Announcer thanks to contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Im laughing already. Mel brooks is what the industry calls an egot, meaning he is one of only a short list of entertainers who have the distinction of winning an oscar, an emmy, a grammy and a tony, egot. His movies have ranged from such serious films like the elephant man to the sublimely hilarious and sublimely offensive films like the producers and Blazing Saddles. Blazing saddles now being released get this in a 40th anniversary edition. 40 years. The film was a satire about race relations. It uses some offensive language to some to make its point but what a good point it makes. Lets take a look at Cleavon Little, love this, as a sheriff riding to the rescue of an allwhite town. Hes not bluffing. Listen to him, man. Hes crazy enough to do it. I swear ill below his head all over this town. Hes desperate. Do what he say. Do what he say. Isnt anybody going to help that poor man . Harriet, thats a sure way to get him killed. Oh, help me help me help me somebody help me help me help me help me shut up oh, baby, you are so talented. And they are so dumb. Does it seem like 40 years since you did that masterpiece . It seems like 40 minutes. Its amazing. I mean, time really there is no time. Its just good things and bad things. Yeah. And the good things are always around and, thank god, bad things drift. I have just taken great delight in reading all of the stories of the misgivings, the questions you had about whether or not you could pull this off, whether or not it was too politically incorrect, your conversation with Richard Pryor. Well come to pryor in just a second. As you look back on this now 40 years later, what do you make of the fact that you actually got it done . I couldnt do it today. I was about to ask that. They wouldnt let me. Yeah. But it was amazing. There was just that little window. There was just that little window when they let you do things that were i dont know. I call them brave but the world would call them stupid. But they let me do they let me do these crazy, magnificently insane movies. There was a guy called john calley, god bless him. He ran Warner Brothers. Well, he didnt he ran the movie part of Warner Brothers, not the whole production. And i went up to his office and i said, john, can i actually punch a little old lady . Can i i mean, you know . I mean, can i really make the sounds of farts around . He said, mel, if you going to go up to the bell, ring it. I said, okay. So calley kind of saved me. There was a screening for all the Warner Brothers executives. He was the only one who laughed. They were all quiet. Then leo greenfield god bless him, hes gone now. He got up and he said i havent hes like the distributor for them. Domestic distribution, leo greenfeed. He gets up and he says i have never asked Warner Brothers to eat a movie. I want them to bury this one. I dont want to release it. Its disgusting. I dont want Warner Brothers name on it. And i think we i dont know whatever, it only cost two, 2. 4, 2. 4 in those days. He said, whateve it is, Warner Brothers should eat it. Calley said, no. Lets open it up in three cities and find out if anybody likes it. I like it. Lets see. So we have a screening at the avco embassy on wilshire here. I put up little wooden rails and i got cowboys to tie up their horses here and i got cattle in the lobby. Man, all over the lobby, you just saw a lot of mud pies and, man, it was just a lot of peepee and it was really and the one good thing they had in the lobby was raisinets. So we all had raisinets. Anyway they showed the movie and the people ran up and down the aisles, screaming with laughter. They just i mean, there was the n word, there was everything. It was just and by the end of the movie the head of Warner Brothers, at the time, who shall remain nameless, he grabbed me i think it was ted ashley, who shall remain nameless. He said he grabbed me by the collar and he threw me in the Managers Office. He gave me a yellow legal pad. He gave me a pencil. He said write. No farting. Okay, out. No, horse, you cant punch a horse. No, no, you cant oh, no. The n word, you cant say that. He gave me about 22 notes. Im writing. I said if i took all that out i would have a 13minute movie. There would be nothing left. Calley was with me. I took the page and threw it all the way across the Managers Office into the wastepaper barkt and he said good filing. We never touch aid thing and that movie was a big success and never stopped. I saw at the other night at graumans chinese theater on a big screen. Thats the way you should see it, on a big screen. It was a big, western movie on a big screen. It was just like people, just like the old days, leaving their chairs, rolling i mean, rolling on the ground. I never seen anybody laughing and it was just you know, it brought tears to my eyes because they didnt pay. They got it for nothing. But otherwise the so for those of us who know the backstory, the real hard core fans of Blazing Saddles know that Cleavon Little did a spectacular job, but he was not the guy. No, no. The true story is, the first i got a real great actor from they shoot horses, dont they which was a great movie with this guy gig young. And he played an alcoholic and he was brilliant. I said, thats what i need. Kind of a leathery faced old texas kind of guy whos recovering from alcohol. He was like perfect. So i hired gig young. It was the first scene and gig young is playing the waco kid and hes recovering from a night of drinking and hes leaning over the jail cell and Cleavon Little goes over to him and the dialogues supposed to go like this. Cleavon little is supposed to say, are we awake . And hes supposed to say, i dont know. Are we black . You know, never seen a black sheriff, you know . So in rehearsal, he was pretty good. I say action. Cleavon, are we awake and he said, are we bla are we bla, are we bla and green stuff, green like the exorcist. All over. It kept coming out. I dont know where he had kept coming out of gig young, green, green, spurting, splattering all over. Finally he shook and he stopped. I said, is he dead . We went over. He was okay. He was alive. We got an ambulance. We took him away. I said, no more reality. I need comics, either black or jewish comics from now on. No actors. Give me comics. I called gene wilder, who is a great actor, too. I called him, told him about it. He flew out the next day. He leaned over. I said action. Cleavon said, are we awake . And gene said, i dont know. Are we black . And, boom, we were off and running and gene wilder saved my life. Yeah. Yeah. Richard pryor. Theres a backstory to pryor about this project and ill let you do the story. Well, i begged Warner Brothers to but, you know, i wanted him to be th black sheriff and i knew he was a genius. He was helping me write the thing. And i knew what a great actor he was. How funny he maybe the funniest standup comedian who lfr lived. Im there are a lot of comedians who say that, though. He may be the funniest who ever lived. So i said to the Warner Brothers if you dont let me hire Richard Pryor to be the black sheriff, black bart, im not going to do t they said, we cant. We found out he takes drugs, were not going to do it. I said i quit. Richard said dont quit. I didnt get my last payment, you know . I said, okay, richard. I said, okay, richard. And so then we all so richard and i were looking. And we looked at a lot of Different Actors and every africanamerican who ever was an actor came and auditioned and richard really, when we got Cleavon Little, and cleavon, he said, man, hes handsome. Hes classy. And hes black. I said, what do you mean . He said if i was the black sheriff, i could be cuban. Im cafe au lait, man. But cleav. N, hell scare the out of the west. There was nobody darker or more handsome and more classy than cleavon. He was you know, makes me cry to think about him. Every time i think about that, what might have been we all know that wilder and pryor went on to do stuff together. Oh, yeah. But that would have been the first wilder pryor that would have been it. Yeah. And i would have collected every penny from it. But anyway, it worked out because i took a good bounce in getting a really beautiful talent in Cleavon Little. I did well. Speaking of well, how did all the protestations of certain people at Warner Brothers, when this thing actually hit the theaters, how did it do . At the beginning it did really well. Not spectacular. Then that summer it came out in february, i think of 75, 1975. And it did okay. Then in the summer, the theater owners heard about it. The exhibiters and they asked for it. It only opened in 30 or 40 theaters in those days. Then it opened in 600 or 700. That was a lot of theaters in those days. In the summer. In june. Bang. You never heard it just was hand over fist. I used to go to Warner Brothers and say, whos counting . Wheres the money . You know. I mean, it was really i mean it was just like record numbers. Who was the audience . Black folk, white folk, everybody . A mix, mix. You know. And a couple of jews in the balcony. Every time i said jewish indian, they went when i heard the screams, i said, the jews. Man, theres jews there. But everybody. Everybody loved t i thought you know, i thought this aint going to do well in texas because thats a pretty sophisticated, you know, kind of a problack movie. Dont mess with texas. Yeah, dont they loved it. They loved it. They believed it. Every time they call the n word they said right. You know . You know what i mean . They went with that side of it. Well, let me go back i want to circle back to the beginning of this conversation. Before i came out somebody said do you want to go to the bathroom . Because youve been drinking a lot of water and i said no, on every show i do, i wear depends. Right now, ive got to tell you, im peeing right now. Im fine. No. Now thats a joke. Let me go back to the beginning of this conversation, when you said that there was something that was happening in that moment in hollywood that allowed you again, those protestations i dont know, it was like what was that . It was the civil rights. It was a window. What was that . I dont know. Something in 1974, 75 allowed me to make use those words. This is blaxploitation era, too, though. Yeah. I had differe titles. The first title Andrew Bergman came up with a rough draft and called it texx. I said thats great, and too hip. Thats never going to fly. Then i came up with a simple western title black bart who is the name of the sheriff. They sauld calley was very smart. He said, no, blaxploitation, thats sounds like yeah. Then i came up with Blazing Saddles because then youre emphasizing youre making fun of the west, its not just blaxploitation. But you had to be very careful. I think they bought the idea that there was such a thing as fairness, goodness and that somewhere out there, there was a thing like goodness and fairness and that enough people would sign on and enjoy it and seeing it. And not necessarily afroamericans, just everybody. And there was. There was enough. And it became like you know, in that year, i got two movies. I won the nato award. Nato is like if you care about equality and people, you never want that award. Thats the National Association of theater owners. Thats just gold. Its just a gold award. You make the most money, we love you. We give you a crown and well give you some of it. But that i won the nato award because i had Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles in the same year and the theater owners had never been happier. But i had never been happier because i made two very crazy, different, brave movies and people loved it. Was that part of your deal with wilder, to do Young Frankenstein . No. He was in a corner somewhere, curled up, writing something on a yellow pad, writing, writing. I said what are you doing . He said i got an idea for a movie. I said tell me about it. He said its not ready yet. I said tell me about it. He said, well, what if the grandson of frankenstein, of dr. Frankenstein wanted if he was fighting for his dignity, he said. All this bull mete about animating dead tissue, making a monster and all he said he wants to put that straight. So the movie would be that he has to go back to transylvania for some reason, theyre selling the estate and he realizes, my god, it could work. He reads the notes and the things and hes in the laboratory and hes infused with this feeling. He says, my god, yes. We could you know, we could actually bring this dead creature back to life, reanimate dead tissue. And so he gets involved. And i said, i love it. All right. Lets write it together. And we did. While we were making Blazing Saddles, every night we would get together and write Young Frankenstein. While you were doing Blazing Saddles . While we were doing it. Gee whiz. Yeah, every night. What did pryor say to you when you asked him about i hate saying the n word but when you asked him about the n word, what did pryor say to you about it . Well, the great thing about Richard Pryor was i would say, richard, can i use the n word here . He said you must. Okay. I used it. Richie, can i use the n word there . You have to okay. There wasnt once, there wasnt one time i asked, can i use it, he said ad infinitum. He said use it every way and every when they would ask me, i said blame it on richard. I would never use that. I assume that what you meant earlier in this conversation when you said out the gate that you could never do this movie now is because we live in an era that is too politically correct. Is that what you meant by that . Yeah. Its a good thing and bad thing because Political Correctness restricts and restrains humor. Humor has to be very crazy and free and very liberated and dangerous. Youve got to walk that line. When i did the production number, its a preview. Were at the st. James theater. On stage theyre singing and dancing springtime for hitler the audience is just jews. Suddenly a big guy gets up, six feet, comes stomping up the aisle. Wheres mel brooks . Wheres mel brooks . He finds me, grabs me and he goes, how could you do such a thing . Nazis, the holocaust, how could you do such a thing . I was in world war ii and i said to him, i was in world war ii. I didnt see you there. But, anyway, so that was brave, too. The jews didnt think i must have gotten more i got more on the producers than i ever got in mail. And to each jew i have wrote a letter saying, you cant get on a soapbox with hitler. Hes an orator. Hes a great speaker. But if you make fun of him with the little mustache and hair if you just make fun, you can beat the [ muted ] out of him. So i wrote letters to everybody trying to explain why i would do such a thing where did you get the i want to find the right word here. The fortitude, its a good yiddish word, the chutzpah. The chutzpah. Right. Where did you get that to advance these ideas knowing you were going to catch hell on the other end . I knew i would catch hell. But you went for it anyway. Yeah because i came from brooklyn. We didnt know better. We were just my mother was very brave. She came over from the other side when she was a little kid. The only thing she asked for, my mother said i would like to live the apartment in front of our tenement became available. And my mother said im sick and tired of looking at cats and wet wash hanging from the lines. Id like to see the world. By that she meant the street out in front of our tenement. The world. I was 5. I had three older brothers. We had a family meeting. Okay. Weve got to let mom see the world. The world was like tony the ice man and some yeah. It aint much of a world but to her it was the world. We moved. Tuly it was 16 a month rent in the back and in the front was 18 a month. We were just little kids. Nobody was really had already gone to school. But we hustled, hustled, ran telephone calls. Mrs. Blum, phone call for you. Drugstore. Heres a nickel, whatever. We raised enough money to get up to my aunt saddie, god bless her, who worked at the ro roseenthal as a floor lady, she gave over half her salary to us because my father died when i was only 2. And my mother was raising four boys. She was a saint. She moved to the front and it was great. My mother could see the world sbchlt one night this is a true story. Terrible story. I have to pee. I knock on the bathroom door. Bernies there. He said go away. Im making. No arguing with that. So i run over the sink. Im too little. Im only 5. I cant reach the sink. Cant even get on the chair to get and the front window that faces the world is open. So i go back a little bit, do an arc and i pee. I pee right out the window andy in a little while i hear a lot of consternation below, kitty, kitty, its coming from your apartment. My mothers name was kitty. Kitty, its coming all the jewish ladies sitting on the steps have all got peed on. And then a hear a rhinoceros coming up the stairs. Its my mother. I jump in the bed. Bernie comes out of the bathroom. Hi, mom. Bang, she decks him. He never knew why she beat him up. You know. I think when i was 65 and he was 70, i said, bernie, it was me who peed out the window. I finally told him. I hope you have a few more minutes. You know, its the same money. I make just nothing. Theres nothing in this for me. Exactly. But i love you. I love your show. I love you back. And why let me hold that thought. Hold that thought. Okay. I want to pick up on this. I asked him if he had more time because this is so rich i want to do this for another show. Blazing saddles is out right now. Their 40th anniversary edition. And your son has a book. Tomorrow night well talk about this. Harlem hellfighrs but its your son, max brooks. Zombie survival guide, world war z, max brooks. Well talk about it tomorrow night. Thanks for watching. And,