Is Blazing Saddles the funniest movie ever made?

You mean besides me, kunilou,cmkeller, and don’t ask? Sheesh.

Whoops. Ummmm- damn.

I’ll just go away then.

Korman rocks. He matched his Heddy (This is 1874. You’ll be able to sue her.) performance with his Count de Monet.

“Don’t get saucy with me Bernaise!”

I haven’t seen History of the World Part I for quite some time, but the mention of it here has brought back to memory how funny that one is too. Although it doesn’t rank up there with BS and YF, it’s still a hoot.

“You’re nuts! N-V-T-S Nuts!”

and

“We got a god for everything! The only thing we don’t have a god for is premature ejaculation - but I hear that that’s coming quickly.”

and who can forget

“It’s good to be the king.”

Time has not been good to BS. It’s homophobia kills it for me, even though I agree with the Dopers that it has some great bits. But it killed the movie’s good humor to watch Dom Deluise and the dancers mince about, inviting us to laugh at them swanning about.

Contrast that with the black actors, who were using the stereotypes and race expectations to make the white folks the butts of the jokes. They’d pretend not to know any “nigger works songs” until they come up with “I Get a Kick Out of You.” The sheriff attracts Klansmen by playing to their expectations of blacks (“Where de white women at?”).

There’s none of that good humor in the “French Mystique” scene. They aren’t parodying gay stereotypes. They are gay stereotypes. There’s no difference between them and watching Stepin Fetchit or Sleep ‘N’ Eat or Mantan Moreland.

Besides, I know saying words like s*** and f*** were still new and shocking then, but they’ve long worn out their welcome.

I know it sounds like I’m reading too much into this, but I used to love Blazing Saddles, and this was my reaction after seeing it recently. I still love a lot about the movie, but time and changing attitudes have made it fade from the top of my list.

Goodness gracious, people. Where is all the love for Young Frankenstein coming from?

“Abbie Normal”?
“It’s pronounced Fronk-un-shteen”?
“Put… the candle… back”?

I guess I can understand how one might find it funny, but I just… don’t. Maybe I’m humor-impaired. Maybe I think Gene Wilder’s manic clowning around and overreacting makes him an earlier and marginally-better Jim Carrey (whom I also don’t find funny). Seriously, I’ve seen it twice: once because I loved Blazing Saddles so much, and once again because I could not believe that a movie so universally hailed as “great comedy” could leave me so utterly non-plussed.

Ghostbusters, Blues Brothers, Groundhog Day, Animal House, and even Raising Arizona made me laugh more than Young Frankenstein.

Are you guys sure you don’t mean Yahoo Serious’s magnum opus, Young Einstein? :smiley:

I like Blazing Saddles well enough but I’m not sure it’s even on my top ten.

I laughed so much it hurt the first time I watched Dr Strangelove. I’m also a bit of a sucker for Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle.

Sure, pick the reasonably mediocre jokes for your examples. :slight_smile: How about:

“SEDAGIVE?!”
“No matter what I say, no matter how much I order you…do NOT OPEN this door.” Paraphrased, of course. And we all know what happens next.
“Werewolf!” “Werewolf?!” “There.” “What?” “There, wolf. There, castle.” “Why are you talking like that?” “I thought you wanted to.” “I don’t.” “Suit yourself, I’m easy.”
“What knockers!” “Thank you, doctor.”
And, of course, the horses whinnying whenever Frau Blucher says her name.

There’s a lot of wonderful jokes, and a surprising number of them that aren’t manic, but delivered so deadpan you don’t see it coming.

Holy Grail and Life Of Brian are both great, but I’ve always considered Dr. Strangelove to the the most quotable. That might be occupational bias; I work in the defense sector (ugh) and many of the quotes and attitudes are eerily apropos, especially back when we had the job-shopper who regaled us with his paranoid, Air America-inspired theories regarding fluorodation and the shadow government, controlled by the UN (which itself was under the control of the Communists), which would at the slighted provocation deploy their Red Army troops which were secreted in giant salt mines under Lake Michigan in coordination with crack anti-civilian Marine troops out of Twentynine Palms. He also claimed to have known Howard Hughes personally and volunteered that he was killed at the behest of Henry Kissinger, who was secretly in league with Fidel Castro to overthrow Nixon and assume control via martial law.

But I digress. Strangelove just has some of the greatest quotes in any film:

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.”

“I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”

“Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.”

“Well now, what happened is… ah… one of our base commanders, he had a sort of… well, he went a little funny in the head… you know… just a little… funny. And, ah… he went and did a silly thing… Well, I’ll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes… to attack your country.”

"Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines. "

"Women uh… women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh… I do not avoid women, Mandrake…but I do deny them my essence.

“But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious… service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.”

The really sick thing is that most of these lines could be placed in a more somber context and be fully plausible.

Ah well…each to his own. “Always look on the bright side…of life!”

Stranger

Best Western Ever (and that includes spoofs): Rustler’s Rhapsody

The Death of Blackie is comedy gold.
Blackie: I don’t much like the idea of gettin’ shot in the hand.

Colonel Ticonderoga’s Eulogy For a Dead Foreman is sheer poetry.
Col. Ticonderoga: I saw a different side of Blackie. I saw a man who could feel. A man who could touch.

Meeting at the Campfire sends me into paroxysms of laughter.
Rex: We’re a little informal here tonight.
and
Peter: You scream in my ear one more time and I’ll tear your heart out.

The Confrontation in the Saloon is a joy to behold.
Wrangler Bob: Well, don’t worry, Rex. I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m just going to shoot the guns out of your hands.
Rex: I’d rather you shoot me in the heart.
Wrangler Bob: Now you know I can’t do that.

The Showdown on Main Street is funnier than the funniest line ever spoken in High Noon.
Rex: You’re not a Good Guy at all!
Wrangler Bob: I’m a LAWYER, you idiot!!

Gotta say it’s funnier than Blazing Saddles.

IMHO.

The movie was originally supposed to be a drama, and the plot is pretty much identical to Fail Safe. Fortunately, someone - I guess Kubrick - had the stones to think “we’re talking about the nuclear annihilation of humanity, but shit, this is just begging for a sendup.” Which makes it about a bazillion times more interesting than Fail Safe.

I’m still debating whether I consider Strangelove a great comedy or just a great movie that happens to be a comedy. Now I’m thinking of all the good scenes and leaning toward the former, and if so I guess I’d put it in the last spot of my top 5.

I use that pretty frequently. Nobody ever gets it.

–Cliffy

The answer from this quarter must regrettably be no - Blazing Saddles is funny. Very funny. But the Mel Brooks spoofs tie for second in my comedy hierarchy, matched with Python zaniness, both behind the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker brand of screwball insanity.

“And that’s when I realized I had a drinking problem.” splash!

Even though I love Mel Brooks, even I know he’s not fit to lick the ball stuffings of Woody Allen.

So in the category of funnist movie ever, which Woody Allen flick to you offer. The only really funny one I’ve ever seen is sleeper and its pretty dated now.

I’m happy with Blazing Saddles as Funniest Movie Ever. Airplane should also be in the top five. But if I may, I’d like to nominate another: The Emperor’s New Groove. Yes, I know it’s a cartoon, but I’ve seen it approximately a hundred times and I still sit down and watch it whenever I get a chance. The kids and I are always using quotes from it in our conversations.

I’d like to pop in and mention the other great comedy western, which I don’t think has been mentioned yet…

*The Three Amigos is one of the funniest ever, especially on repeat viewings, and deserves to be up with BS, Airplane, Holy Grail, Blues Bros, & Young F’stein.

Most of its humor, in comparison, is in the wonderful physical acting of the Short, Martin, and Chase. Their facial expressions and mannerisms just slay me into tears on every watching.

I don’t think I liked it as much as you did, but 3 Amigos had one of the funniest lines I think I have ever heard. When the older woman is preparing the kidnapped girl for her night with El Guapo, and she asks her “Do you know what foreplay is?” The young woman says “No.” The older one then says, “Good. Neither does El Guapo.”

Just putting in a word for Living in Oblivion, which IMHO is tremendously underrated. I think it’s a hilarious film with some great lines, not to mention the gorgeous Catherine Keener in a starring role.

“The only place I’ve seen dwarves in dreams is in stupid movies like this!”

I’d go with YF over BS, though my husband is the opposite.

YF is in my top five, along with:

Better Off Dead
The Awful Truth
MP’s Grail
The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)

I admit that I’ve never seen “Blazing Saddles” or “Airplane” or “Something About Mary” or any Woody Allen movie at all, but I’ve got to say that they’d have to be something pretty damned special to beat out “Office Space”.

(I’m adding Blazing Saddles to my Netflix queue now.)