Mongo work fine!
Mongo no like Shodan.
They did. Per Wiki:
In a 2017 interview at Indiana University in Bloomington, John Cleese expressed disappointment with the film’s conclusion. “‘The ending annoys me the most’”, he said after a screening of the film on the Indiana campus, adding that “‘It ends the way it does because we couldn’t think of any other way’”. However, scripts for the film and notebooks that are among Michael Palin’s private archive, which he donated to the British Library in 2017, do document at least one alternate ending that the troupe considered: “a battle between the knights of Camelot, the French, and the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog”. Due to the film’s small production budget, that idea or a “much pricier option” was discarded by the Pythons in favour of the ending with “King Arthur getting arrested”, which Palin deemed “‘cheaper’” and “‘funnier’”.
I’m with you here. Found Life of Brian both better and funnier than Holy Grail. It’s just a more cohesive movie, and, I dunno, the jokes hit me harder than Holy Grail. To be honest, I actually enjoyed The Real Meaning of Life more than Holy Grail, as well. Maybe I should rewatch Holy Grail. That’s the only one of the three I haven’t seen multiple times.
Although Holy Grail and Blazing Saddles have similarly fourth-wall-breaking endings, and although I’m not a fan of it in Blazing Saddles, I actually thought that, in Holy Grail, it worked pretty well. It’s the right kind of goofiness for that, while Blazing Saddles wasn’t.
I can’t make any objective assessment of how funny Holy Grail is, though, because every time I’ve seen it, it’s been with a bunch of other folks who know it, and who are giving a running vocal track of all of the lines along with the actors. I don’t know how to separate the movie itself from that experience of watching it.
I just noticed that Showtime was running Airplane! so I had to watch it for this thread.
Verdict. There are more jokes in the first five minutes of Airplane! than in the whole of BS. The whole movie works from start to finish, with only a few of gags going sour. Almost nothing depends on recognizing people (except Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), although those jokes work better if you do. The series of autopilot gags are as funny as anything ever in the movies. Although Airplane! came out only six years after BS, the pace is entirely different. It’s like rock music compared to Perry Como. And I have no idea what silenus meant by “once the lights hit the runway Airplane! is over, but it goes on for another 20 minutes.” That’s a totally forgettable gag and it’s much closer to the end than 20 minutes.
No contest. One of the funniest comedies of all time against a half-good movie that isn’t even Mel Brooks’ best.
But there’s a difference between “has more jokes” and “is funnier”.
Jay Leno packed more jokes into his monologues than any late-night host before or since. Was he the funniest of all?
Careful with the answer, if you say yes, remember we’re judging you and we’re a very judgmental group.
First of all, I’d like to that those who shared their thoughts here. The polling didn’t go as I expected. I pretty much expected those number to be reversed. As always though, standard rules apply. People like the pop culture elements that they like. Trying to change their minds about such things is usually somewhere between futile and insulting. And, as always, if you fear the answer, don’t ask the question. It doesn’t have to get much more complicated than that.
With that being said, I do have a few thoughts about what has been said here.
RE: BLAZING SADDLES vs other Mel Brooks movies
When I conceived this thread, it was honestly a coin flip between BS and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. They’re both certainly very funny movies that I’ve seen (far too) many times and I still find myself giggling like a fool as many of the scenes. Young Frankenstein also has several scenes that simply annoy me. The entire “SED-A-GIVE” and the “Puttin’ On the Ritz” scenes are both just complete wastes. Truthfully, I’ve never been that impressing with Gene Wilder. This is especially true with his near frantic, screaming parts. They way he typically played comedic anger/fear just doesn’t click with me.* BS put Gene as co-star in a much more reserved role which I enjoyed very much. YF put Gene front and center in a role that required much more screaming and frenetic action and it just doesn’t work for me as well. YF has Gene serving as a structure about which many talented people perform brilliantly hilarious parts. Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn steal virtually every scene they’re in. Cloris Leachman had to be having an absolute ball while filming her scenes and it shows in the finished product. Bottom line: SADDLES just works better for ME than does FRANKENSTEIN. If I’m wrong then I’m content to sit here quietly in my wrongness and just be wrong.
As for Mel’s other works, I would agree that HIGH ANXIETY is under rated but at best, it is a distant third on my list of Mel’s works. The less said about HISTORY OF THE WORLD, the better. The original PRODUCERS really shows it age very badly. Add in the fact that Zero Mostel couldn’t act like a plummeting person if you threw him off a bridge and the film is almost unwatchable to me. The remake of THE PRODUCERS is fantastic but I’ve heard debate about how much of the finished product is actually Mel’s work.
- This is primarily why I greatly prefer the Nathan lane/Mathew Broderick remake of THE PRODUCERS over Gene’s original.
RE: Pace of jokes
Much has been said here about the relentless, rapid fire delivery of jokes, sight gags, clever wordplay, non-sequiters and just flat out WTF moments is AIRPLANE! The writers are throwing everything they can at the wall and mostly they stick. Thanks to Youtube, there are scenes and lines I’ve probably seen hundreds of times and I still giggle like a fool every time. (“Listen Betty, don’t start up with your white zone shit again!” - “We have clearance Clarence. Roger, Roger. What’s our vector Victor?”) Quality vs quantity though is a valid consideration and enough of the jokes fall flat or are so pointlessly obscure that they lose all meaning. Someone upthread commented how brilliant it was that Maureen McGovern played the nun and Jimmy Walker played the guy checking the plane’s oil. Why is this even relevant? Even back in the day, Walker was never more than a third rate TV actor. McGovern had her moments, so what? I’m just not seeing why these specific people made their roles funnier or more relevant than another, more generic performer would have.
Well I expected a different outcome too. Brooks is always going to have more soul than his imitators. This is a big part of blazing saddles. Aren’t the situations more involving when you aren’t careening from one pun to the next?
Life of Brian was so lame I can’t recall one funny joke in it. Yet Holy Grail was the apex of filmed humor. I never understood how that could be. Meaning of Life was funny.
Don’t know if it was intentional, but the ending is a great visual stealth pun - it’s a cop.out.
The remake of The Producers was so flat and mediocre that I will always regret not getting to see it live on Broadway where it might have stood a chance.
As for Monty Python, people always forget that their first movie was And Now for Something Completely Different, in which they remade their best skits for film. For sheet funniness, nothing can top that.
Doesn’t anybody here like gladiator movies?
Nobody who has ever owned a large friendly dog could possibly argue with this scene contributing to Airplane! as the leading candidate based on that scene alone! 
^ This is the first time I noticed that he walks out of the mirror at the end of that clip.
I have to go with “Airplane! is funnier, but Blazing Saddles is the better movie.” Airplane was great as a fire hose of jokes, most of which still work. Blazing Saddles was very funny, but not all the humor has aged as well. However it had the layers of satire and social commentary that Airplane did not aspire to. BS actually had a message hidden in the jokes. Plus, Airplane didn’t have Slim Pickens so that really tips the scale to BS.
Well, I own a copy of *Blazing Saddles *on DVD, but not Airplane!, so I guess I found BS funnier, or at least enjoyed it more.
OTOH, Airplane! wins my personal award for best slow-burn joke. When Scary Movie 3 was in the theaters, I went to see it. At my showing, I was clearly the oldest person in attendance, and apparently the only one who had seen Airplane, because my belly laugh when Leslie Neilsen told the main characters, “We’re all counting on you” resulted in every person there turning their head to stare at me.
It was a very odd feeling, being the only person in the room to get the joke.
[quote=“wolfpup, post:114, topic:848032”]
Nobody who has ever owned a large friendly dog could possibly argue with this scene contributing to Airplane! as the leading candidate based on that scene alone! 
Shep, sit!
drad dog:
Really? I’m amazed. Aside from plenty of jokes within (I won’t turn the thread into a quote-fest), the final scene, with a bunch of crucified people singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” cracked me up like few other movie scenes ever have - including in the two movies of the OP, or Holy Grail.
Blazing saddles by miles!!
I think Airplane is kinda stupid…