comedy legend\u2019s centennial<\/a>, AFI announced Sunday that it was reorganizing its \u201c100 Years … 100 Laughs\u201d list, moving Brooks\u2019 gleefully offensive 1970s western satire \u201cBlazing Saddles\u201d from No. 6 to No. 1 and bumping \u201cSome Like It Hot\u201d into the runner-up slot. AFI said the move came after Brooks had \u201clong kvetched\u201d that his film was funnier than Billy Wilder\u2019s 1959 classic.<\/p>\n\u201cHe\u2019s right!\u201d AFI President and Chief Executive Bob Gazzale said in a statement. \u201cWe are happy to right this wrong and proclaim \u2018Blazing Saddles\u2019 the funniest film of all time. It\u2019s good to be the king.\u201d<\/p>\n
Released in 1974, \u201cBlazing Saddles\u201d was both a critical and commercial hit that pushed the boundaries of mainstream studio comedy while satirizing racism, western mythology and Hollywood itself. Co-written by Brooks with Richard Pryor and others, the film earned three Oscar nominations, including one for Madeline Kahn\u2019s supporting actress turn as the Marlene Dietrich-styled Lili Von Shtupp..<\/p>\n
Just months later, Brooks returned with \u201cYoung Frankenstein,\u201d giving him one of the most remarkable years that any director has ever enjoyed. He remains the only filmmaker with three movies in AFI\u2019s top 15 funniest films: \u201cBlazing Saddles,\u201d \u201cThe Producers\u201d (No. 11) and \u201cYoung Frankenstein\u201d (No. 13).<\/p>\n
Brooks himself never lacked confidence about that run. Asked by The Times in 2016<\/a> about releasing both films during the same year, he said, \u201cI guess I was the king of movies for that year, for \u201974. Nobody had two pictures back-to-back that were so big and gathered so much attention. It was great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The American Film Institute is giving Mel Brooks one more reason to celebrate his 100th birthday. In honor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[58889,153723,153075,43492,1924,153724,1743,664,48,52,51,47,50,49,153076,18158,153727,315,153726,72,153725],"class_list":["post-380147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-100th-birthday","tag-afi-name","tag-blazing-saddles","tag-centennial","tag-film","tag-funniest-movie","tag-hollywood","tag-king","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mel-brooks","tag-no","tag-richard-pryor","tag-time","tag-western-mythology","tag-year","tag-young-frankenstein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}