Trivia for
Blazing Saddles (1974) More at IMDbPro »

• The role of Bart was intended for Richard Pryor, but due to the controversial nature of Pryor's stand-up routines of the day and his background, Mel Brooks couldn't secure financing for the project with Pryor in that role. So Pryor was made a co-writer of the script, and Cleavon Little played Bart. Pryor later got to star in a different western comedy - Adiós Amigo (1976).
  
  
• Richard Pryor came up with the character "Mongo".
  
  
• Production began with Gig Young as the Waco Kid. On the first day of shooting, the scene where the drunk Waco Kid hangs from a bunk asking if Bart is black, Young revealed that he really was indeed drunk (he had had an alcohol problem for years) and proceeded to undergo a physical collapse on set. Brooks shut down production for a day and Gene Wilder flew cross country to take over the role. Young later sued Warner Bros. for breach of contract.
  
  
• In the shot where the show bill for "Lili Von Schtupp, The Teutonic Titwillow" appears, the tune played on the honky-tonk piano in the background is "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers (1968), also directed by Mel Brooks.
  
  
• Scriptwriter Andrew Bergman originally named the lead character "Tex X".
  
  
• Director Mel Brooks plays a character called "Le Petomane", which was the stage name of a popular French performer (Joseph Pujol) from the beginning of the 20th century, who told stories punctuated with flatulence, demonstrated his ability to blow out candle flames from two feet way with his back turned, and performed "La Marseillaise" and popular tunes.
  
  
• The Indian Chief played by Mel Brooks speaks Yiddish. He says: "Blacks!" "Let them go!" "Have you ever seen in your life?"
  
  
• One day in the Warner Bros. studio commissary, Mel Brooks and the other writers were seated at a table opposite John Wayne ("the Duke"). The Duke turned and said he had heard about their Western, the one where people say stuff like "blow it out your ass". Mel handed the Duke a copy of the script and said, "Yes, and we'd like you to be in it." According to Brooks, the Duke turned down the offer the next day by saying, "Naw, I can't do a movie like that, but I'll be first in line to see it!"
  
  
• Gene Wilder was originally offered the role of Hedley Lamarr but he didn't feel right for it and told Mel Brooks that he wanted The Waco Kid instead. However, Brooks wanted someone older for The Waco Kid, someone like Dan Dailey. Dailey was originally considered for the role of the Waco Kid but poor health and declining eyesight forced him to decline.
  
  
• The TV release has several extra scenes that weren't in the theatrical release. - When Sheriff Bart is trying to capture Mongo, after he delivers the "CandyGram for Mongo", it then shows a "draw on the dummy sheriff" game that fires a cannon at Mongo. - A scene where Bart convinces Mongo to go diving down a well for Spanish Doubloons and Bart stops pumping air to the diving suit because it's time for his lunch break. - Escaping from the "bad guy queue", Jim and Bart encounter a Baptism ceremony. - Governor Le Petomane rides into the fake Rock Ridge in a stagecoach and tries to talk to the fake people.
  
  
• The Hebrew writing on headband worn by Mel Brooks on the movie poster should translate to "Kosher for Passover", but it has a (deliberate) mistake: the first letters were switched, which translates it to something like "Posher for Kassover".
  
  
• Cameo: [Count Basie] leader of the jazz band in the desert.
  
  
• Cameo: [Gilda Radner] appears in a scene in the church. She would later become the wife of Gene Wilder (The Waco Kid).
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Mel Brooks] fourth wall: often breaks the "fourth wall", having the actors speak directly to the audience.
  
  
• A television spinoff series was originally proposed, but never aired. Called "Black Bart", it starred Louis Gossett Jr. (billed as "Lou Gossett") and Steve Landesberg. The show never aired, but the original pilot can be found on the 30th Anniversary Special Edition DVD.
  
  
• Hedy Lamarr sued Mel Brooks over the use of the name Hedley Lamarr and settled out of court.
  
  
• On the marquee at Graumann's Chinese Theater, the flashing title Blazing Saddles is a matte lay-in, covering the film's original title, Black Bart. The final title of the movie wasn't decided until after principal photography.
  
  
• When Mongo rides into town, one Mexican says, "Mongo! Santa Maria!" Mongo Santamaría was a famous Cuban musician.
  
  
• When Mel Brooks advertised in the show business trade papers for a "Frankie Laine-type" voice to sing the film's title song, he was hoping for a good imitator. Instead, Frankie Laine himself showed at Brooks' office two days later, ready to do the job but nobody told him the movie was a parody.
  
  
• The world premiere was at the (now gone) Pickwick Drive-In Theater in Burbank, California. The guests rode horses into the drive-in for the premiere. (The Pickwick was also used in Grease (1978) as a filming location.)
  
  
• Filmed on the same outdoor sets as Westworld (1973).
  
  
• The huge coin on the poster is inscribed "Hi! I'm Mel, Trust Me!"
  
  
• Mel Brooks's first movie filmed in Panavision scope; 2.35:1
  
  
• The original plan for the film was to have Alan Arkin to direct the film with James Earl Jones playing the role of Bart.
  
  
• When handing out the paddles to everyone at the table, Gov. William J. LePetomaine calls them by name as Frankie, Johnny, Patsy and Kelly. "Frankie & Johnny" was a popular song in the 1930s and Patsy Kelly was a popular comic actress at that time.
  
  
• Mel Brooks also asked Johnny Carson to play the Waco Kid; he refused.
  
  
• The voices for the drunk that Lili Von Shtupp kicks off the stage and the German Soldier that joins her later in the show are both provided by Mel Brooks.
  
  
• The bull that Mongo rides has "YES" painted on one side and "NO" painted on the other. This is apparently a reference to the practice in the 1950s of marking the back of school buses for which side was safe to pass on, essentially inferring that Mongo and his mount are as big as a bus.
  
  
• A large photo of Edward G. Robinson can be seen hanging on the commissary wall during the pie fight.
  
  
• Is #9 on Bravo's list of the 100 Funniest Movies.
  
  
• Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.
  
  
• According to Mel Brooks' audio commentary, Warner Bros released it again in the summer of 1975 because they didn't have any other big pictures to release.
  
  
• Cameo: [Mel Brooks] In the outlaw recruitment line, smiling and wearing an aviators costume.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Mel Brooks] created mob noise by having people say, "Harrumph." We can hear an example of this moment after the townspeople refuse to give land to the Irish. In the ensuing hubbub, Brooks can be heard to say, "Everybody, harrumph!"
  
  
• According to Mel Brooks (in the commentary for Spaceballs (1987)) when Gene Wilder came on the cast for this movie, he requested that Brooks do his movie idea next. Gene Wilder's idea was Young Frankenstein (1974).
  
  
• The scene in which Mongo knocks out a horse has a basis in reality. Mel Brooks' former "Your Show of Shows" (1950) and "Caesar's Hour" (1954) boss, Sid Caesar, who was a physically imposing and somewhat violent man, reported in his 1982 autobiography "Where Have I Been?" that while trail riding with his wife, her horse caused trouble and he punched it once between the eyes. The horse collapsed, unconscious. He notes that this event was Brooks' inspiration for the Mongo-vs.-horse scene.
  
  
• Over 70 stuntmen worked on this film, many of them doubling as extras.
  
  
• In the DVD Commentary, Mel Brooks said that the working title for the film was "Tex X" as a reference to black Muslim leader Malcolm X. It was then switched to "Black Bart". In either case, neither he, nor the other writers thought those were great titles. Brooks says that one morning he was taking a shower and the words Blazing Saddles (1974) suddenly popped into his head. When he got out of the shower, he pitched the title to his wife, actress Anne Bancroft, who liked the idea and that's how the movie ended up with its title.
  
  
• Supposedly, this movie officially marks the first time the sound of farting has ever been used in a film (at least according to the film makers in the DVD Documentary). According to Mel Brooks, they came up with the idea after watching numerous old westerns where cowboys only consume black coffee and plates of beans, thus concluding that such a food combination would inevitably lead to farting.
  
  
• When auditioning for the role of Lilly, Madeline Kahn was asked by Mel Brooks to pull up her skirt so he could see her legs. She was quite hesitant, being unclear of Brooks's intentions. Brooks actually just wanted to see if she had legs good enough to approximate Marlene Dietrich's famous "gams".
  
  
• Though credited on screen as "Gum Chewer", Don Megowan actually played a different role in the film: he was the man who Madeline Kahn pushed into the audience after he lurched drunkenly toward her while she was on stage.
  
  
• Madeline Kahn started working on the movie the day after being fired from the role of Agnes Gooch in Mame (1974). Lucille Ball believed that Kahn got herself fired (by deliberately acting poorly) so that she could take the role of Lili Von Shtupp in this film, but still get paid for the Gooch role in "Mame", which by her contract wouldn't have happened if she'd merely quit.
  
  
• The musical excerpt heard when Mongo is defeated is the same piece of music Warner Bros. used on the "That's all, folks!" ending screen of Looney Tunes cartoons.
  
  
• In Yiddish and certain German dialects, to "Schtupp" means to commit the sex act.
  
  
• When Harvey Korman's character purchases a ticket at the Grauman's Chinese Theater box office, you can see the original film title, "BLACK BART" in the poster case in the background.
  
  
• During the hanging scene, Boris the Hangman can be seen getting ready to hang an older gentleman in a wheelchair, which Hedley Lamarr refers to as "the Dr. Gillespie killings". This is a reference to Lionel Barrymore's character of Dr. Leonard Gillespie, which he played in fifteen different movies between 1938 and 1947. Lionel Barrymore was confined to a wheelchair due to arthritis, so the Dr. Gillespie character was always played from a wheelchair. This was Mel Brooks' way of finally killing off the Dr. Gillespie character.
  
  
• The scene in which Cleavon Little draws a gun upon himself to save himself from the townspeople's wrath was based on a childhood incident from Mel Brooks. Brooks said that once, to his disbelief, he stole some gum and a water pistol from a drugstore; when a store worker tried to stop him, Brooks held the worker at bay with the very water pistol he had just fingered from the store.
  
  
• After writing his first two feature films on his own, Mel Brooks was nostalgic for the collaborative group writing style of his days on "Your Show of Shows" (1950), so he employed 4 other writers to work with. According to co-writer Andrew Bergman, who wrote the treatment on which the film is based, almost all of the scenes include some contribution from the 5 writers.
  
  
• The sound effects for the famous wind-breaking scene (with the cowboys around the camp fire letting nature take its natural course after a meal of baked beans) were added in the cutting room by Mel Brooks and any passer-by, who rubbed soap onto their hands and placed the hand under the armpit, and then closing the armpit.
  
  
• Even though Hedy Lamarr sued Mel Brooks over the name, Mel later said he was "flattered" by it and settled it out of court.
  
  
• One studio executive stopped Mel Brooks in an elevator at the Warner Brothers lot and told him that several scenes were offensive and needed to be cut in order for the picture to be released. Brooks nodded and agreed to be polite even though he had no intention of changing a thing, being that he had final cut written into his contract.
  
  
• Just like George Furth's character is named after Van Johnson, David Huddleston's character Olson Johnson is named after comedy duo Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, aka Olsen & Johnson.
  
  
• After promising to edit out several 'offensive' scenes such as the infamous farting sequence, Mel Brooks in fact never cut a single scene except one: after the room is darkened and Lilly informs Bart "It's TWUE! It's TWUE!", Bart quietly states "Uh, that's my ARM you're sucking...".
  
  
• Brooks wrote a song called "Bart" which would reveal that character's back-story as a pimp, but it was cut before filming began because he felt it slowed the film down and would make it less likely for audiences to sympathize with his plight.
  
  
• Governor Lepetomane's name is French for "fart maniac". There was a Joseph Pujol, who went by the name of Le Petomane, The Fart King.
  
  

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