November 7, 2023 • 62 mins
Who wants to experience the magic of comedic genius Mel Brooks, from the comfort of your headphones? Teaming up with my brother Tyler, we're setting off on an audio adventure through the illustrious career of this Hollywood legend. We're opening the vault of laughter, discussing a range of Brooks' iconic works from the spy genre spoof Get Smart to cinematic gems like Young Frankenstein and The Producers.
We're not just skimming the surface here; we're diving deep into the comedic brilliance of Mel Brooks! Unearth the finer details of his films, dissecting the art of casting, the creation of unforgettable gags, and the sheer hilarity that Brooks breathes into every film, from High Anxiety to History of the World, Part I. We'll also be ranking the adaptations of classics, unmasking the genius behind Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
But, our journey doesn't stop there! We're going to wrap it all up by discussing the impact of Mel Brooks on, well, everything! From his influence on popular culture to his shaping of the comedy genre itself, we're taking a magnifying glass to the ripple effect caused by his genius. And for the die-hard fans, we're ranking Brooks' films and debating which ones, in our humble opinion, stand tallest. So buckle up, laugh-seekers, as we embark on a jovial journey through the world of Mel Brooks.
Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thank you for listening! Hope you enjoy!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of movies, colon
.
They're pretty good.
I'm your host, travis Dutting,and today or this week we're
gonna be doing something alittle different.
I decided, I think, for themonth of November I'm gonna do
director centric episodes.
Instead of Breaking down onemovie at a time, I'm just gonna
(00:25):
kind of go through the careersof different, different
directors over the years, onesthat are my, my favorites, ones
that I've seen their whole film.
Film ography well helps if Ilearn how to talk.
But joining me today is Aspecial guest, the only special
(00:46):
guest I've had on the podcastthus far my brother Tyler.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hello everybody, and part of me if I it's been a
while, because I somehow whenpast this, past the few episodes
, because I, I what I actuallyknow is set my vehicle to
(01:10):
ludicrous speed.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Oh yeah, very on brand for who we're talking
about today.
All right, so let's get rightinto it.
Me and you both had a Marathonof the Mel Brooks's whole
filmography recently, so Ifigured that'd be a good
(01:33):
opportunity to talk about, likewhat our thoughts are on him as
a director and Just his moviesin general, and like maybe we'll
rank them, we'll give our ownrankings and everything.
So yeah, that's Off the bat.
What are your thoughts on MelBrooks?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, mel Brooks is one of the few directors of
comedy that basically Definedgenre parodies.
Well, if you think about it,let's make a checklist.
In terms of television, he didget smart, which is a parody of
the spy genre, because JamesBond was popular, musicals was
(02:18):
checked off with the producers.
I Think the 12 chairs is countmight count as a spoof.
On foreign films.
Yeah, I think that's based offof foreign films.
Blazing saddles.
It's obviously Western.
Young Frankenstein spoof's thehorror genre because but well
(02:43):
known, because Mel wanted to doit in black and white but the
first studio choice, columbia,wanted it in color.
But Mel wanted young, hisversion of young Frankenstein,
to be sort of in the style ofthe James Whale Original
(03:05):
Frankenstein.
And he saw the originalFrankenstein in theaters and was
terrified.
And it gets even Better withhis version of Frankenstein
because he actually used theoriginal Frankenstein lab
equipment from the James Whalefilm.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, cuz that that equipment was still just like
sitting in someone's garage,right, yeah, had him been
touched.
Really, it was just sitting instorage and I think the studio
was gonna get rid of it at somepoint.
And someone was like hey, likecan I have that?
And Took it home.
And yeah, it was just sittingin someone's garage and they
(03:51):
were able to use the originalprops from the original
Frankenstein.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, and a lot of the gadgets in silent movie were
basically like based off of theBuster Keaton Kind of stuff,
like the iconic waiter.
There's a fly in my soup.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, just a plane on all the tropes and everything
from that era and All the gagsthat originated during that time
.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So going back to place and saddles.
I think that's another moviewhere it plays off of all
Western tropes, yeah.
And then we get High anxiety,which is a parody slash tribute
To Alfred Hitchcock, the masterof suspense, yeah.
(04:40):
And then you see stuff likereferences to psycho, the birds,
the plus on what copies,vertigo, and there's a lot of
stuff.
And Me and the some people themedia lab In the film society
(05:05):
club we have watched.
Last month some offeredHitchcock films.
Which ones did you end upseeing?
Well, we watched.
I can't believe I'm seeing this.
I Can't remember the first one,but we did see a rope.
(05:25):
You say we saw rear view window, just rear window, yeah, rear
window.
And then we top it off withpsycho.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yep, probably the most famous, obviously Yep, and
definitely one that gets spoofedin In high anxiety.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, but it's a knife.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It was a newspaper, yep.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And then the punchline is Mel going.
That kid gets no tip.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yep, all right, so let's, should we go movie by
movie now?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
All right.
So his first film, theproducers, starring Jean Wilder
and zero mostel, made in 1968 no, it was made in 67, but I don't
think it's screened until 68because it kind of got stuck in
studio limbo or Distributiondistribution limbo, pretty much
(06:24):
right.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, and Hilarious movie ended up winning the Oscar
for best writing Story andscreenplay written directly for
the screen.
So best original screenplay ishow it's named now.
So this is the Oscar of.
Mel Brooks is Egot, so he's oneof the few people that's won
(06:49):
and Emmy, grammy, oscar, tony soproducers.
Hilarious movie about a HackPlay producer for Broadway Down
on his luck, basically Seducingold ladies to for money.
(07:14):
Then that's how he's likefinancing his plays and stuff.
Jean Wilder is Works for theIRS or is just an auditor, I
forget.
I think he just works for thebank.
But he goes there to audit himand During this Meeting realizes
(07:38):
that you can make more moneywith a play that's a flop than
you can with a hit.
So, and the reason to do thatwould be that you would raise
more money than Necessary.
You know, instead of raising ahundred percent of the budget,
you raise a thousand percent ofthe budget and like ten times
(08:00):
more money than you need.
And you just have to make surethat that play is a flop,
because if it's a hit, then youowe ten times more than your
play is making.
And then so they look for theworst play possible.
That play ends up being writtenby a German immigrant and it's
(08:22):
called springtime for Hitler andit's a musical.
They try to find the worstdirector, worst actor and worst
play and Just it ends up soabsurd that it becomes a hit and
in the end they go to jail andeverything.
Hilarious movie, yeah.
What are your thoughts on it?
(08:43):
It's.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
It's a sitter, one of the funniest.
It's considered a good startingpoint in Mel Brooks.
This is directing and oddlyenough, it Turned out really
good.
It's so good.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
It's spun a Broadway musical and there's a remake
Based off of the musicalstarting Nathan Lane and Matthew
Brodwick yes, so it's a movieabout Broadway that Spons a
(09:28):
Brought, an actual Broadway play, and then that spawns a film
adaptation of the Broadway playbased on a movie.
So Full circle, yep, fullcircle, indeed.
All right, any more thoughts onproducers, or should we move on
to the next one?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, this is one of the few movies that Mel is not a
Doesn't appear in, oh, inproducers.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, yeah, you hear his voice once during one of the
musical numbers in the play,but it's dubbed over another
actor and you just hear him saydon't be stupid, be a smarty,
come enjoying the Nazi Party.
Oh, yeah, yeah, and that's,that's Mel's voice for that one.
So, Moving on Yep All right.
(10:15):
Next is 12 chairs.
What can you tell us about thisone?
Well, it's, it was, sometime itwas the.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
It takes place in the time at the start of the Soviet
Union the.
The Russian monarchy has fallen, yep and this aristocrat.
His mother died, and beforedying she tells her son that she
(10:48):
had left a lot of money in oneof the 12 chairs.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, basically like the family jewels and all the
money and everything was insidethe upholstery of one of these
chairs that they had in theirmansion before it got taken over
by the Soviets.
So it's him versus a priestthat was giving the mother her
(11:17):
last rights and found out aboutthe money as well, and it's
basically just this race to gobe the first to find the money
it's starring.
Mel Brooks was the formerservant right of the family, so
he makes appearances through it,but he's not one of the main
(11:40):
characters.
He got Ron Moody.
He's the former aristocratRight.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Frank Langella is the guy that's helping him.
He's kind of like a con mantype guy, little bit of a
drifter, but you know, with agood heart and everything Right,
is that how you describe him,probably?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, compared to other other villain roles he did
like Dracula in the seventiesand Skeletor in the train wreck
of a movie called Masters of theUniverse.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, and then the priest is played by Dom Delouise
, who is a recurring ensembleplayer for Mel Brooks films.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, and also this guy by the name of Dom Bluth.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
What about him?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, dom did a lot of.
Did some character voices forDom Bluth.
The only ones he didn't do were, I think, the only good ones.
That he was not in was LandBefore Time.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Okay, so you're saying Dom Delouise was a
frequent Dom Bluth player too?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yes, okay All right.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Do you have anything else to add on 12 Chairs?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Well, all I have to say is all for the best, it's
spet the worst.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Oh yeah, that's the theme song, right yeah.
Pretty much Okay.
Now we come to my personalfavorite Blazing Saddles.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yep.
This is where the genre ofparodies come in.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, this is the first full on genre parody and
probably the first actual spoofwhatever you want to call it
type film.
The jokes are completely overthe top, but in the best way, in
(13:47):
my opinion at least.
Just extreme, just silly overthe top.
The co-written by Richard Pryorwho was supposed to star in it.
But the studios wouldn't letthe film get made if Richard
Pryor was in it because he hadlike a spotty history and like
(14:08):
drug problems and arrests andstuff like that.
So yeah, he was too big of arisk but he still did write the
film with Mel, but it stars.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Cleavon Little.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, Cleavon Little in the role that would have been
Richard Pryor's, and GeneWilder again back from the
producers.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
And Harvey Corman as the villain.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yep Harvey Corman as the villain Hedy Lamar.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
That's Hedley.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, Mel Brooks as the mayor right or the governor.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, governor.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Governor and the Native American chief.
Yeah, a few other roles inthere.
Dom Delouise is in like a cameorole towards the end as a film
director.
When the film goes totally meta, literally breaks the fourth
(15:12):
wall, they break out of thewestern set into the studio set
at the end and just it getscrazy, gets off the walls.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, at this point the movie just stopped caring,
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
But yeah, hilarious movie.
I'm not just gonna.
I could spend hours justrepeating lines from it.
But you know any other, liketrivia, you want to add to it
though.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, in terms of I think one of the big female
actors started with this one,and it's Madeline Kahn.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, that's right, that's who I was forgetting.
Another frequent Mel Brooksstar, Madeline Kahn.
She plays what's the character?
Lillian Von Stuck?
That's right.
That's right, she's a German,not like Berlesque, but she's a
(16:12):
German singer, entertainer.
Yeah, any other blazing saddlestidbits are ready to move on.
Well, one of the best fart gagscame from this movie and also
wasn't it also like one of thefirst fart gags in a movie,
(16:35):
pretty much?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Is that true or is that just like a?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I think it's true, a misconception?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, I think it's true, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Some of the racial slurs in this one.
I think it's been usedfrequently, to the point where
the whole point of this movie ishow absurdly stupid racism is.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
yes, yeah, it's like I Think his hand.
The goal of him and RichardPryor was to point out the
absurdity of racism, thestupidity behind it and
everything like that, and then,but it uses racism to make fun
of racism.
Basically, right, that iscorrect.
(17:24):
Yeah, yep, okay, I think that'sit for that one.
Let's move on to youngFrankenstein Now.
You gave a little bit of triviaon that before talking about
how the original sets from theoriginal Frankenstein were used.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yes, this one also introduces two more frequent
frequent flyers Chloris LeachmanYep.
And Marty Feldman right, yep,this was his first.
Yeah, he wasn't in any of theprevious ones, right?
Nope, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
The some of the best stuff in this, especially
towards the end with the, thewhole putting on the Ritz
sequence.
That was the most iconic partof the movie and especially how
they they mostly parody theoriginal Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, yeah, they don't really.
This one's not so much a Genre,a parody, as much as it is just
a straight up Frankensteinparody, correct?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, because Mostly we, and one of the best known
gags is we're.
If you look at I goers, a humpis switches places.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, and that's also a recurring gag in a few other
ones.
Another notable one will get to.
We'll get to the movie later,but in Robin Hood, men and
tights the mole on KingRichard's face Prince John.
Prince John, yeah, not KingRichard.
Yeah, the mole on Prince John'sface moves around throughout
(19:17):
the movie.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So yeah, young Frankenstein.
Oh yeah, I didn't really talkabout the, so let's backtrack a
little bit.
I didn't really talk about theplot of Blazing Saddles, correct
?
So the plot of Blazing Saddlesis a it's post-Civil War, but
not too far past the Civil War.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, not quite reconstruction.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, they're building the railroad out west
and everything, and the companywants to build.
The ideal place to build therailroad is through this town
called Rock Ridge.
So the corrupt government wantsto find a way to get rid of the
(20:07):
town so they can tear down thetown and build the railroad
through there and the the theirplan.
Their evil plot is to put in asheriff that the town will hate
so much that they'll just leave.
And so, because everyone'sracist, they appoint a black
(20:30):
sheriff and that first it'sworking, but then you know at,
as always, that Things go awryand it backfires on them.
So yeah, that's basically theplot of of Blazing Saddles.
So the plot of youngFrankenstein is Is that?
(20:50):
It's the?
Is itgreat-grand-grand-grandson or
just grandson?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, it's his grandson.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Okay, so it's doctor Victor von Frankenstein's
grandson.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
No.
Baron von Frankenstein'sgrandson.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But he's the son of Victor Frankenstein okay.
Actually he Know, he is thegrandson of Victor Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, that's what I said.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, his great-grandfather was Baron von
Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Oh okay, got it, got it, got it.
So which one is theFrankenstein from the movie the
30s movie?
Frankenstein.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
In the book it was Victor Frankenstein, but they
changed it to Henry Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Got it, got it.
So he's the grandson of the madscientist Victor Frankenstein.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Okay, that that's what I wanted to find out.
So yeah, it's, but he'sskeptical of his grandfather's
work.
Basically, once the who dies,that he has to go to the castle
(22:13):
Victor dies.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, he goes to the castle and, basically, is led to
the laboratory, gets inspired,thinks that he could do it the
right way this time, and youknow it's a company, so he, it
(22:37):
works, but it doesn't work in adifferent way.
You know, and I don't want tospoil like jokes and stuff like
that, but it's Gene Wilderplaying the, the Frankenstein or
Frankenstein.
That's a running gag and a funtidbit about this.
There's a, a joke in this filmwhere he get.
(23:03):
He first gets to Transylvania.
He meets his assistant, igor,and then when he corrects him on
how, on the pronunciation ofFrankenstein to Frankenstein,
igor says it's pronounced Igor.
Then he says walk this way,like, like, oh, like, come this
(23:25):
way.
But he may make some walk likea specific In, like a specific
stance and everything.
And that joke from this movieis what inspired the Song walk
this way by Aerosmith.
They had gone to see it whilethey're on tour and they just
(23:46):
love that joke.
And then Stephen Tyler had anidea for a song after that.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And also becomes a running gag that gets repeated
in History of the world, partone and later Romah and men and
tights yes exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
So yeah, you got Gene Wilder playing Frederick
Frankenstein, madeline Kahn ishis fiancee, elizabeth.
Marty Feldman plays Igor.
Peter Boyle, the dad fromeverybody loves Raymond.
He plays Frankenstein's monster, chloris Leachman, frau Blucar,
(24:25):
terry Gar plays lab assistantInga.
And yeah, that's it for the bignames in the, the main
characters.
But yeah, this one, this one'sreally funny.
This is a great Watch this tryto watch this once a year, you
(24:46):
know, particularly aroundHalloween.
But yeah, great movie, love it.
A lot of good gags and thisone's it's less silly than
blazing saddles, it's.
It's funny.
It's just as funny, probably,but it's not so like
over-the-top and ridiculous andI Don't know what the word I'm
(25:11):
looking for is, but it's, it'sjust a.
It's a different type of comedy, but it works just as well and
maybe, probably, probably hislike best movie as a like best
film, if you want to be snootyabout it.
Any other thoughts on youngFrankenstein?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Give it a watch while you still tan.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah all right.
Moving on silent movies nextright correct, all right.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
This.
This one is basically one ofthe more More based off of the
physical comedy and Visual gags.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, I'd say so, like you said before, really
playing up those Gags and tropesthat were originated from the
old silent films and silentcomedies Buster Keaton, charlie
Chaplin, harold Boyd, that typeof stuff, right?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
yeah, all the favorites.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yep Plot on this one.
It's a film director Trying toget a, trying to make a revival
of silent films, and it's takingplace during the time period
that it's made.
Right, it's taking place in the70s.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, it's more of a period picture now.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yeah, yeah, now it is , but you.
So yeah, he's trying to do likea revival of silent films.
The entire film is silent,minus one gag where the one
spoken word is spoken by a mime.
But yeah, no spoilers on whatis said, but it's got a lot of
(27:04):
cameos in it.
What Burt Reynolds?
Right, yeah, who else?
Paul Newman?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, and James Cohn.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
James Cohn.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
And Van Croft.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yep, that's Mel's real life wife.
Were they married at the timeor not?
Yet?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah, I have to look that up.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And Liza Minnelli, the daughter of Judy Garland.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yep.
Then it's also got MartyFeldman back from Young
Frankenstein and Dom Delaweshe's in this one too.
Mel is the main character, he'sthe director and everything.
We got Sid Caesar as the studiochief.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yep somewhat based off of Alan Latt.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Jr.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, who was the head of 20th Century Fox at the
time, and this might correlateto a later movie down the
timeline where he meets anotherinspiring director who has an
idea of robots, space wizardsand a far off galaxy.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, all right, but we'll wait on that one.
Any other thoughts on SilentMovie?
Speaker 2 (28:24):
This is one of the weirdest movies because it's all
over the place and there's alittle pawn reference because
it's my inner dammer talking.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, you wanna talk about that.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, yeah, they go to the hospital because the
studio chief was stricken and Ican't believe the names of the
director and his companions, melFun, marty Eggs and Dom Bell,
are visiting the hospital.
They go to the studio chief'sroom and Dom Bell and Marty Eggs
(29:10):
are near the heart monitor.
You unplug it and the studiochief collapses, and then plus,
if I didn't wakes up unplug itcollapses and then one of the
two pulls the other side andthen it turns into a pawn
machine.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, you're talking about the on the screen that
would show the heartbeat,correct?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, anything else on Silent Movie.
Are you ready to move on?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, I'm ready to move on.
But this movie is inspired by atrue story.
Which one?
That of the whole production ofthe movie Silent Movie, yes,
which at the end it says this isbased on a true story.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Oh, okay, I forgot that gag.
You're a ball in my mind for asecond, like, really, that
doesn't seem like any of thisstuff really happened.
Okay, all right, so HighAnxiety is next correct.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yup.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yup, and this is the homage to Alfred Hitchcock.
Some there's Psycho referencesBirds, earth by Northwest
Vertigo Vertigo is probably themain one, right.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The central plot.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, and it's literally the title High Anxiety
is like, basically like a wayto dumb down the word Vertigo.
You're getting anxiety aboutbeing up high.
So yeah, this one's fun you got.
(30:55):
You know.
Mel Brooks is playing the maincharacter again.
Dr Richard H Thorndike.
You got Madeline Kahn asVictoria Brisbane.
Chloris Leachman's back asNurse Charlotte Harvey Corman's
back as Dr Charles Montague.
That's it for the maincharacters.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Oh, you forgot Ron Kerry.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, oh yeah, I guess he is a main character,
brophy, so he's like theassistant right or kind of like
the driver for.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, and photographer.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yep, yeah, is that anything you wanna add on this
one?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, the whole zoom in, zoom out gag.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Oh yeah, so you get a part where the camera is
zooming in on them and they'reinside eating and as the camera
zooms close to the window, itbreaks through the window and
then thus breaking the fourthwall, showing that that's a
movie being made.
But then they just likeeveryone looks and then they
just go about their businesslike nothing happened.
(32:02):
And that gag gets reused inRobin Hood, men and Tights right
.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, and then they do the zoom out gag as well at
the end.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Oh, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Where the it shows they get married, and then you
hear the crew go all right,let's pull back.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And then it tries to zoom along and they're like what
?
Are we doing?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Keep going, maybe they won't notice.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Well, all right, so which one's next?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
History of the world.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Got it okay.
And when is to be or not to be?
Or are we not counting that onebecause he didn't direct it?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Actually, we might count that one.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Well, we can talk a little bit.
We wanna get that one out ofthe way real quick.
Talk about what that is.
Yeah, it's basically a remakeof an earlier movie From the 40s
.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah, and it's basically like a troop of
theater actors or in the theatercompany in Poland.
It's the beginning of World WarII and they have to escape to
England.
Yeah, and it's got like GeorgeSanders, george Weiner, who
(33:41):
plays one general and then whowill later appear in Spaceballs,
another character played byDick.
I think, is Dick Van Pantton inthis one.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
I think he might be in this one.
We did two actors who willlater be in Spaceballs.
Yeah, and there's anothergeneral play by Christopher
Lloyd.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
And then the two main characters are played by Mel
Brooks and Anne Bancroft reallife married couple.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah, as Mr and Mrs.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Bronsty.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Okay, so history of the world, part one.
First off, love the titlebecause it until this last year,
with the Hulu mini series,there was never any intention to
make a part two or three orwhatever, and so it was just
like a play on all these epicshaving like multiple sequels and
(34:40):
stuff like that, and it's kindof like a what would you say,
like an anthology movie wherethere's different vignettes and
stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, it starts with a satire on 2001,.
A Space Odyssey.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, like the beginning of man and stuff.
So you get some caveman jokesand, like you said, the making
fun of the opening of 2001.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, with them discovering the monolith.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yep, Get a couple a quick scene from the Bible with
the Moses bringing down the 15,and then he drops one 10, 10
commandments.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yeah, a playoff of that Seth will be the mill movie
.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Yep, you get the Roman Empire.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Basically the best part, and all of that was filmed
in Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yep, yep In Universal Studios correct.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yes, yeah, square Warriors and the Red Sea.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, and then the chariot chase is pretty much
through Agora Hills, calabasasarea.
Yeah.
There's they get the SpanishInquisition in the middle, then
the French Revolution.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Which was all filmed in England.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, and that closes the movie out.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, this.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Well, the actual closing of the movie is the fake
advertisement for History ofthe World, part II.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, and this is one of the movies where they start
doing the whole Deus Ex Machinatrope joke.
Yeah, first it's only Americacan save them, and also the
Marijuana coming out of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Oh yeah, to distract the Roman soldiers, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And also the Red Sea portion.
You did tell that it's the tramride.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Oh yeah, from at Universal Studios, like where
near, where JAZZ is correct.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
I think it was.
After the after seeing, that'sbefore.
You see the prompt environmentand then the swear of warriors.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And it's right.
Before a little Europe and thenthe earthquake attraction.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Got it.
Anything you want to add onHistory of the World, part I.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
This movie is basically epitably hilarious to
the point where it just makesfun of.
It just makes fun of everything, and it's the first time you
see some vernachronistic humorwith the, the guy in the Roman
Empire with the boom box.
Oh yeah, plenty of fun to tell,yep.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
All right, moving on to Spaceballs, which I think was
the first Mel Brooks movie.
Either of us all right.
Yeah, on TV at our Grandma'shouse from Dad's side of the
family, yes, so yeah, it'sSpaceballs, mostly a Star Wars
spoof, but it's kind of it'sspoofing sci-fi in general.
(37:53):
Yeah, this one, this one'spretty funny.
You got Bill Pullman as LoneStar, which is kind of a combo
of Luke and Han Solo.
You got Rick Moranis as DarkHelmet, the Darth Vader
(38:14):
character.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
If it's not obvious enough, yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
You got John Candy as Barf, the sidekick Mel Brooks
as President, Scroob and Yogurt,which is Yoda.
Daphne Zuniga as Princess Vespa, Obviously.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Princess.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Leia Yep and Joan Rivers as Dot Matrix, the C-3PO.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Count-A-Part, but the body movement was LaRine Yarnel
.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Joan.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Rivers did the voice.
Got it, got it, got it.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
So, yeah, this movie is pretty hilarious If you've
seen the original Star Warstrilogy in their unaltered state
it just makes this movie evenfunnier.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, and then you got Lone Star and Barf or like.
Basically just what?
What would they be Like?
What's their job?
I mean, it's similar to StarWars.
They owe somebody money, butit's yeah, Pizza the Hut.
Yep Pizza, the Hut.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
A playoff of Java the Hut.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
It's the voice of Dom Delawes, but I think it was
Rudy DeLuca who was in thecostume.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Oh, maybe.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
No, I think Rudy DeLuca was Vinny.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Oh, okay, but yeah, they end up rescuing Princess
Vespa.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
She's running away from her arranged marriage
wedding, and then and, of course, the room to be is Prince
Valium, which is a playoff ofthe comic book character Prince
Valiant.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Oh, okay, and also the Valium sedative, yeah
exactly Because he's likeyawning and half asleep the
whole time.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
There's a lot of spoofs of other sci-fi films,
like the beaming stuff from StarTrek.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, we get a Planet of the Apes reference of the
climax in any.
My favorite scene in Spaceballsis the alien reference with the
chest-burster.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And it turns into an homage to the Looney Tunes
Tartune One Froggy Evening.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah, that's Michigan .
Speaker 2 (40:42):
J Frog right the hello my lady, hello my honey.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, I remember that from the little Giants VHS tape
.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Oh, that's what it was on.
Okay, I was trying to rememberwhere we saw that and why we saw
that as many times as we did,but that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Because it was the before or future presentation of
Little Giants.
We're celebrating the birthdayof Mission to J Frog by watching
the Tartune that made him astar on Friday evening.
Oh, okay, all right, anythingelse to add on Spaceballs or
Well, this is one of the movieswhere they got permission from
(41:25):
George Lucas to help with thespecial effects with ILM, and
the whole merchandise scene wasmade because of George Diving
Mel, the condition of not tomake any merchandise of
Spaceballs, oh, okay.
And the other condition that waslesser known was not to have
(41:46):
Lone Star be dressed as Han SoloGot it, but Mel being the
clever guy, he is made LoneStar's wardrobe based off of
Indiana Jones.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
The other, george Lucas, harrison Ford, character.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Yeah, because during his intro you see him with the
hat, but the hat disappears forthe rest of the movie.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
All right, next up we got Life Stinks.
This one is one that I had seenit, not when it came out, but
when I was younger, when I wasfirst getting into Mel Brooks
and trying to watch all hismovies and this one, I didn't
like it that much the first timeI saw it, but in this rewatch I
was able to appreciate it alittle more.
(42:34):
It's the second lowest rated ofhis filmography on IMDb, not
that that really matters, butyeah, this one's a greedy
businessman, makes a bet that hecan live on the streets of LA
for 30 days, right.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah, and the other guy that Mel made the bet
against is played by JeffreyTambor.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yes, exactly.
So, yeah, obviously he goesthrough with it.
He wins the bet, but some dirtydealings were done while he was
away and they make him looklike a crazy person and
everything.
But he, along with the otherhomeless people that he's made
(43:26):
friends with, basically fightthe man at the end and win.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, this one's good .
This one has a lot of heart init and, like I said, better than
I remember, but not a lot tosay on it.
It's good, you know, but I justdon't have the attachment to it
like I do with the other movies, because I haven't seen it as
(43:55):
many times.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
I've only seen bits of it same as Travis did.
We were in the Apple Valley atour Nana's first house there.
Yeah, and it was a rental.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah, we rented it from either Blockbuster or
Hollywood Video, because thattells you how long ago this was.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Yeah, yeah, 90s kid and 2000s outwessons, yep.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
So yeah, anything else to add on that one?
None, all right.
So next up is Robin Hood Menand Tights.
Pretty much a one for one spoofof the Kevin Costner Robin Hood
Prince of Thieves, right.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah with the, but the costume Kari Elwis was
wearing is based off of the EarlFlynn one.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah, yep, yeah, this one, this one's good.
I like this one a lot.
Like you said, kari Elwis isRobin Hood, got Richard Lewis as
Prince John, you got RogerReese as Sheriff of Nottingham,
amy Yazbek as Maid Marion, daveChappelle as Achu.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Bless you.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
You got Isaac Hayes as his dad Asniz.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
And as a playoff, of Hasim, the Warden Freeman
character from Prince of ThievesYep.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Tracy Oldman as Latrine, patrick Stewart as King
Richard and Dom Delouise as DonGiovanni, which is the random
Godfather reference in a RobinHood movie.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Yeah, this was out of nowhere.
And Mel plays Rabbi Tuckman,which is a playoff of Fryer Tuck
.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yep, but you know, mel, being Jewish, wanted to
play.
Put a rabbi in there instead ofa priest, right.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, in terms of Robin Hood movies, this is right
up probably the best of one ofthe Robin Hood adaptations.
One of the two things two RobinHood adaptations I've seen the
whole thing of the other onebeing the Disney version.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yeah, yeah, like I can't really compare it to
anything else other than theDisney one and they're just two
completely different feelingsand vibes and everything.
So yeah, I can't really compareit to like the Kevin Costner or
whatever, like the weird onesthat they've done.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Or the Errol Flynn one, which is the classic.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Yeah, I still haven't seen that one that's on my list
.
I haven't got to that one yet.
But yeah, lots of good gags inhere.
Really funny, great cast, greatjokes, great movie.
Alright, moving on to the finalof his director filmography
(47:03):
Dracula dead and loving it.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yup, a spoof, mostly on the Legosi version of Dracula
.
Yeah, with a little bit of nodsto the Coppola one and the use
of blood from the Hammer films.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yes, yeah, this one.
You got Leslie Nielsen asDracula, you got Mel Brooks as
Van Helsing, you got PeterMcNichol as Renfield, peter
McNichol from Ghostbusters 2.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Added his family values as one of the Tam
counselors.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
And being the movie right, yes.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
He played Renfield, similar to Dwight Fry in the
Bell of the Dosey one.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yep, alright.
Then you got Steven Weber asHarker.
You got Amy Yazbek back fromRumpf-Tytes.
She's Mina Lissette Anthony asLucy, harvey Corman as Dr Seward
.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Yep, then the minor characters and stuff, but yeah,
that's this one I for somereason missed as a kid, like
when I was getting into MelBrooks before and I watched all
his other movies for whateverreason.
This one just like slipped pastme, didn't even know about it
for forever, or that he wasinvolved, or that it was his
(48:36):
movie that he directed.
You actually saw it before Iever did right.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah, I saw it on the , but when it was available for
that short amount of time,netflix threw the Wii.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Oh yeah, that's right .
Yeah, that was when Netflixfirst started allowing streaming
.
You could do it through the Wii.
That was crazy.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Yeah, and then later I found a DVD copy of it at
Barnes Noble.
Okay, and then it was throughthat DVD copy that I got that.
You first saw it when you werein.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Maryland.
Yep, that's right.
Yeah, but I saw it, but Ididn't really get to pay too
much attention to it.
So this time that we did ourmarathon was the first time I
actually got to sit down andfully watch it and it was good.
You know it was good.
It's not my favorite of the MelBrooks canon, but it was still
(49:40):
way more enjoyable than Iexpected.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Yep, all right, so Shall we.
Do you know what your rankingwould be?
Do you want to go from Least tobest or the other way around?
Speaker 2 (50:01):
I say at least to best.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Okay, all right.
Why don't you go ahead while Ipull up my letterbox to count
and see what that says?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Okay.
Lifesteins was no, actuallystretch that.
It's to be or not to be.
It was pretty okay.
And then lifesteins and thenthe 12 chairs, and then there's
(50:33):
the producers, which is prettygood, and then spaceballs, which
would have been higher upbecause of the Star Wars nerd
inside me.
But there's also silent movie,which is quite a romp.
(50:54):
Then there's High Anxiety Again, if you're more into Alfred
Hitchcock, hitch for the World,because of like historical
updates, like Ten Commandmentsor Ben Herr.
Then there's Romathem and theTights, which I consider to be
(51:19):
one of the best selling if I wasto watch that in 2003.
Yeah, actually, no, I think itwas earlier than that when you
were getting started into MelBrooks, yeah.
And then there's Dracula, Denand Loving it, which was again
(51:47):
if you are more into the horrorgenre and learning film history,
if you get some of the stufflike the Dracula tropes.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Mm-hmm Jan.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Frankenstein, which was a good Halloween watch,
might make a good double featurewith Dracula, den and Loving it
, yeah.
And of course, blazing Saddles,which is the top tier of Mel's
(52:23):
filmography, because veryquotable.
Actually, all the movies arequotable, yeah, except for
silent movie.
Because of only one word Nope,that's part of my Marcel Marceau
, all right.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
So that's your whole list.
Yep, all right.
What was your number?
What was your number one?
Again Blazing?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Saddles.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
That's right, okay, yeah, I figured.
Okay Now for my list.
We got my In the bottom.
I'm going to go with Dracula,den and Loving it.
I'd still enjoyed it, but it'sjust not one of my favorites.
(53:09):
A little bit cheesier, some ofthe jokes made me groan a little
bit Like oh you know, but youknow, still not bad you know, in
terms of Mel Brooks and thatstyle of humor and everything,
it was still a good movie.
Next I'm going to go with LifeStinks.
(53:29):
Like I said, it was better thanI remembered, but you know it's
still not like super memorable,like not a lot's like living in
my head, not a lot of stainpower personally.
Next I would go High Anxiety Alittle bit better, a little more
(53:50):
memorable than the other ones.
Jokes are a little better, butstill not my favorite compared
to some of the other ones.
And then I'm going to go withHistory of the World, part 1.
It has, in my opinion, some ofthe best jokes but also some of
the worst jokes.
It just that's just my opinion.
You know a lot of stuff doesn'tage well or just doesn't just
(54:14):
isn't funny anymore to me.
But you know, I still like it,still enjoy it.
Next I'm going to go 12 Chairs.
This one it's pretty good, it'sa pretty good movie but, like I
said, with Life Stinks just nottoo memorable.
(54:36):
You know, not a lot of stuffstaying with me afterwards.
Then I'm going to go SilentMovie.
I think that that one's rightin the middle.
Yeah, that one's funny, justnot as like laugh heavy as some
(55:01):
of the other ones for me.
Then I'm going to go Spaceballs.
Some great jokes, some.
Some are a little stale, butstill pretty good.
Love the Star Wars stuff, lovethe alien gag at the end or
towards the end.
But then I'm going to go RobinHood, men and Tights.
(55:25):
Just, I'm laughing morethroughout that one than
Spaceballs if I had to put themone up against the other.
So a lot, a lot of stuff thatis just always in my head for
that one.
Then the producers this is theone that's.
I'd say it's just under perfect.
(55:47):
It's pretty close to a perfectcomedy, but he just doesn't have
his footing yet quite as muchas he does with my favorite two
and I'm going to go YoungFrankenstein as my second
favorite and Blazing Saddles asmy favorite.
Blazing Saddles is just so like, just so hilarious.
(56:09):
It's a laugh every second.
Pretty much it's a lot of thejokes still hold up.
Just, I just never get sick ofthat one.
It's just so funny to me.
So, yeah, I got the same numberone as you Blazing Saddles,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah, and the best joke comes from that movie where
the White-O-Kid and Bartdisguise themselves as Klansmen
but they get discovered and thenthey run off and one of the
(56:50):
headlies lackeys yells Well,have them off at the pass.
And headless responses had themoff at the pass.
I hate that cliche.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
I think one of my favorite jokes is the in order
to slow down the bad guys, theyset up a toll booth in the
middle of the desert.
There is no fence on eitherside of this toll booth, but it
still stops them and they'relike oh, and then the head bad
guy that's there says somebodybetter go back and get a
(57:25):
shitload of dimes.
And then they go through a oneby one.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
And this gag was also repeated around with him and in
times of the bridge, whereRobin first meets Will John and
then.
Achu is all like.
You don't have to do this.
This is not the Mississippi,and the remember is just this
little creek.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
Yeah, he's literally like standing on either side of
the creek and yeah, but yeah, interms of comedy directors and
I'd say probably one of the mostconsistent Maybe not, but still
(58:06):
like one of the most loved,especially in our household
growing up, you know right.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
Yeah, and really one full force, when the Multi-pack
DVDs came out and then later onthe Blu-rays, mm, hmm, yep still
got.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
I still have that original multi-pack of DVDs.
That's the one had 12 chairsblazing saddles.
Young Frankenstein silent moviehigh anxiety.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
History of the world part one to be or not to be in
rather human and tights.
Speaker 1 (58:44):
Yeah, no, it was missing producers spaceballs,
which they included with theBlu-ray.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Yeah, life stands in Dracula, then loving it yeah and
that's just studio.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
The rights right that mess that, mess those up.
Speaker 2 (59:01):
Yeah, and also the then do something with
television, which was get smart,mm, hmm, but that was based off
of, like I said, the spy genrebecause of James Bond.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
Mm, hmm, yeah, and he also was a notable producer as
well.
Like he did, he was executiveproducer for the Elephant man,
the David Lynch film, which isvery, very out of character for
(59:33):
both David Lynch and Mel Brooks,but a great movie like an
amazing movie.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
And there was a rumor that David Lynch was pitched to
be by George to do a return ofthe Jedi oh yeah, that's, that's
right.
Speaker 1 (59:52):
And he ended up turning it down because he was
going to go do Dune, right?
Speaker 2 (59:56):
Yeah, and there was a rumor that it was going to be
Steven Spielberg, but Jedi endedup with Richard Mark.
Richard Mark, wanda.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Yeah, yep, all right.
So do you have any other triviaor anything else you want to
say about Mel Brooks?
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Yeah, the whole.
The establishment of the dinerscene which does the alien spoof
, If you look at the bottom likeit's sort of a blanking to miss
it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
You see a model of the Millennium Falcon from Star
Wars.
Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Yep, that's right yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Sort of a little tip of the hat to George Yep, and
the fact that the whole thingwith the Space Bomb Wand turning
into Megamate I'm thinking ofTransformers with the Unicron
going into robot mode, yeah, andalso the fact that the voice of
Unicron, orson Wells, was thenarrator for History of the
(01:00:59):
World Part One.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Oh yeah, that's right , he was All right.
So thank you, Tyler, forjoining me again.
Can't wait to do this againanother time.
Thank you for having this ideaand glad we got to have that
movie marathon together andeverything and have this
conversation, talk about one ofour favorites, someone that we
(01:01:22):
both enjoyed over the yearsgrowing up together.
So thank you again and yeah,and for the audience, thanks for
listening and hope that youguys stick around for the rest
of the month.
Hopefully this director seriesworks well and if it doesn't,
then I'll never do it again.
(01:01:44):
All right, you can look on thefind me on Instagram at movies
they're pretty good with nopunctuation in it and see you
next Tuesday.
Thanks Bye, and may the shortsbe with you.
May the shorts be with youindeed.
Hello and welcome to another episode of movies, colon
.
They're pretty good.
I'm your host, travis Dutting,and today or this week we're
gonna be doing something alittle different.
I decided, I think, for themonth of November I'm gonna do
director centric episodes.
Instead of Breaking down onemovie at a time, I'm just gonna
(00:25):
kind of go through the careersof different, different
directors over the years, onesthat are my, my favorites, ones
that I've seen their whole film.
Film ography well helps if Ilearn how to talk.
But joining me today is Aspecial guest, the only special
(00:46):
guest I've had on the podcastthus far my brother Tyler.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hello everybody, and part of me if I it's been a
while, because I somehow whenpast this, past the few episodes
, because I, I what I actuallyknow is set my vehicle to
(01:10):
ludicrous speed.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Oh yeah, very on brand for who we're talking
about today.
All right, so let's get rightinto it.
Me and you both had a Marathonof the Mel Brooks's whole
filmography recently, so Ifigured that'd be a good
(01:33):
opportunity to talk about, likewhat our thoughts are on him as
a director and Just his moviesin general, and like maybe we'll
rank them, we'll give our ownrankings and everything.
So yeah, that's Off the bat.
What are your thoughts on MelBrooks?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, mel Brooks is one of the few directors of
comedy that basically Definedgenre parodies.
Well, if you think about it,let's make a checklist.
In terms of television, he didget smart, which is a parody of
the spy genre, because JamesBond was popular, musicals was
(02:18):
checked off with the producers.
I Think the 12 chairs is countmight count as a spoof.
On foreign films.
Yeah, I think that's based offof foreign films.
Blazing saddles.
It's obviously Western.
Young Frankenstein spoof's thehorror genre because but well
(02:43):
known, because Mel wanted to doit in black and white but the
first studio choice, columbia,wanted it in color.
But Mel wanted young, hisversion of young Frankenstein,
to be sort of in the style ofthe James Whale Original
(03:05):
Frankenstein.
And he saw the originalFrankenstein in theaters and was
terrified.
And it gets even Better withhis version of Frankenstein
because he actually used theoriginal Frankenstein lab
equipment from the James Whalefilm.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, cuz that that equipment was still just like
sitting in someone's garage,right, yeah, had him been
touched.
Really, it was just sitting instorage and I think the studio
was gonna get rid of it at somepoint.
And someone was like hey, likecan I have that?
And Took it home.
And yeah, it was just sittingin someone's garage and they
(03:51):
were able to use the originalprops from the original
Frankenstein.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, and a lot of the gadgets in silent movie were
basically like based off of theBuster Keaton Kind of stuff,
like the iconic waiter.
There's a fly in my soup.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, just a plane on all the tropes and everything
from that era and All the gagsthat originated during that time
.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So going back to place and saddles.
I think that's another moviewhere it plays off of all
Western tropes, yeah.
And then we get High anxiety,which is a parody slash tribute
To Alfred Hitchcock, the masterof suspense, yeah.
(04:40):
And then you see stuff likereferences to psycho, the birds,
the plus on what copies,vertigo, and there's a lot of
stuff.
And Me and the some people themedia lab In the film society
(05:05):
club we have watched.
Last month some offeredHitchcock films.
Which ones did you end upseeing?
Well, we watched.
I can't believe I'm seeing this.
I Can't remember the first one,but we did see a rope.
(05:25):
You say we saw rear view window, just rear window, yeah, rear
window.
And then we top it off withpsycho.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yep, probably the most famous, obviously Yep, and
definitely one that gets spoofedin In high anxiety.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, but it's a knife.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It was a newspaper, yep.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And then the punchline is Mel going.
That kid gets no tip.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yep, all right, so let's, should we go movie by
movie now?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
All right.
So his first film, theproducers, starring Jean Wilder
and zero mostel, made in 1968 no, it was made in 67, but I don't
think it's screened until 68because it kind of got stuck in
studio limbo or Distributiondistribution limbo, pretty much
(06:24):
right.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, and Hilarious movie ended up winning the Oscar
for best writing Story andscreenplay written directly for
the screen.
So best original screenplay ishow it's named now.
So this is the Oscar of.
Mel Brooks is Egot, so he's oneof the few people that's won
(06:49):
and Emmy, grammy, oscar, tony soproducers.
Hilarious movie about a HackPlay producer for Broadway Down
on his luck, basically Seducingold ladies to for money.
(07:14):
Then that's how he's likefinancing his plays and stuff.
Jean Wilder is Works for theIRS or is just an auditor, I
forget.
I think he just works for thebank.
But he goes there to audit himand During this Meeting realizes
(07:38):
that you can make more moneywith a play that's a flop than
you can with a hit.
So, and the reason to do thatwould be that you would raise
more money than Necessary.
You know, instead of raising ahundred percent of the budget,
you raise a thousand percent ofthe budget and like ten times
(08:00):
more money than you need.
And you just have to make surethat that play is a flop,
because if it's a hit, then youowe ten times more than your
play is making.
And then so they look for theworst play possible.
That play ends up being writtenby a German immigrant and it's
(08:22):
called springtime for Hitler andit's a musical.
They try to find the worstdirector, worst actor and worst
play and Just it ends up soabsurd that it becomes a hit and
in the end they go to jail andeverything.
Hilarious movie, yeah.
What are your thoughts on it?
(08:43):
It's.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
It's a sitter, one of the funniest.
It's considered a good startingpoint in Mel Brooks.
This is directing and oddlyenough, it Turned out really
good.
It's so good.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
It's spun a Broadway musical and there's a remake
Based off of the musicalstarting Nathan Lane and Matthew
Brodwick yes, so it's a movieabout Broadway that Spons a
(09:28):
Brought, an actual Broadway play, and then that spawns a film
adaptation of the Broadway playbased on a movie.
So Full circle, yep, fullcircle, indeed.
All right, any more thoughts onproducers, or should we move on
to the next one?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, this is one of the few movies that Mel is not a
Doesn't appear in, oh, inproducers.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, yeah, you hear his voice once during one of the
musical numbers in the play,but it's dubbed over another
actor and you just hear him saydon't be stupid, be a smarty,
come enjoying the Nazi Party.
Oh, yeah, yeah, and that's,that's Mel's voice for that one.
So, Moving on Yep All right.
(10:15):
Next is 12 chairs.
What can you tell us about thisone?
Well, it's, it was, sometime itwas the.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
It takes place in the time at the start of the Soviet
Union the.
The Russian monarchy has fallen, yep and this aristocrat.
His mother died, and beforedying she tells her son that she
(10:48):
had left a lot of money in oneof the 12 chairs.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, basically like the family jewels and all the
money and everything was insidethe upholstery of one of these
chairs that they had in theirmansion before it got taken over
by the Soviets.
So it's him versus a priestthat was giving the mother her
(11:17):
last rights and found out aboutthe money as well, and it's
basically just this race to gobe the first to find the money
it's starring.
Mel Brooks was the formerservant right of the family, so
he makes appearances through it,but he's not one of the main
(11:40):
characters.
He got Ron Moody.
He's the former aristocratRight.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Frank Langella is the guy that's helping him.
He's kind of like a con mantype guy, little bit of a
drifter, but you know, with agood heart and everything Right,
is that how you describe him,probably?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, compared to other other villain roles he did
like Dracula in the seventiesand Skeletor in the train wreck
of a movie called Masters of theUniverse.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, and then the priest is played by Dom Delouise
, who is a recurring ensembleplayer for Mel Brooks films.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, and also this guy by the name of Dom Bluth.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
What about him?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, dom did a lot of.
Did some character voices forDom Bluth.
The only ones he didn't do were, I think, the only good ones.
That he was not in was LandBefore Time.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Okay, so you're saying Dom Delouise was a
frequent Dom Bluth player too?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yes, okay All right.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Do you have anything else to add on 12 Chairs?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Well, all I have to say is all for the best, it's
spet the worst.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Oh yeah, that's the theme song, right yeah.
Pretty much Okay.
Now we come to my personalfavorite Blazing Saddles.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yep.
This is where the genre ofparodies come in.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, this is the first full on genre parody and
probably the first actual spoofwhatever you want to call it
type film.
The jokes are completely overthe top, but in the best way, in
(13:47):
my opinion at least.
Just extreme, just silly overthe top.
The co-written by Richard Pryorwho was supposed to star in it.
But the studios wouldn't letthe film get made if Richard
Pryor was in it because he hadlike a spotty history and like
(14:08):
drug problems and arrests andstuff like that.
So yeah, he was too big of arisk but he still did write the
film with Mel, but it stars.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Cleavon Little.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, Cleavon Little in the role that would have been
Richard Pryor's, and GeneWilder again back from the
producers.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
And Harvey Corman as the villain.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yep Harvey Corman as the villain Hedy Lamar.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
That's Hedley.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, Mel Brooks as the mayor right or the governor.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, governor.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Governor and the Native American chief.
Yeah, a few other roles inthere.
Dom Delouise is in like a cameorole towards the end as a film
director.
When the film goes totally meta, literally breaks the fourth
(15:12):
wall, they break out of thewestern set into the studio set
at the end and just it getscrazy, gets off the walls.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, at this point the movie just stopped caring,
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
But yeah, hilarious movie.
I'm not just gonna.
I could spend hours justrepeating lines from it.
But you know any other, liketrivia, you want to add to it
though.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, in terms of I think one of the big female
actors started with this one,and it's Madeline Kahn.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, that's right, that's who I was forgetting.
Another frequent Mel Brooksstar, Madeline Kahn.
She plays what's the character?
Lillian Von Stuck?
That's right.
That's right, she's a German,not like Berlesque, but she's a
(16:12):
German singer, entertainer.
Yeah, any other blazing saddlestidbits are ready to move on.
Well, one of the best fart gagscame from this movie and also
wasn't it also like one of thefirst fart gags in a movie,
(16:35):
pretty much?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Is that true or is that just like a?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I think it's true, a misconception?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, I think it's true, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Some of the racial slurs in this one.
I think it's been usedfrequently, to the point where
the whole point of this movie ishow absurdly stupid racism is.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
yes, yeah, it's like I Think his hand.
The goal of him and RichardPryor was to point out the
absurdity of racism, thestupidity behind it and
everything like that, and then,but it uses racism to make fun
of racism.
Basically, right, that iscorrect.
(17:24):
Yeah, yep, okay, I think that'sit for that one.
Let's move on to youngFrankenstein Now.
You gave a little bit of triviaon that before talking about
how the original sets from theoriginal Frankenstein were used.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yes, this one also introduces two more frequent
frequent flyers Chloris LeachmanYep.
And Marty Feldman right, yep,this was his first.
Yeah, he wasn't in any of theprevious ones, right?
Nope, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
The some of the best stuff in this, especially
towards the end with the, thewhole putting on the Ritz
sequence.
That was the most iconic partof the movie and especially how
they they mostly parody theoriginal Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, yeah, they don't really.
This one's not so much a Genre,a parody, as much as it is just
a straight up Frankensteinparody, correct?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, because Mostly we, and one of the best known
gags is we're.
If you look at I goers, a humpis switches places.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, and that's also a recurring gag in a few other
ones.
Another notable one will get to.
We'll get to the movie later,but in Robin Hood, men and
tights the mole on KingRichard's face Prince John.
Prince John, yeah, not KingRichard.
Yeah, the mole on Prince John'sface moves around throughout
(19:17):
the movie.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So yeah, young Frankenstein.
Oh yeah, I didn't really talkabout the, so let's backtrack a
little bit.
I didn't really talk about theplot of Blazing Saddles, correct
?
So the plot of Blazing Saddlesis a it's post-Civil War, but
not too far past the Civil War.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, not quite reconstruction.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, they're building the railroad out west
and everything, and the companywants to build.
The ideal place to build therailroad is through this town
called Rock Ridge.
So the corrupt government wantsto find a way to get rid of the
(20:07):
town so they can tear down thetown and build the railroad
through there and the the theirplan.
Their evil plot is to put in asheriff that the town will hate
so much that they'll just leave.
And so, because everyone'sracist, they appoint a black
(20:30):
sheriff and that first it'sworking, but then you know at,
as always, that Things go awryand it backfires on them.
So yeah, that's basically theplot of of Blazing Saddles.
So the plot of youngFrankenstein is Is that?
(20:50):
It's the?
Is itgreat-grand-grand-grandson or
just grandson?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, it's his grandson.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Okay, so it's doctor Victor von Frankenstein's
grandson.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
No.
Baron von Frankenstein'sgrandson.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But he's the son of Victor Frankenstein okay.
Actually he Know, he is thegrandson of Victor Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, that's what I said.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, his great-grandfather was Baron von
Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Oh okay, got it, got it, got it.
So which one is theFrankenstein from the movie the
30s movie?
Frankenstein.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
In the book it was Victor Frankenstein, but they
changed it to Henry Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Got it, got it.
So he's the grandson of the madscientist Victor Frankenstein.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Okay, that that's what I wanted to find out.
So yeah, it's, but he'sskeptical of his grandfather's
work.
Basically, once the who dies,that he has to go to the castle
(22:13):
Victor dies.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, he goes to the castle and, basically, is led to
the laboratory, gets inspired,thinks that he could do it the
right way this time, and youknow it's a company, so he, it
(22:37):
works, but it doesn't work in adifferent way.
You know, and I don't want tospoil like jokes and stuff like
that, but it's Gene Wilderplaying the, the Frankenstein or
Frankenstein.
That's a running gag and a funtidbit about this.
There's a, a joke in this filmwhere he get.
(23:03):
He first gets to Transylvania.
He meets his assistant, igor,and then when he corrects him on
how, on the pronunciation ofFrankenstein to Frankenstein,
igor says it's pronounced Igor.
Then he says walk this way,like, like, oh, like, come this
(23:25):
way.
But he may make some walk likea specific In, like a specific
stance and everything.
And that joke from this movieis what inspired the Song walk
this way by Aerosmith.
They had gone to see it whilethey're on tour and they just
(23:46):
love that joke.
And then Stephen Tyler had anidea for a song after that.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And also becomes a running gag that gets repeated
in History of the world, partone and later Romah and men and
tights yes exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
So yeah, you got Gene Wilder playing Frederick
Frankenstein, madeline Kahn ishis fiancee, elizabeth.
Marty Feldman plays Igor.
Peter Boyle, the dad fromeverybody loves Raymond.
He plays Frankenstein's monster, chloris Leachman, frau Blucar,
(24:25):
terry Gar plays lab assistantInga.
And yeah, that's it for the bignames in the, the main
characters.
But yeah, this one, this one'sreally funny.
This is a great Watch this tryto watch this once a year, you
(24:46):
know, particularly aroundHalloween.
But yeah, great movie, love it.
A lot of good gags and thisone's it's less silly than
blazing saddles, it's.
It's funny.
It's just as funny, probably,but it's not so like
over-the-top and ridiculous andI Don't know what the word I'm
(25:11):
looking for is, but it's, it'sjust a.
It's a different type of comedy, but it works just as well and
maybe, probably, probably hislike best movie as a like best
film, if you want to be snootyabout it.
Any other thoughts on youngFrankenstein?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Give it a watch while you still tan.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah all right.
Moving on silent movies nextright correct, all right.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
This.
This one is basically one ofthe more More based off of the
physical comedy and Visual gags.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, I'd say so, like you said before, really
playing up those Gags and tropesthat were originated from the
old silent films and silentcomedies Buster Keaton, charlie
Chaplin, harold Boyd, that typeof stuff, right?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
yeah, all the favorites.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yep Plot on this one.
It's a film director Trying toget a, trying to make a revival
of silent films, and it's takingplace during the time period
that it's made.
Right, it's taking place in the70s.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, it's more of a period picture now.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yeah, yeah, now it is , but you.
So yeah, he's trying to do likea revival of silent films.
The entire film is silent,minus one gag where the one
spoken word is spoken by a mime.
But yeah, no spoilers on whatis said, but it's got a lot of
(27:04):
cameos in it.
What Burt Reynolds?
Right, yeah, who else?
Paul Newman?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, and James Cohn.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
James Cohn.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
And Van Croft.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yep, that's Mel's real life wife.
Were they married at the timeor not?
Yet?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah, I have to look that up.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And Liza Minnelli, the daughter of Judy Garland.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yep.
Then it's also got MartyFeldman back from Young
Frankenstein and Dom Delaweshe's in this one too.
Mel is the main character, he'sthe director and everything.
We got Sid Caesar as the studiochief.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yep somewhat based off of Alan Latt.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Jr.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, who was the head of 20th Century Fox at the
time, and this might correlateto a later movie down the
timeline where he meets anotherinspiring director who has an
idea of robots, space wizardsand a far off galaxy.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, all right, but we'll wait on that one.
Any other thoughts on SilentMovie?
Speaker 2 (28:24):
This is one of the weirdest movies because it's all
over the place and there's alittle pawn reference because
it's my inner dammer talking.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, you wanna talk about that.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, yeah, they go to the hospital because the
studio chief was stricken and Ican't believe the names of the
director and his companions, melFun, marty Eggs and Dom Bell,
are visiting the hospital.
They go to the studio chief'sroom and Dom Bell and Marty Eggs
(29:10):
are near the heart monitor.
You unplug it and the studiochief collapses, and then plus,
if I didn't wakes up unplug itcollapses and then one of the
two pulls the other side andthen it turns into a pawn
machine.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, you're talking about the on the screen that
would show the heartbeat,correct?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, anything else on Silent Movie.
Are you ready to move on?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, I'm ready to move on.
But this movie is inspired by atrue story.
Which one?
That of the whole production ofthe movie Silent Movie, yes,
which at the end it says this isbased on a true story.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Oh, okay, I forgot that gag.
You're a ball in my mind for asecond, like, really, that
doesn't seem like any of thisstuff really happened.
Okay, all right, so HighAnxiety is next correct.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yup.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yup, and this is the homage to Alfred Hitchcock.
Some there's Psycho referencesBirds, earth by Northwest
Vertigo Vertigo is probably themain one, right.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The central plot.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, and it's literally the title High Anxiety
is like, basically like a wayto dumb down the word Vertigo.
You're getting anxiety aboutbeing up high.
So yeah, this one's fun you got.
(30:55):
You know.
Mel Brooks is playing the maincharacter again.
Dr Richard H Thorndike.
You got Madeline Kahn asVictoria Brisbane.
Chloris Leachman's back asNurse Charlotte Harvey Corman's
back as Dr Charles Montague.
That's it for the maincharacters.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Oh, you forgot Ron Kerry.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, oh yeah, I guess he is a main character,
brophy, so he's like theassistant right or kind of like
the driver for.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, and photographer.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yep, yeah, is that anything you wanna add on this
one?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, the whole zoom in, zoom out gag.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Oh yeah, so you get a part where the camera is
zooming in on them and they'reinside eating and as the camera
zooms close to the window, itbreaks through the window and
then thus breaking the fourthwall, showing that that's a
movie being made.
But then they just likeeveryone looks and then they
just go about their businesslike nothing happened.
(32:02):
And that gag gets reused inRobin Hood, men and Tights right
.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, and then they do the zoom out gag as well at
the end.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Oh, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Where the it shows they get married, and then you
hear the crew go all right,let's pull back.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And then it tries to zoom along and they're like what
?
Are we doing?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Keep going, maybe they won't notice.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Well, all right, so which one's next?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
History of the world.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Got it okay.
And when is to be or not to be?
Or are we not counting that onebecause he didn't direct it?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Actually, we might count that one.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Well, we can talk a little bit.
We wanna get that one out ofthe way real quick.
Talk about what that is.
Yeah, it's basically a remakeof an earlier movie From the 40s
.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah, and it's basically like a troop of
theater actors or in the theatercompany in Poland.
It's the beginning of World WarII and they have to escape to
England.
Yeah, and it's got like GeorgeSanders, george Weiner, who
(33:41):
plays one general and then whowill later appear in Spaceballs,
another character played byDick.
I think, is Dick Van Pantton inthis one.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
I think he might be in this one.
We did two actors who willlater be in Spaceballs.
Yeah, and there's anothergeneral play by Christopher
Lloyd.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
And then the two main characters are played by Mel
Brooks and Anne Bancroft reallife married couple.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah, as Mr and Mrs.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Bronsty.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Okay, so history of the world, part one.
First off, love the titlebecause it until this last year,
with the Hulu mini series,there was never any intention to
make a part two or three orwhatever, and so it was just
like a play on all these epicshaving like multiple sequels and
(34:40):
stuff like that, and it's kindof like a what would you say,
like an anthology movie wherethere's different vignettes and
stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, it starts with a satire on 2001,.
A Space Odyssey.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, like the beginning of man and stuff.
So you get some caveman jokesand, like you said, the making
fun of the opening of 2001.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, with them discovering the monolith.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yep, Get a couple a quick scene from the Bible with
the Moses bringing down the 15,and then he drops one 10, 10
commandments.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yeah, a playoff of that Seth will be the mill movie
.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Yep, you get the Roman Empire.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Basically the best part, and all of that was filmed
in Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yep, yep In Universal Studios correct.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yes, yeah, square Warriors and the Red Sea.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, and then the chariot chase is pretty much
through Agora Hills, calabasasarea.
Yeah.
There's they get the SpanishInquisition in the middle, then
the French Revolution.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Which was all filmed in England.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, and that closes the movie out.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, this.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Well, the actual closing of the movie is the fake
advertisement for History ofthe World, part II.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, and this is one of the movies where they start
doing the whole Deus Ex Machinatrope joke.
Yeah, first it's only Americacan save them, and also the
Marijuana coming out of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Oh yeah, to distract the Roman soldiers, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And also the Red Sea portion.
You did tell that it's the tramride.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Oh yeah, from at Universal Studios, like where
near, where JAZZ is correct.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
I think it was.
After the after seeing, that'sbefore.
You see the prompt environmentand then the swear of warriors.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And it's right.
Before a little Europe and thenthe earthquake attraction.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Got it.
Anything you want to add onHistory of the World, part I.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
This movie is basically epitably hilarious to
the point where it just makesfun of.
It just makes fun of everything, and it's the first time you
see some vernachronistic humorwith the, the guy in the Roman
Empire with the boom box.
Oh yeah, plenty of fun to tell,yep.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
All right, moving on to Spaceballs, which I think was
the first Mel Brooks movie.
Either of us all right.
Yeah, on TV at our Grandma'shouse from Dad's side of the
family, yes, so yeah, it'sSpaceballs, mostly a Star Wars
spoof, but it's kind of it'sspoofing sci-fi in general.
(37:53):
Yeah, this one, this one'spretty funny.
You got Bill Pullman as LoneStar, which is kind of a combo
of Luke and Han Solo.
You got Rick Moranis as DarkHelmet, the Darth Vader
(38:14):
character.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
If it's not obvious enough, yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
You got John Candy as Barf, the sidekick Mel Brooks
as President, Scroob and Yogurt,which is Yoda.
Daphne Zuniga as Princess Vespa, Obviously.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Princess.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Leia Yep and Joan Rivers as Dot Matrix, the C-3PO.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Count-A-Part, but the body movement was LaRine Yarnel
.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Joan.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Rivers did the voice.
Got it, got it, got it.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
So, yeah, this movie is pretty hilarious If you've
seen the original Star Warstrilogy in their unaltered state
it just makes this movie evenfunnier.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, and then you got Lone Star and Barf or like.
Basically just what?
What would they be Like?
What's their job?
I mean, it's similar to StarWars.
They owe somebody money, butit's yeah, Pizza the Hut.
Yep Pizza, the Hut.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
A playoff of Java the Hut.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
It's the voice of Dom Delawes, but I think it was
Rudy DeLuca who was in thecostume.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Oh, maybe.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
No, I think Rudy DeLuca was Vinny.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Oh, okay, but yeah, they end up rescuing Princess
Vespa.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
She's running away from her arranged marriage
wedding, and then and, of course, the room to be is Prince
Valium, which is a playoff ofthe comic book character Prince
Valiant.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Oh, okay, and also the Valium sedative, yeah
exactly Because he's likeyawning and half asleep the
whole time.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
There's a lot of spoofs of other sci-fi films,
like the beaming stuff from StarTrek.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, we get a Planet of the Apes reference of the
climax in any.
My favorite scene in Spaceballsis the alien reference with the
chest-burster.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And it turns into an homage to the Looney Tunes
Tartune One Froggy Evening.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah, that's Michigan .
Speaker 2 (40:42):
J Frog right the hello my lady, hello my honey.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, I remember that from the little Giants VHS tape
.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Oh, that's what it was on.
Okay, I was trying to rememberwhere we saw that and why we saw
that as many times as we did,but that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Because it was the before or future presentation of
Little Giants.
We're celebrating the birthdayof Mission to J Frog by watching
the Tartune that made him astar on Friday evening.
Oh, okay, all right, anythingelse to add on Spaceballs or
Well, this is one of the movieswhere they got permission from
(41:25):
George Lucas to help with thespecial effects with ILM, and
the whole merchandise scene wasmade because of George Diving
Mel, the condition of not tomake any merchandise of
Spaceballs, oh, okay.
And the other condition that waslesser known was not to have
(41:46):
Lone Star be dressed as Han SoloGot it, but Mel being the
clever guy, he is made LoneStar's wardrobe based off of
Indiana Jones.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
The other, george Lucas, harrison Ford, character.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Yeah, because during his intro you see him with the
hat, but the hat disappears forthe rest of the movie.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
All right, next up we got Life Stinks.
This one is one that I had seenit, not when it came out, but
when I was younger, when I wasfirst getting into Mel Brooks
and trying to watch all hismovies and this one, I didn't
like it that much the first timeI saw it, but in this rewatch I
was able to appreciate it alittle more.
(42:34):
It's the second lowest rated ofhis filmography on IMDb, not
that that really matters, butyeah, this one's a greedy
businessman, makes a bet that hecan live on the streets of LA
for 30 days, right.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah, and the other guy that Mel made the bet
against is played by JeffreyTambor.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yes, exactly.
So, yeah, obviously he goesthrough with it.
He wins the bet, but some dirtydealings were done while he was
away and they make him looklike a crazy person and
everything.
But he, along with the otherhomeless people that he's made
(43:26):
friends with, basically fightthe man at the end and win.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, this one's good .
This one has a lot of heart init and, like I said, better than
I remember, but not a lot tosay on it.
It's good, you know, but I justdon't have the attachment to it
like I do with the other movies, because I haven't seen it as
(43:55):
many times.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
I've only seen bits of it same as Travis did.
We were in the Apple Valley atour Nana's first house there.
Yeah, and it was a rental.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah, we rented it from either Blockbuster or
Hollywood Video, because thattells you how long ago this was.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Yeah, yeah, 90s kid and 2000s outwessons, yep.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
So yeah, anything else to add on that one?
None, all right.
So next up is Robin Hood Menand Tights.
Pretty much a one for one spoofof the Kevin Costner Robin Hood
Prince of Thieves, right.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah with the, but the costume Kari Elwis was
wearing is based off of the EarlFlynn one.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah, yep, yeah, this one, this one's good.
I like this one a lot.
Like you said, kari Elwis isRobin Hood, got Richard Lewis as
Prince John, you got RogerReese as Sheriff of Nottingham,
amy Yazbek as Maid Marion, daveChappelle as Achu.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Bless you.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
You got Isaac Hayes as his dad Asniz.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
And as a playoff, of Hasim, the Warden Freeman
character from Prince of ThievesYep.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Tracy Oldman as Latrine, patrick Stewart as King
Richard and Dom Delouise as DonGiovanni, which is the random
Godfather reference in a RobinHood movie.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Yeah, this was out of nowhere.
And Mel plays Rabbi Tuckman,which is a playoff of Fryer Tuck
.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yep, but you know, mel, being Jewish, wanted to
play.
Put a rabbi in there instead ofa priest, right.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, in terms of Robin Hood movies, this is right
up probably the best of one ofthe Robin Hood adaptations.
One of the two things two RobinHood adaptations I've seen the
whole thing of the other onebeing the Disney version.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yeah, yeah, like I can't really compare it to
anything else other than theDisney one and they're just two
completely different feelingsand vibes and everything.
So yeah, I can't really compareit to like the Kevin Costner or
whatever, like the weird onesthat they've done.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Or the Errol Flynn one, which is the classic.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Yeah, I still haven't seen that one that's on my list
.
I haven't got to that one yet.
But yeah, lots of good gags inhere.
Really funny, great cast, greatjokes, great movie.
Alright, moving on to the finalof his director filmography
(47:03):
Dracula dead and loving it.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yup, a spoof, mostly on the Legosi version of Dracula
.
Yeah, with a little bit of nodsto the Coppola one and the use
of blood from the Hammer films.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yes, yeah, this one.
You got Leslie Nielsen asDracula, you got Mel Brooks as
Van Helsing, you got PeterMcNichol as Renfield, peter
McNichol from Ghostbusters 2.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Added his family values as one of the Tam
counselors.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
And being the movie right, yes.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
He played Renfield, similar to Dwight Fry in the
Bell of the Dosey one.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yep, alright.
Then you got Steven Weber asHarker.
You got Amy Yazbek back fromRumpf-Tytes.
She's Mina Lissette Anthony asLucy, harvey Corman as Dr Seward
.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Yep, then the minor characters and stuff, but yeah,
that's this one I for somereason missed as a kid, like
when I was getting into MelBrooks before and I watched all
his other movies for whateverreason.
This one just like slipped pastme, didn't even know about it
for forever, or that he wasinvolved, or that it was his
(48:36):
movie that he directed.
You actually saw it before Iever did right.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah, I saw it on the , but when it was available for
that short amount of time,netflix threw the Wii.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Oh yeah, that's right .
Yeah, that was when Netflixfirst started allowing streaming
.
You could do it through the Wii.
That was crazy.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Yeah, and then later I found a DVD copy of it at
Barnes Noble.
Okay, and then it was throughthat DVD copy that I got that.
You first saw it when you werein.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Maryland.
Yep, that's right.
Yeah, but I saw it, but Ididn't really get to pay too
much attention to it.
So this time that we did ourmarathon was the first time I
actually got to sit down andfully watch it and it was good.
You know it was good.
It's not my favorite of the MelBrooks canon, but it was still
(49:40):
way more enjoyable than Iexpected.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Yep, all right, so Shall we.
Do you know what your rankingwould be?
Do you want to go from Least tobest or the other way around?
Speaker 2 (50:01):
I say at least to best.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Okay, all right.
Why don't you go ahead while Ipull up my letterbox to count
and see what that says?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Okay.
Lifesteins was no, actuallystretch that.
It's to be or not to be.
It was pretty okay.
And then lifesteins and thenthe 12 chairs, and then there's
(50:33):
the producers, which is prettygood, and then spaceballs, which
would have been higher upbecause of the Star Wars nerd
inside me.
But there's also silent movie,which is quite a romp.
(50:54):
Then there's High Anxiety Again, if you're more into Alfred
Hitchcock, hitch for the World,because of like historical
updates, like Ten Commandmentsor Ben Herr.
Then there's Romathem and theTights, which I consider to be
(51:19):
one of the best selling if I wasto watch that in 2003.
Yeah, actually, no, I think itwas earlier than that when you
were getting started into MelBrooks, yeah.
And then there's Dracula, Denand Loving it, which was again
(51:47):
if you are more into the horrorgenre and learning film history,
if you get some of the stufflike the Dracula tropes.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Mm-hmm Jan.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Frankenstein, which was a good Halloween watch,
might make a good double featurewith Dracula, den and Loving it
, yeah.
And of course, blazing Saddles,which is the top tier of Mel's
(52:23):
filmography, because veryquotable.
Actually, all the movies arequotable, yeah, except for
silent movie.
Because of only one word Nope,that's part of my Marcel Marceau
, all right.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
So that's your whole list.
Yep, all right.
What was your number?
What was your number one?
Again Blazing?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Saddles.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
That's right, okay, yeah, I figured.
Okay Now for my list.
We got my In the bottom.
I'm going to go with Dracula,den and Loving it.
I'd still enjoyed it, but it'sjust not one of my favorites.
(53:09):
A little bit cheesier, some ofthe jokes made me groan a little
bit Like oh you know, but youknow, still not bad you know, in
terms of Mel Brooks and thatstyle of humor and everything,
it was still a good movie.
Next I'm going to go with LifeStinks.
(53:29):
Like I said, it was better thanI remembered, but you know it's
still not like super memorable,like not a lot's like living in
my head, not a lot of stainpower personally.
Next I would go High Anxiety Alittle bit better, a little more
(53:50):
memorable than the other ones.
Jokes are a little better, butstill not my favorite compared
to some of the other ones.
And then I'm going to go withHistory of the World, part 1.
It has, in my opinion, some ofthe best jokes but also some of
the worst jokes.
It just that's just my opinion.
You know a lot of stuff doesn'tage well or just doesn't just
(54:14):
isn't funny anymore to me.
But you know, I still like it,still enjoy it.
Next I'm going to go 12 Chairs.
This one it's pretty good, it'sa pretty good movie but, like I
said, with Life Stinks just nottoo memorable.
(54:36):
You know, not a lot of stuffstaying with me afterwards.
Then I'm going to go SilentMovie.
I think that that one's rightin the middle.
Yeah, that one's funny, justnot as like laugh heavy as some
(55:01):
of the other ones for me.
Then I'm going to go Spaceballs.
Some great jokes, some.
Some are a little stale, butstill pretty good.
Love the Star Wars stuff, lovethe alien gag at the end or
towards the end.
But then I'm going to go RobinHood, men and Tights.
(55:25):
Just, I'm laughing morethroughout that one than
Spaceballs if I had to put themone up against the other.
So a lot, a lot of stuff thatis just always in my head for
that one.
Then the producers this is theone that's.
I'd say it's just under perfect.
(55:47):
It's pretty close to a perfectcomedy, but he just doesn't have
his footing yet quite as muchas he does with my favorite two
and I'm going to go YoungFrankenstein as my second
favorite and Blazing Saddles asmy favorite.
Blazing Saddles is just so like, just so hilarious.
(56:09):
It's a laugh every second.
Pretty much it's a lot of thejokes still hold up.
Just, I just never get sick ofthat one.
It's just so funny to me.
So, yeah, I got the same numberone as you Blazing Saddles,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah, and the best joke comes from that movie where
the White-O-Kid and Bartdisguise themselves as Klansmen
but they get discovered and thenthey run off and one of the
(56:50):
headlies lackeys yells Well,have them off at the pass.
And headless responses had themoff at the pass.
I hate that cliche.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
I think one of my favorite jokes is the in order
to slow down the bad guys, theyset up a toll booth in the
middle of the desert.
There is no fence on eitherside of this toll booth, but it
still stops them and they'relike oh, and then the head bad
guy that's there says somebodybetter go back and get a
(57:25):
shitload of dimes.
And then they go through a oneby one.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
And this gag was also repeated around with him and in
times of the bridge, whereRobin first meets Will John and
then.
Achu is all like.
You don't have to do this.
This is not the Mississippi,and the remember is just this
little creek.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
Yeah, he's literally like standing on either side of
the creek and yeah, but yeah, interms of comedy directors and
I'd say probably one of the mostconsistent Maybe not, but still
(58:06):
like one of the most loved,especially in our household
growing up, you know right.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
Yeah, and really one full force, when the Multi-pack
DVDs came out and then later onthe Blu-rays, mm, hmm, yep still
got.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
I still have that original multi-pack of DVDs.
That's the one had 12 chairsblazing saddles.
Young Frankenstein silent moviehigh anxiety.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
History of the world part one to be or not to be in
rather human and tights.
Speaker 1 (58:44):
Yeah, no, it was missing producers spaceballs,
which they included with theBlu-ray.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Yeah, life stands in Dracula, then loving it yeah and
that's just studio.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
The rights right that mess that, mess those up.
Speaker 2 (59:01):
Yeah, and also the then do something with
television, which was get smart,mm, hmm, but that was based off
of, like I said, the spy genrebecause of James Bond.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
Mm, hmm, yeah, and he also was a notable producer as
well.
Like he did, he was executiveproducer for the Elephant man,
the David Lynch film, which isvery, very out of character for
(59:33):
both David Lynch and Mel Brooks,but a great movie like an
amazing movie.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
And there was a rumor that David Lynch was pitched to
be by George to do a return ofthe Jedi oh yeah, that's, that's
right.
Speaker 1 (59:52):
And he ended up turning it down because he was
going to go do Dune, right?
Speaker 2 (59:56):
Yeah, and there was a rumor that it was going to be
Steven Spielberg, but Jedi endedup with Richard Mark.
Richard Mark, wanda.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Yeah, yep, all right.
So do you have any other triviaor anything else you want to
say about Mel Brooks?
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Yeah, the whole.
The establishment of the dinerscene which does the alien spoof
, If you look at the bottom likeit's sort of a blanking to miss
it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
You see a model of the Millennium Falcon from Star
Wars.
Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Yep, that's right yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Sort of a little tip of the hat to George Yep, and
the fact that the whole thingwith the Space Bomb Wand turning
into Megamate I'm thinking ofTransformers with the Unicron
going into robot mode, yeah, andalso the fact that the voice of
Unicron, orson Wells, was thenarrator for History of the
(01:00:59):
World Part One.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Oh yeah, that's right , he was All right.
So thank you, Tyler, forjoining me again.
Can't wait to do this againanother time.
Thank you for having this ideaand glad we got to have that
movie marathon together andeverything and have this
conversation, talk about one ofour favorites, someone that we
(01:01:22):
both enjoyed over the yearsgrowing up together.
So thank you again and yeah,and for the audience, thanks for
listening and hope that youguys stick around for the rest
of the month.
Hopefully this director seriesworks well and if it doesn't,
then I'll never do it again.
(01:01:44):
All right, you can look on thefind me on Instagram at movies
they're pretty good with nopunctuation in it and see you
next Tuesday.
Thanks Bye, and may the shortsbe with you.
May the shorts be with youindeed.
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