Legendary comedian Mel Brooks may be revamping another one of his classic films for the Broadway stage.
Following the success of musical versions of his comedies The Producers and Young Frankenstein, Brooks is looking to re-imagine his politically incorrect hit 1974 western satire Blazing Saddles.
“A lot of it is musical already,” Brooks said recently during a panel appearance on PBS
Blazing Saddles followed the absurdest adventures of “Black Bart,” an African-American sheriff who encounters unapologetically racist townspeople but ends up winning them over with his considerable wit and charm.
The film, which starred Gene Wilder and the late Cleavon Little and was co-written by Richard Pryor, was irreverent and vulgar in its day, and included abundant use of the n-word.
The 86-year-old Brooks suggested that Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained may have made the world safe for a musical based on his crude comedy.
“It has a rather fanciful and fantastic tone to it. And now that Django Unchained has literally used the n-word, I think I’m in the clear. I don’t look so bad. He really used that word a lot,” he said.