Not that anyone was disagreeing, but in his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel last night, Mel Brooks explained that the movie that gave us “where da white women at?”, “Kansas City fagg*ts“, and “you said rape twice,” probably couldn’t have been made today. Yeah, no kidding. But what do we care? We’ve got Seltzer/Friedberg now.

When we had a preview [of Blazing Saddles], there were two guys, there was John Calley, and there was a guy running the studio. Ted Ashley – who was in charge of Warner Bros. We had a preview, and the crowd went crazy, everyone loved it. And afterwards, he grabs me by the collar and shoves me into an office. And he says, “Okay, here’s a legal pad, here’s a pencil, take these notes.” He says, “N-word, OUT! We don’t say it. No punching a horse. Around the campfire, cut out the farting… You can’t punch an old lady. Lily von Schtupp and the black sheriff… you can’t – OUT. ”

So, I said “Yes, sir, it’s gone. You come here tomorrow, and it’s all out of the movie.” He leaves, and I crunch it up, and I go all the way across the room and I put it in the waste basket. John Calley says “Nice filing!”

I had final cut, so what did I care?

And that, kiddies, is why Mel Brooks is one of comedy’s greatest heros. You can take our n-words, farts, and horse punching when you pry them from our cold, wanking hands.

Meanwhile, said YouTube:

We’ll take that, I suppose.

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A long, long time ago in this galaxy, there was a decade known as the 1980s. During this crazy time, there were some filmmakers that actually made honest-to-gosh hilarious parodies of famous films and genres, unlike the Seltzers and Friedbergs of today, who simply devour pop culture clichés and vomit them back into our faces because some studio suit is high enough to think they’re actually funny.

The 80s gave us The Naked Gun, Top Secret!, Airplane!, This is Spinal Tap, and I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, to name a few. Many would argue, in fact, that the 80s spoof era was dominated by David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, but they owed a great deal of their success to Mel Brooks for paving the road before them for his classics like Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and History of the World: Part I.

In 1987, though, came one of Brooks’ most important works, Spaceballs, a send-up of science fiction films like Star Wars and Alien. Sure, it was important because it was hilarious as a one-of-a-kind satire of George Lucas’ empire, but it was also important because it marked the end of Brooks’ reign as the spoof king, as he’d soon settle into a string of rather uninspired efforts.

Alas, I come not to bury Brooks’ later work but to praise the film that taught an 8-year old Burnsy that dick jokes are pretty damn funny, as my teachers didn’t think it was very appropriate for a child to be carrying around “Spaceballs: The Book”. Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the film’s release – and a special edition Blu Ray is right around the corner – so we wanted to pay tribute to one of the funniest comedies of our generation.

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