Blazing Saddles was so groundbreaking, Mel Brooks thinks it'd be too risque for film audiences today.
As seen in the Scary Movie, Jackass and American Pie franchises, among many others, the big screen has become home to many edgy (or, gross) and extreme endeavors. Much of that can be chalked up to Brooks' 1974 comedy. It featured uncomfortable racial humor, horse punching and quadruple entendre, which survived only thanks to Brooks' right to final cut.
As he told Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday, a test-showing of the film proved very popular to everyone but the head of Warner Bros., which was distributing the film. Ted Ashley swooped Brooks into a small office and insisted on gutting the film of all its edgy material -- anything racial, equine abuse, etc -- and insisted on it with gusto.
Luckily for comedy lovers, Brooks had final cut, and used the notepad paper on which he wrote Ashley's instructions as a basketball.
Brooks, promoting his DVD box-set, also spoke about some of his famous friends in the business, including Carl Reiner... and Carl Reiner's penis.
