to save a town with the help of the drunken gunslinger the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder). The film ridicules Western tropes and racial bigotry, while firing off both cheap and brilliant jokes and pushing the 1970s limits of acceptable language.

Mel Brooks directed, co-wrote and starred in four roles, and the film came out of nowhere to earn three Academy Awards, become one of the biggest box-office hits of the 1970s, and land high on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years… 100 Laughs list of the greatest movie comedies.

Here are 11 behind-the-scenes stories from Blazing Saddles.

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