It’s hard to forget theBlazing Saddlesfart scene and the campfire symphony will live on forever as a groundbreaking moment in comedy movies. One ofMel Brooks' most hilarious movies,Blazing Saddlesis another in his long line of spoof films, this time taking aim at the Western movies that were incredibly popular at the time. Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder star as Bart, a black sheriff, and Jim the Waco Kid, an alcoholic gunslinger, respectively, who join forces to protect the small town of Rock Ridge from a greedy land developer named Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman).
A sharp satire, a hilarious comedy, a rousing buddy action film, andridiculously self-aware to the point that charactersend up watching a movie of their own exploits,Blazing Saddlesis aptly named as it blazed a path forward for comedies and satiresthat only Mel Brooks himself has been able to consistently match. The film earned three Academy Award nominations and currently has an 89% onRotten Tomatoes. Such an important movie in the comedy genre is bound to have some record-breaking moments, and one ofBlazing Saddles' is appropriately crude.
Blazing Saddles' Campfire Scene Featured The First Audible Farts In Hollywood History
Taggart’s Hired Hands Have A Few Too Many Beans At Dinner
When Taggart (Slim Pickens), the man hired by Lamarr to harass Rock Ridge, learns Jim and Bart are up against him, he hires a crew of rude and crude cowboys to help him with the job.The hired hands sit around a campfire enjoying a meal of baked beans which quickly devolves into a chorus of belches, burps, and fartsthat goes on for nearly a minute. It doesn’t end until Taggart storms out of his tent, waving his hat in front of his nose and telling the crew that they’ve had more than enough beans for the night.
Where To Watch Blazing Saddles - Is It Available To Stream For Free?
Blazing Saddles, one of Mel Brooks’ classic comedies, is a staple of the spoof genre and plenty of fans will want to know where it’s streaming.
In theSNLsketch “Evil Boss” with Will Ferrell, Ferrell stabs an underling with a trident. With his back to the audience, he repeats the stabbing over and over. The audience laughs loudly and then quiets as Ferrell continues stabbing. As he keeps going, the audience’s laughter grows again until it’s louder than the first time. Ferrell did something funny until it stopped being funny, then continued until it was funny again. The same goes for this scene inBlazing Saddles. First, it’s funny, then it’s grotesque, then it’s even funnier.
Not only is this a ridiculously funny scene, butit is also considered the first time there was an audible fart in American cinema, or at least the first film to popularize the joke(viaNewsweek). Burton Gilliam, who plays one of the cowboys in the scene, Lyle, said about the sequence (viaNJ1015),
“I am the first person in motion history to fart. … Mel says I’m going to make you famous today. I knew what we were doing but I didn’t know I was going to be the first… We did that scene probably at 35 times from different directions. We probably did it a hundred times. The first couple of times we did it, naturally we were doing our very very best, but after a few times unless you’re absolutely super human, we had to bring in the extras and let them do some scenes from off camera or something.”
Gilliam likely didn’t know the impact a bunch of fart jokes would have on the comedy scene, but now they’re in everything fromRick & MortytoAmadeus.
How Mel Brooks Settled On Exactly 12 Farts For The Blazing Saddles Scene
Brooks Carefully Tested How Many Were Too Many
There are actually 12 farts altogether in theBlazing Saddlesfart sceneif anyone is willing to sit down and double-check. That number was specifically chosen by Mel Brooks. When asked how he settled on the number of farts in the scene, Brooks said (viaEW),
“That’s a very good question. I had a rough cut, and maybe I had 16 farts. Things didn’t get exciting until the fourth or fifth one, and the laughter began to diminish around the 12th fart, so I said, ‘Okay, cut it off at 12.’ I did it kind of systematically. I do a lot of homework.”
Comedy is no joke to Mel Brooks. 13 farts was too many, but 11 would have left a few laughs on the table, and he wanted to squeeze the audience for everything they had. It’s not justBlazing Saddlesand farts that receive Brooks' fine tooth combing. From Dark Helmet explaining his intricate familial relationship with Lone Starr inSpaceballsto Gene Wilder hatching his scheme inThe Producers, everything Brooks touches is thoughtfully crafted, even the flatulence.
Blazing Saddles
Cast
Written and directed by Mel Brooks, Blazing Saddles stars Cleavon Little as Bart, a black sheriff appointed in a small frontier town by Hedley Lamarr, a railroad man who believes Bart’s appointment will destabilize the town enough to drive everyone out and allow him to build a new railroad line through it. Instead, with the help of gunslinger Jim the Waco Kid, Bart works to thwart Lamarr’s schemes. Gene Wilder and Harvey Korman star alongside Little.
