Just finished watching Blazing Saddles again, this time on DVD, and one thing puzzles me. I’ve seen sanitised for TV edits, where the farting scene and Lili Von Shtupp’s musical number is cut, but this one kept those but lacked a couple of Bart and The Kid’s attempts on Mongo’s life, notably “Spanish balloons? Mongo, he try!” The only one kept was “Candygram for Mongo!”. Are there different edits?
Stampeding cattle? That’s not much of a crime.
Through the Vatican?
Kinky. Sign here.
I saw those extra scenes. On TV, decades ago.
They were pretty stupid, and they weren’t used in the film for good reason, IMHO.
I bought a VHS edition a few years back that included the “documentary” Back in the Saddle. It shows the Bart v. Mongo outtakes plus a few others. I’m surprised to hear that there was a version that included those scenes. Is it labeled “Director’s Cut”?
Watch the DVD director’s commentary for the full explanation. Brroks talks about the scenes, and why they were cut from the theatrical release. Qad nailed it…they aren’t that funny.
Ah, that answers it. I saw 'em on TV years ago too, but I loved 'em: to my mind they added a lot to the whole anarchic Bugs Bunny feel of repeatedly trying to take out Mongo with stupider and stupider scenes. And the diving scene is funny:
“Dive, dive dive, for Spanish doubloons!”
“Spanish balloons? Mongo, he try!”
One of my favorite weird edits was a TV version I saw some time ago.
They cut the fart noises from the bean eating scene.
But when Sherrif Bart is walking through town, and says Good Morning to the little old lady, she still says “Up Yours, N****r!”
So audible farts were deemed too offensive for TV broadcast, but the n-word was still okay? What alternative universe was this broadcast from?
I believe that’s the original TV edit. Further edits, most notoriously by the Family Channel, also remove all utterances of “nigger” and “faggot”.
I’ve heard the scene that ends “It’s twue, it’s twue.” (you KNOW the scene I mean) was originally meant to end with
“Excuse me madame, but you’re sucking on my elbow.”
Did that make it into any of the edits?
I’ve never heard that line in the movie, but I have heard that story.
The deleted scenes showing Bart trying to outsmart Mongo were always of pretty low quality when I’ve seen them; I’m not sure if it’s just lack of appropriate post-production or if the film itself is corrupted.
I don’t think so. According to Brooks on the DVD commentary (I’m going from memory here), he had written the line but knew it would never pass muster with the studio. He could get away with a lot, but not that particular line.
Really? I’ve heard elsewhere it was Richard Pryor who wrote that line.
Same here, only I disagree they weren’t funny. The 10 year old me who first saw them laughed his narrow ass off.
That could very well be true. It’s been over 6 months since I listened to the commentary and Brooks talked about a lot of stuff, including Pryor’s input, deleted scenes (the one in question and otherwise), and all sorts of other stuff. I had never heard of this particular line before watching the commentary so I have no historical perspective. I do remember thinking just how goddam funny it was and how it was a shame it didn’t make it into the movie. Brooks seemed not to be too bent out of shape about it. More of the “it didn’t make it because of the obvious reason” of being just a tad over the boundary of the accectable.
The stuff that does grate the most now is the casual rape jokes:
“You said rape twice.”
“I like rape.”
I guess they were a product of their time - watch almost any Eastwood movie of the period and count the rape or attempted rape scenes - but they’re a little uncomfortable to watch now.
A little off topic but I’ve seen about 2 or 3 TV edits for The Breakfast Club some include scenes that aren’t in the theatrical cut (usually just extra of them running through the halls avoiding the teacher). It’s always a little surreal seeing a ‘edited for tv’ movie that has extras to make up for other jokes they cut.
For that matter, The Fantastiks has an entire number on the subject of rape, and it’s quite jolly. I think the word was used more to mean “abduction” than forceable sex. I wonder if the Broadway revival will include this sequence, but it would be a major rape of the libretto to remove it.
“Raaaaaaaape, such a pretty rape…”
That line was the scene-ender in the book, but the scene was truncated just before in the original theatrical release and early VHS tapes. I never saw it on screen, but I don’t have a recent DVD copy to check.
The book also included pictures of the dive sequence and other events that weren’t in the original theatrical release, so (my copy, at least) must have preceeded it.
That’s the edit of the movie I first saw! And the bean scene made no sense at all. I only saw it uncut sometime in college.
There was a book?