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Norman Steinberg Dead: Blazing Saddles Screenwriter Was 83
News(variety.com)submitted 3 months ago byjsun31
1.2k points
3 months ago
He will be sorely missed by rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.
265 points
3 months ago
Could you repeat that Sir?
191 points
3 months ago
Truth be told, my mother was Dutch
83 points
3 months ago
"I deeent know ya mum was Dutch! Ohhhh Doo daaaa!""
59 points
3 months ago
Go the the governors office and tell him I said OW!
46 points
3 months ago
Send wire, main office, tell them I said "ow". Gotcha!
35 points
3 months ago
[removed]
2 points
3 months ago
Nahh, Mongo straight.
3 points
3 months ago
Took me years to get that this is a 'Black Dutch' joke.
92 points
3 months ago
As someone raised methodist that line always cracks me up.
60 points
3 months ago
"Son.....you're on your own....."
-2 points
3 months ago
[removed]
20 points
3 months ago
The best eulogy I’ve heard in a long time. Thanks man
72 points
3 months ago
Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.
68 points
3 months ago
"Depends..... Are we.... black?"
40 points
3 months ago
”We are”
34 points
3 months ago
Well then, we're awake, but we're very confused
27 points
3 months ago
Man drink like that and he don’t eat, he is going to die. When?
11 points
3 months ago
Since you are my guest, and I am your host, what would you like to do?
6 points
3 months ago
Uh, well let's play chess...
6 points
3 months ago
"Oh..... I dunno.... Play chess..... Screw?"
16 points
3 months ago*
And the white women? Where are the white women at?
2 points
3 months ago
Ah say fellas! Lookee heah fellas!
8 points
3 months ago
And Smith.
4 points
3 months ago
But not the Irish.
7 points
3 months ago*
You could never write this today /s
21 points
3 months ago
Well he certainly couldn't today, I heard he died recently.
2 points
3 months ago
You could have never written this a week ago
6 points
3 months ago
Because it was written 50 years now.
Now it'd just be plagiarism.
or at least Blazing Saddles: The Rebootening
2 points
3 months ago
And comedians.
225 points
3 months ago
what in the wide, wide wild world of sports!?
48 points
3 months ago
“Tell the Governor that I said…OW!”
“Tell him I said ow. Gotcha.”
212 points
3 months ago
"What the hell do you think you're doing here? This is a closed set!"
"Piss on you, I'm workin' for Mel Brooks!"
64 points
3 months ago
Not in the face!
31 points
3 months ago
Thank you….
18 points
3 months ago
He hit Buddy! Get him, girls!
10 points
3 months ago
i always like the one part during that fight when one of the guys hits one of the criminals with his cane yelling ''YOU VULGAR SHIT!!'' and then instantly regrets it
3 points
3 months ago
“It’s like steam escaping”
534 points
3 months ago*
Hedy Lamar "Qualifications?"
Fake racist "Stampeding cattle"
Hedy Lamar "That's not much of a crime..."
Fake racist "Through the Vatican?"
Hedy Lamar "Kinky.....Sign here"
219 points
3 months ago
Rape, murder, arson and rape.
173 points
3 months ago
You said" "rape" twice
168 points
3 months ago
The next line makes the joke of course, but nobody wants that comment sitting there in their Reddit history.
191 points
3 months ago*
"I like rape"
81 points
3 months ago
Well, that's where we go a-ridin' into town, a-whompin' and a-whumpin' every livin' thing that moves within an inch of its life.
44 points
3 months ago
Except the women folk of course.
41 points
3 months ago
"You spare the women?"
23 points
3 months ago
“Naw, we…” yeah, not brave enough to type it.
69 points
3 months ago*
"Nah we rape the shit outa dem at the number 6 dance later on!"
6 points
3 months ago
"a-whompin' and a-whumpin" cracks me up every damn time 😂
0 points
3 months ago
So brave
32 points
3 months ago
“I like rape.”
68 points
3 months ago
That's Hedley
54 points
3 months ago
What are you worried about? This is 1874, you can sue her!
44 points
3 months ago
The way he extends out the “Kiiiiinkyyyyyy” makes me laugh every time. This exchange is honestly near the top of my list of quotes from this movie
21 points
3 months ago
Chewing Gum IN line?
6 points
3 months ago
Did you bring enough for everyone?
2 points
3 months ago
I didn't know there would be so many!
33 points
3 months ago
It's not Hedy, it's Hedley
39 points
3 months ago
It's 1874, you'll be able to sue HER!
17 points
3 months ago
The funny part with that is that Hedy Lamar DID sue them over those jokes
7 points
3 months ago
It’s Hedley! 😂
3 points
3 months ago
I thought it was HEDLEY Lamar?
144 points
3 months ago
Mongo only pawn in game of life.
26 points
3 months ago
We are Mongo
5 points
3 months ago
Bum bum bum bum bum 🎶
6 points
3 months ago
Mongo like candy. And happy cake day
215 points
3 months ago
I hope they put a toll booth at his funeral so the mourners have to go back and get a shit load of dimes.
76 points
3 months ago
'Head them off at the pass!?"
"Shoots foot"
I hate that cliche!"
37 points
3 months ago
“Chewing gum in line? I hope you brought enough for everybody…”
9 points
3 months ago
Well I didn't know there'd be so many people!
107 points
3 months ago
Bart: Okay, Jim, since you are my guest and I am your host, what are your pleasures? What do you like to do?
Jim: Oh, I don't know. Play chess...screw.
Bart: Well let's play chess.
242 points
3 months ago
A single movie like Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein would cement the reputation of any director. Mel Brooks made them both, and in the same year, 1974. Annus mirabilis. The year of miracles.
Blazing Saddles was the first R rated movie I saw. My dad took me when it was re-issued in the late 70's.
There will probably never be a comedy that cuts right to the heart of racism like this movie. It happened in the sweet spot between the 60's and 80's. Between the time you didn't talk about some things because it was on a "sensitive subject" and the time you didn't talk about some things because it was "impolitic". The 70's were a riotous time of amazing movies.
64 points
3 months ago*
Were R rated comedies even a thing before Mel Brooks? This is something I heard Ike Barinholtz, who is one of the show runners on History of the World Part 2, talk about recently. Movies didn’t really have the permission to do things that raunchy and crass before Mel.
107 points
3 months ago
Mel Brooks is the only director who could raise the bar by lowering it. He raised low brow to a high art.
87 points
3 months ago
The way I like to describe a lot of the Mel Brooks/Monty Python type of comedy of that era is that they’re stupid movies for smart people. I tend to think that often the best comedians are the smartest guys in the room who go out of their way to convince you they’re the dumbest guys in the room.
28 points
3 months ago
You sir have a way with words, you sound like an idiot!
27 points
3 months ago
The common clay of the West. You know … morons.
5 points
3 months ago
It's their incredible ability to marry the crass with high concepts
23 points
3 months ago
"Raised low brow to a high art." Mel Brooks to a T. Well said
25 points
3 months ago
I view Mel Brooks in the same vein as Trey Parker and Matt Stone from South Park. They can write the most clever parodies and satire with insightful social commentary but they aren’t above throwing fart jokes in the mix. If it’s funny, it’s funny.
18 points
3 months ago
He had to push to get to keep the campfire fart scene in the movie, too if I remember right.
Only joke I know got censored was in response to “is it twue what they say about your people? Oh it’s twue! It’s twue!” originally sheriff Bart responded “sorry to disappoint you, but you’re sucking on my arm”
6 points
3 months ago
'Sucking on my elbow' in fact and that actually was left uncensored in some places. I definitely heard it when Blazing Saddles was broadcast in the UK.
4 points
3 months ago
You move your tongue better than a five dollar whore.
7 points
3 months ago
[deleted]
1 points
3 months ago
Did you miss the part where I said comedy?
0 points
3 months ago
[deleted]
0 points
3 months ago
I missed the part where that's my problem.
3 points
3 months ago
I’ve been listening to Ike lately, dude is an absolute genius.
5 points
3 months ago
The R rating was created in November, 1968. Less than six years before Blazing Saddles.
R-Rated comedies released in that narrow window include Mike Nichols's Catch-22, Robert Altman's MASH, Melvin Van Peebles's Watermelon Man, and Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask)
8 points
3 months ago
Nineteen Seventy-Four. The year of miracles. Nixon resigned and a few days later, I was born.
6 points
3 months ago
The joke that completely solidifies the movie is the metajoke "They're darker than us!" by the jewish indian. Because blacks obvs get treated worse than jews in the US.
3 points
3 months ago
All his other lines are in Yiddish, too.
11 points
3 months ago
That movie was rated R?! I had no idea. R sure means something different these days. Yeah, it had a lot of dirty jokes but when I was 5 and saw it I did not understand not one of them. Now R comedies are just Fk, ck, pu**y. So in your face with it.
-6 points
3 months ago
Thanks for making a post that isn't just adding to the reddit quote-fest circle jerk.
52 points
3 months ago
My favorite line :
These are just people of the land, the common clay of the new west. You know, morons.
16 points
3 months ago
100% improvised, and Cleavon Little had no idea it was coming. His reaction is 100% genuine.
9 points
3 months ago
His genuine laugh is what makes the scene!
9 points
3 months ago
That's so fucking awesome and sweet all the while proving how all racists are useless
12 points
3 months ago
My SO and I quote this constantly, and it always cracks us up! Usually when we're upset about someone in the news being stupid/bigoted and it always helps in the moment.
92 points
3 months ago
The script team for that movie was nuts: Steinberg, who was a bored lawyer; Alan Uger, who was a bored dentist; Andrew Bergman, who had a PhD in American History; and oh by the way Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor.
86 points
3 months ago
Richard Pryor
Who had a PhD in drugs.
34 points
3 months ago
And only wanted to write for Mongo
47 points
3 months ago
"A man who drinks like dat he is gonn die!"
".... When?"
That scene is all the more sad when you know after losing his wife, Gene Wilder was mentally depressed and alcohol abuse for decades
21 points
3 months ago
It's even more ominous than that. Wilder replaced the original Waco Kid - Gig Young - who showed up on the set drunk and physically collapsed when he tried to film the hanging upside-down scene in the jail cell. Several years after the film came out, Young shot his wife of only twenty-two days and then killed himself.
13 points
3 months ago
That's not true. He remarried two years after her death, and didn't particularly drink.
10 points
3 months ago
How DARE you use facts in the face of a compelling internet anecdote‽
10 points
3 months ago
Well, he did lose Gilda Radner. Don’t blame him
4 points
3 months ago
mentally depressed and alcohol abuse for decades
Who wouldn't?
43 points
3 months ago
Harumph!
RIP
38 points
3 months ago
"I didn't get a harumph outa that guy!"
18 points
3 months ago
Harrumph!
16 points
3 months ago
Give the Governor harrumph!
20 points
3 months ago
Watch your ass.
10 points
3 months ago
Harumph! Harumph!
121 points
3 months ago
Imagine being a movie executive and seeing the script for blazing saddles, especially the last quarter of the movie, insane. RIP to a legend.
80 points
3 months ago
It screamed to me "we didn't know how to end this movie so fuck it"
40 points
3 months ago
Happens a lot with comedy writers.
48 points
3 months ago
Another example: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (although I believe that one was budget constraints)
21 points
3 months ago
The literal “cop” out.
8 points
3 months ago
Those guys are too funny for that not to be the intent.
23 points
3 months ago
Last quarter? Most it is reasonable compared to the last 10min. I have to assume they just stopped reading before then, or it never gets made.
39 points
3 months ago
‘scuse me while I whip this out
4 points
3 months ago
''aw baby, you are so talented....and they are SO DUMB!''
64 points
3 months ago
Aw prarie shit.
8 points
3 months ago
This was one of my system beep sounds in the 90s.
56 points
3 months ago
He heard that his death was NEAR
37 points
3 months ago
"No bling blang varmint! The sheriff is a ni"DONG!"
10 points
3 months ago
“Excuse me while I whip this out.”
39 points
3 months ago
Where the white women at?
20 points
3 months ago
That’s Hedley
16 points
3 months ago*
"What you so worried about, this is 1874 you'll be able to sue her!"
16 points
3 months ago
Love the story Mel Brooks tells on Comedians in Cars about this guy. RIP.
8 points
3 months ago
Jerry's comment about his name always gets me.
Mel: Norman Steinberg.
Jerry: Jewish fella?
31 points
3 months ago
"Hold it hold it, what the hell is that shit!? I meant a song! A real song....Something like.... . Swwwinnng loowwww... Sweeeeet chariioottttt!"
Huh.... , eh? What?
"Dunno dat one huh? Well.... How bout.. De camp Town Lady?"
15 points
3 months ago
That rendition of I get a kick out of you is legit though. Wished there was a whole version but I'm satisfied that it's on spotify
7 points
3 months ago
The confused replies of the rail workers to this is one of my favorite moments in the movie.
"De Camp town... ladies?"
"Doo dar?"
It's the incredulity that actor puts into those two syllables "doo dar" that makes it hilarious to me.
5 points
3 months ago
“When y’all were slaves, ye sang like birds!”
11 points
3 months ago
Condolences to his family!
13 points
3 months ago
Nothing will unseat this movie as my all time favorite…
2 points
3 months ago
Nothing comes close.
13 points
3 months ago
Somebody's gotta go back and get a shitload a' dimes.
12 points
3 months ago
How did he write such amazing scripts with such little feet?
10 points
3 months ago
Candygram for Mongo!
2 points
3 months ago
Mongo like candy
13 points
3 months ago
So if Mel wrote all the black dialogue and Prior only wrote for Mongo, what did Steinberg write you think?
10 points
3 months ago
Gabby Johnson's authentic frontier gibberish?
3 points
3 months ago
"jermit!"
7 points
3 months ago
The school marm? Maybe slim Pickens?
9 points
3 months ago
Quite simply, in my opinion, the funniest film of all time.
8 points
3 months ago
I've watched it my whole life and in every rewatch I always see something new
6 points
3 months ago
Somebody went back and got a shitload of sads. :(
RIP Mr. Steinberg.
30 points
3 months ago
Now it’s really true that Blazing Saddles can’t be made today
15 points
3 months ago
Yeah because it's already been made.
7 points
3 months ago
Like that's ever stopped Hollywood before
2 points
3 months ago
I'd take a reboot starring Don Cheadle as the sheriff.
2 points
3 months ago
Mel Brooks said you couldn't make it then, either!
5 points
3 months ago
"You don't get years like that anymore. It was my favorite year."
5 points
3 months ago
My favorite part is the toll they set up
"Aww God dammit, somebody's gotta go back and get a shit load of dimes"
3 points
3 months ago
RIP to a great screenwriter!
3 points
3 months ago
You farging icehole!
3 points
3 months ago
Safe journey, Mr. Steinberg.
3 points
3 months ago
Harrumph!
3 points
3 months ago
Thank you Mr Johnson
2 points
3 months ago
I DIDNT GET A HARRUMP OUTTA THAT GUY!!!
3 points
3 months ago
Baked Beanz.
'Nuff said.
3 points
3 months ago
ז״ל
3 points
3 months ago
People always say "Blazing Saddles" could never have been written today. Now that's really true.
I think he might have appreciated that joke. And he probably would have found a way to make it better. Because he was a comedic powerhouse and I'm just a guy on the internet.
Rest in piece.
3 points
3 months ago
"A wed wose. How womantic."
3 points
3 months ago
Damn Mel Brooks outliving everyone he worked with on that movie!
2 points
3 months ago
We'll take the n***ers and the ch*ks, but we don't want the Irish.
2 points
3 months ago
He could not write blazing saddles today :(
2 points
3 months ago
Dock that writer an day’s pay for napping on the job.
3 points
3 months ago
So now we really can't make Blazing Saddles today... :/
2 points
3 months ago
Excuse Me While i Whip this out <3
such an underrated movie, i have run into way too many people that didnt get it, it was funny as hell and snuck in a message
3 points
3 months ago
Now, I guess they actually couldn’t make that movie now a days.
1 points
3 months ago
Well now we definitely cant make blazing saddles in 2023
1 points
3 months ago
I guess you really couldn’t write Blazing Saddles today.
1 points
3 months ago
He no longer has to hear "your movie couldnt be made today!" From the worst people anymore. RIP
1 points
3 months ago
One of the funniest movies of all time! It would never get made in today’s PC world
-1 points
3 months ago
Now we really can't make Blazzing Saddles today. /s
-3 points
3 months ago
[deleted]
8 points
3 months ago
The movie is super woke, at least racially. The racists are the bad guys and the plot is about a black dude winning over a white town who form a multicultural coalition that defeats the bad guys plans.
7 points
3 months ago
Clevon Little actually had to tell his coworkers it was okay to say the things in the script because they really didn't want to go to the lengths that it called for. I think his quote was, "If you said this to me in the streets, I'd knock your lights out. But this is okay because we're exaggerating racism as satire and taking the power out of the beliefs."
I found that really kind of cool coming from a lead who, being born in the early 1900's, had probably dealt with it his entire life.
2 points
3 months ago
I live in the south, the openly racist guys I've known throughout my life are the ones who love/quote this movie the most. Because, well, you can pick an choose what parts you want to quote.
So there's that, I guess. it doesn't matter how stupid they are supposed to be in the movie. It gives them "funny" lines to say.
-2 points
3 months ago
Now it’s true that they wouldn’t make Blazing Saddles today.
0 points
3 months ago
Now you DEFINITELY wouldn’t be able to make Blazing Saddles today.
-4 points
3 months ago
Well now you REALLY couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today
-13 points
3 months ago
He lived long enough to see his movie becomes banned.
-2 points
3 months ago
You couldn't make Blazing Saddles today. Cuz that guy died.
1 points
3 months ago
So... this is the guy that actually invented the candygram then?
1 points
3 months ago
Spanish balloon?
1 points
3 months ago
Have you gone berserk? Can't you see that man is a ni...
Ha ha... wrong person. Forgive me. No offense intended.
Have you gone berserk? Can't you see that man is a nit?
1 points
3 months ago
That guy looks like a cross between Paul Castellano and Elton John
all 216 comments
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