OK, so Blazing Saddles was on TV last night, and I was watching part of it for about a half-hour. It is definitely one of my favorite movies, and one of my most-quoted ones. "Mongo only pawn in game of life."
But really, why even bother trying to put this on network TV? It was a complete hatchet job. They chopped so much out of the movie. They made "Lily von Shtupp" into "Lily von Sh..." Oh, come on.
I was pleasantly surprised that they left in the sequence:
"Rape, arson, murder, rape."
"You said 'rape' twice."
"I like rape."
The also left in "Hey, where da white women at?" I guess that's OK, but for God's sake, don't use the N-word. We have to have big gaps of, "Would it cheer you up some if me and the boys were to shoot that - - - - - - dead fer ya?" Or worse yet, when the town guy says, "OK, we'll take the niggers and the chinks, but no Irish!" we cut straight to "...no Irish." It's not as funny that way.
What's the big deal about the n-word? In case you haven't noticed, Blazing Saddles makes fun of racism and bigotry. This is the same as the idiots who want to have Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn banned as books because they have the n-word in them, when in reality, those books were instrumental in pointing out the evils of slavery and racism.
Wake up, people! We have come so far down the road that we are not allowing Santa to say, "Ho, ho, ho!" because it might offend some women. WHAT!?!? (Google "Sydney Santa Ho" if you haven't seen the news story.)
OK, enough complaining. I'm off to go put on the real DVD of Blazing Saddles and laugh my posterior off.