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2* ActingForTwo: Creator/MelBrooks plays Governor William Le Petomane, the Yiddish-speaking Indian Chief that appears in Bart's flashback sequence, and the aviator applicant in the line of the thugs waiting to be interviewed by Hedley. He also voices one of the German back-up singers during Lili Von Shtupp's song and a cranky moviegoer.
3* ActingInTheDark: Creator/MelBrooks used a musical version of sorts when he got Frankie Laine, who originally sang the ''Series/{{Rawhide}}'' theme, to sing the theme. Brooks wanted Laine to sound like this was a genuine, dramatic cowboy movie, and so completely "forgot" to tell him about the comedic nature of the film, to the point that Laine didn't realize the truth until he actually ''saw the film at his local cinema''. Laine consequently produced such an epic cowboy movie song that it's sometimes played alongside other classic cowboy movie themes non-ironically. According to legend, even Brooks was surprised at how much effort Laine was putting into the song; Brooks considered telling the truth, but ultimately didn't have the heart to reveal that the movie was a spoof comedy.
4** One such example is in the "Frontierland" section of Disneyland, which plays "cowboy" music as background music. The ''Blazing Saddles'' theme is part of the rotation.
5* AshcanCopy: Creator/MelBrooks' contract with Creator/WarnerBros stated that if the studio wanted to maintain the rights to the property, they would either have to immediately produce a sequel or produce a ''Blazing Saddles'' TV series within six months of completing the film. Warner Bros. realized that the contract only said that they had to ''produce'' a TV series but that they were under no obligation of ''airing'' it. So they entered into an agreement with CBS and produced a pilot for a ''Blazing Saddles'' TV series titled ''Black Bart'', which only aired once late at night. Mel Brooks had no idea this happened until Warner Bros. showed him the pilot to prove they still had the rights when work began on a sequel that never got past the conceptual stage.
6** [[https://www.facebook.com/409027070019/posts/10158027501535020/ It has since been revealed]] that the story about a full unaired series remaining in production for years in order for the studio to keep the option open for a sequel was written as a joke, and was quoted at face value by many repudiated sources.
7* CastTheRunnerUp: Creator/GeneWilder was originally offered the role of Hedley Lamarr, but didn't feel right for it, and told 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.
8* CompletelyDifferentTitle: Many countries didn't go with the punny title (though Greece expanded with "Boots, spurs and burning hot saddles"). Latin America was "Madness in the West", Brazil and Portugal had "A Mess in the West", France was "The Sheriff is in Prison", Germany "The Wild Wild West" (in contrast to [[Series/TheWildWildWest that show]] being "The Crazy Wild West"), Finland "Rougher Than Wild West", Italy "Film/HighNoon and a Half of Fire", Turkey "Silver Saddles", and Sweden followed the "Springtime for Hitler" title for ''Film/TheProducers'' with "Springtime for the Sheriff".[[note]] All Mel Brook's films would later be titled in this way in Sweden: [[Film/YoungFrankenstein "Springtime for Frankenstein"]], [[Film/SilentMovie "Springtime for Silent Movies"]], [[Film/{{Spaceballs}} "Springtime for Space"]] and so forth. [[/note]]
9** The Danish title "The Sheriff shoots at everything" deserves special mention for its loyalty to the spirit of the film (In Danish it sounds exactly like "The Sheriff don't give a shit about anything").
10** France: ''The Sheriff is in Jail''
11** Norway: ''Wild West''
12** Romanian: ''You Are on Fire''
13* {{Corpsing}}: Little could barely restrain himself during the "common clay of the new West" speech. When Wilder finally adds the "...Morons" at the end, he completely cracks up.
14* CreatorCouple:
15** Creator/MelBrooks' wife Creator/AnneBancroft is an uncredited extra in the church congregation.
16** Creator/DomDeLuise's wife Carol Arthur played Harriett Johnson.
17* CutSong: Creator/MelBrooks 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.
18* TheDanza: Charles [=McGregor=] as Charlie.
19* DeletedScene: Probably the most well known are a scene where Bart tricks Mongo into diving for treasure and a scene with the Governor touring the fake Rock Ridge with the press. These usually get added back in to televised showings of the movie to make up for all the racist material that gets cut.
20* DescendedCreator: In addition to his five acting roles, Creator/MelBrooks provided some of the (fake) fart noises during the campfire scene
21* EnforcedMethodActing:
22** Creator/CleavonLittle was not warned about the ''"you know... morons"'' line. [[{{Corpsing}} His reaction]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZvT2r828QY was real]].
23** Frankie Laine was not informed that the movie was a comedy when he did the opening song. Mel Brooks simply told him it was about racism and Laine, assuming it was a ''serious'' movie about racism, sang it 100% sincerely. He only found out at the premiere. Brooks said that this helped him develop his distinctive comedy style of complete absurdity played utterly straight. Thankfully, Laine found the whole thing [[ActuallyPrettyFunny hilarious.]]
24* FakeNationality:
25** Creator/MelBrooks as a Native American chief. This is a reference to the early Hollywood practice of casting "dirty whites" such as Jews and Italians as Native Americans. The role's overt Jewishness also goes along with the theme of kinship between marginalized groups in American history.
26** Jewish-American Creator/MadelineKahn as the very Germanic Lili von Shtupp.
27* FollowTheLeader: According to film critic Dave Kehr, this was the first major motion picture to include a fart joke. That fact, assuming it's true, makes it the most influential comic film of all time.
28** In fact, Creator/NormanLear's 1971 comedy ''Film/ColdTurkey'' had one earlier.
29* InMemoriam: After Creator/GeneWilder's death, AMC brought ''Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'' and this back to the big screen for a limited time.
30* GenreKiller: This film smashed the credibility of the "sanitized/moral Western" genre that had been so saturated and ubiquitous in the media before, and cemented the genre's downfall. ''Blazing Saddles'' directly tackling the endemic racism Westerns [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory often ignored]] and portraying cowboys and American Western towns as being capable of idiocy, bigotry, and crime made it impossible for the squeaky-clean righteous Western to be taken as remotely plausible-- thanks to the work of this parody, it's the ''sanitized'' Western that would be seen as parodic today! The genre as a whole began to reinvent itself as more gritty and morally grey afterward, with this film being a significant factor in the necessity for a more complex, morally grey approach.
31* IronyAsSheIsCast: Creator/MadelineKahn - a classically-trained opera singer, among her other talents - playing the German Lili Von Schtupp in Blazing Saddles. Lili is extremely popular for her sex appeal, but her singing voice is deep, heavily accented, downbeat, and mostly off-key. Namely because she's an old-west parody of Creator/MarleneDietrich. Mel Brooks was impressed with her ability to so throroughly sing badly as even to hum off-key, but also remarked that he felt so bad about wasting her voice in the film that her singing in ''Film/YoungFrankenstein'' was included to showcase her real talent.
32** Creator/GeneWilder as the fastest gunslinger alive. He WAS adept with a combat weapon in RealLife, but it wasn't a gun. He was a champion fencer in college, taught the sport to other actors (Creator/JasonRobards was one of his students), and added swordplay to his own movies whenever possible.
33* LifeImitatesArt: It's unlikely if Creator/MelBrooks knew the story, but in RealLife, a black man was named as the postmaster of Punta Gorda, UsefulNotes/{{Florida}} by a man who held a grudge against the town's founders, as a deliberate affront to its Southern sensibilities.
34* MoneyDearBoy: While he clearly put his heart and soul into the final product, Creator/MelBrooks readily accepted the directing duties, despite his preference to direct scripts he'd conceived and written himself, because he was completely broke after [[Film/TheProducers his first]] [[Film/TheTwelveChairs two films]] bombed.
35* TheOtherMarty: Creator/GigYoung was originally cast as The Waco Kid. He collapsed on his first day on the set due to alcohol withdrawal and Creator/GeneWilder immediately replaced him.
36* PropRecycling: At the beginning of the scene in which Mongo awakens chained up in the sheriff's office, when Bart is hanging up posters on the board, there is a wanted poster already hanging up on the wall. This same wanted poster can be seen on the wall in the jail house in ''Film/RioBravo''.
37* RecycledSet: The movie was filmed on the same outdoor sets as ''Film/{{Westworld}}''.
38* RecycledTheSeries: ''Black Bart'' was an attempt to bring the movie to TV on Creator/{{CBS}}, only without the presence of Creator/MelBrooks, Cleavon Little, Creator/GeneWilder, or jokes. It never got past the {{pilot}} episode in public, but apparently they kept making episodes (WB's intentions were to make the movie into a yearly series much like the ''Film/CarryOnSeries'' movies in Britain, only for Brooks' contract to say they had to keep making stuff or else lose the rights -- the TV show was their way around this) until around 1979, when they realized a sequel most likely wasn't needed. Only the pilot has ever been publicly released, on the Blu-Ray.
39* ThrowItIn:
40** Jim's "You know... morons" line was ad-libbed by Creator/GeneWilder, and Cleavon Little {{corpsing}} at it is EnforcedMethodActing. You can actually see Cleavon realize that Wilder is about to go off-script, and get excited knowing it'll be something hilarious.
41** In the scene where the cast of the film runs out of the Creator/WarnerBros backlot, a man in a blue sweater is seen standing beguiled at the scene. Creator/MelBrooks said in an interview with Creator/ConanOBrien that the man was just standing there, and despite being told that he had to move because they were filming something, he came back right as the mob runs out of the backlot. Mel Brooks then told one of his assistants to go to the man in the blue sweater and ask him to sign a film release, because him just standing looking confused made the scene work much better.
42* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
43** Brooks wanted Creator/JohnWayne for the role of Jim, the Waco Kid. Wayne rejected his offer because the script clashed with his family-friendly screen persona, but he also found it to be hilarious and told Brooks he'd be "first in line" to see the movie.
44** Had Creator/RichardPryor (who contributed to the script) been a more reliable actor and/or not coked out of his mind (Mel Brooks found out the truth of the warnings he'd been given when Pryor called on a day he was supposed to be writing to explain he was actually with a couple of girls in New Jersey), he would have played Bart himself, launching his frequent film partnership with Creator/GeneWilder a couple years before ''Film/SilverStreak''.
45** Wilder himself was a last-minute replacement for Creator/GigYoung, who turned up on the set too inebriated to act. Several other actors were considered before Young. This is also quite ironic, given that the Waco Kid is a recovering alcoholic.
46** They nearly missed out on Wilder as well as he was just about to leave for Europe to film his part in ''The Little Prince''. Wilder convinced the director of that movie (Creator/StanleyDonen) to rearrange the shooting schedule to allow him to film his scenes at the end of the production so that he could do this favor for Brooks.
47** Numerous scenes were cut from the film, including a scene where Bart tricks Mongo into diving for treasure and a scene with the governor touring the fake Rock Ridge with the press. Some of them were used to pad out a censored version of the film that has aired on TV, and are included on the Blu-ray release.
48** Creator/DomDeLuise has claimed that the role of the director of the film-within-a-film, "The French Mistake", was originally meant to be played by Creator/PeterSellers. However, after Brooks endured an exhaustive four-hour audition, he instead cast [=DeLuise=].
49** Brooks also asked Creator/JohnnyCarson to play the Waco Kid; he declined.
50** The original plan for the film was to have Creator/AlanArkin direct, with Creator/JamesEarlJones playing Bart.
51** The gag of Lili finding out the truth about "[Bart's] people [[BlackIsBiggerInBed being gifted]]" originally included the punchline "[[SubvertedTrope I hate to disappoint you ma'am]], [[GagPenis but you're sucking on my]] ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice arm]]''." The line was so audacious that ''Mel Brooks himself'' thought it was too much and had it cut.
52** Brooks announced he was working on a Broadway adaptation in 2010, after it was teased at the end of the ''Theatre/YoungFrankenstein'' musical, but nothing more has been heard of it since. Brooks later said the tepid response to ''Frankenstein'' severely cut down on his motivation to do it, as ''Saddles'' is even more of a ToughActToFollow.
53* WriteWhatYouKnow: The gag of Mongo punching a horse in the mouth wasn't just some sophomoric joke the writers tossed up. Mel Brooks had actually seen his former colleague Creator/SidCaesar (who was known for his [[LargeAndInCharge intimidating stature]] and [[HairTriggerTemper violent outburst]]) do that once.
54* WorkingTitle: ''Tex X'', ''Black Bart'' and ''The Purple Sage''.

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