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Connections, in both directions
There's an elaborate black-and-white dance scene, actually set to "Puttin' on the Ritz," that is boldly copped from Mel Brooks' 1974 "Young Frankenstein,"…
…the references to other movies often fall flat (among others, there are allusions to Cabaret, Bonnie and Clyde, Joker, Swing Time, and, of course, Young Frankenstein)…
How else can one reconcile scenes like the one where Frank and Ida perform an elaborate dance number to “Putting on the Ritz,” famously featured in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein?
…a ritzy sequence that briefly recalls the very best bit in Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein…
…extended homages to the top-hat-and-tails sophistication of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein…
…leading to fantasy dance sequences that are a split between Astaire/Rogers pictures and Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein.
A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)
Directed by Seth MacFarlane
influenced by Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), The Producers (1968)
Themes
I still don't think that movie's any good, but it is Young Frankenstein compared to A Million Ways to Die in the West.
The filmmaker clearly hopes that his comic Western will be this generation's companion piece to Mel Brooks' 1974 classic Blazing Saddles, a picture so revered that it rests in the number 6 slot on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 funniest American movies of all time (the highest ranked of three Brooks flicks, with The Producers at number 11 and Young Frankenstein at number 13).
The comedic western is a notoriously difficult nut to crack, with only a handful of directors ever pulling it off successfully (Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” which gets explicitly referenced here, are the notable exceptions), and MacFarlane seems both incredibly eager to join those rarified ranks and yet skittish about really maximizing the potential for the movie’s setting and concept.
Moving forward from that success, A Million Ways to Die in the West, a casual, sometimes vapid spoof on traditional and spaghetti westerns is not just reminiscent of Blazing Saddles, but seems to be a thematic copy, his attempt at flattering imitation.
And his new film is such an unapologetic homage to 1974's Blazing Saddles that Mel Brooks probably deserves to get a cut of the box-office receipts.
Mel Brooks' 1970s sagebrush spoof Blazing Saddles - clearly an inspiration for MacFarlane - shared a similarly sophomoric, scatalogical sensibility.
Frankenstein (2025)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
influenced by Young Frankenstein (1974)
Visuals Plot Characters
…fondly reminiscing about Gene Hackman’s fabulous cameo in Young Frankenstein…
Young Frankenstein (4 ¾ stars, 1974, directed by Mel Brooks)…
…a throwback, I couldn’t help but think, to Peter Boyle’s erudite version of the monster in Young Frankenstein…
Heck, there have even been all sorts of stand-ins for the creature too over the years, from Peter Boyle putting on the Ritz in 1974’s YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN…
…although brilliant, Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein does not quite count…
The Creature’s endless weeks as unseen help to a blind peasant were done better by Mel Brooks.
Django Unchained (2012)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced by Blazing Saddles (1974), The Producers (1968)
Themes Plot
Less-high-flown references evoke Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles and Richard Fleischer’s Mandingo, with former heavyweight boxing champ Ken Norton as the sex slave.
I’m not sure the first matters (it works in Tarantino’s fantasia concept) and the second — while likely having as much to do with Blazing Saddles (1974) as anything else — can be answered by reading Huckleberry Finn.
At times more in line with "Blazing Saddles" than the grimly bawdy qualities that define many bonafide oaters, "Django Unchained" erupts with a conceptual brilliance from the outset that never fully meshes with its clumsy storyline.
At one point, another plantation owner (played with ferocious glee by Don Johnson) goes off in pursuit of Django and Schultz with the aid of other members of the local chapter of the KKK and without going into detail, let it be said that what comes next is so laugh-out-loud funny that Mel Brooks will probably be kicking himself for not having thought of the joke himself when he was putting together "Blazing Saddles" back in the day.
In the subversive pairing of a black and a white man in the Old West, Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles may ring a bell, or the 1971 sagebrush comedy Skin Game, with James Garner and Louis Gossett Jr. as con-men partners.
One standout is a bit where a group of precursor KKK thugs argue about the efficacy of riding around in hoods with eyeholes cut in them, which would have felt right at home in "Blazing Saddles."
“High Anxiety” mocks “The Birds,” “Spellbound, “Psycho” and many other Hitchcock classics, but it’s pure Brooks through and through.
Spellbound and Vertigo are the source of the plot's main inspiration, but North by Northwest, The Birds, Dial M for Murder and many others are also referenced.
Choosing the misbegotten Spellbound, oddly, as its jumping-off point, High Anxiety stars Brooks as acrophobic Dr.
Generally juvenile and crass spoof of Hitchcock thrillers, filching themes and scenes from Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, Spellbound, etc, in its story of a psychologist going to work at a very strange and sinister Institute for the Very Very Nervous.
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Directed by Taika Waititi
influenced by The Producers (1968), Blazing Saddles (1974)
Themes
But of course, absurd as the idea may seem, some attempts to wring humor from the horrors of Nazi Germany have stood the test of time: Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” Ernst Lubitsch’s “To Be or Not To Be,” Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” and Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful,” to name a few.
But it’s been more than 50 years since Brooks & Co. first serenaded us with “Springtime for Hitler,” and it’s tough to imagine anyone taking the piss out of the Nazi Party better than The Producers.
Despite what Disney and Fox Searchlight's trailer marketing might lead you to believe, Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit is neither the quirky New Zealander's riff on Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, nor the feature-length version of Mel Brooks' fake "Springtime for Hitler" musical from The Producers.
Mike Judge got it right with Idiocracy and Office Space but has increasingly lost the thread with Silicon Valley; Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Stangelove and Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles have withstood the test of time because their respective analyses of the American military-industrial complex and racist bureaucracy are so strong.
“A movie like Blazing Saddles could never get made today”, people incorrectly spout; you have one right here, and it’s taking down Nazis and neo-Nazis alike.
In the midst of discussions over how to be funny in a modern world, and nonsense questions on whether or not a film such as Blazing Saddles could be made today, enter writer/director Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit .
Maybe Brooks's 1987 spoof of Star Wars came too long after the mania that inspired it to be truly effective, because I remember sitting in the theater as a teenager, laughing intermittently but mostly thinking, What is this shit?
A pr�cis of the film's plot is not necessary: Suffice it to say that there are a passel of jokes -- one coming roughly every 20 seconds -- made at the expense of "Alien," the "Star Trek" movies and the "Star Wars" films, with the latter taking the brunt of the attack.
Brooks and co-screenwriters Thomas Meehan and Ronny Graham hew fairly closely to Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back in their plotting.
Brooks's Star Wars parody isn't particularly sophisticated, but older kids and teens should have fun with the goofy humor.
Brooks' Star Wars spoof employs the familiar scattergun approach, featuring gags old and new, something borrowed and something blue.
This send-up of all the Star Wars movies abounds with typical Airplane-type visual gags and humor.
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
influenced by Blazing Saddles (1974)
Characters Dialogue Plot
(Harvey Korman was much funnier in the same role in Blazing Saddles.)
Early on, when he raises eyebrows by presenting himself in an all-white saloon as a “duly sworn warrant officer,” it’s hard not to hear echoes of Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles and Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours.
It’s Cleavon Little’s mosey into Rock Ridge in Blazing Saddles, only told with a straight face and with some horrendously clichéd saloon dialogue.
Having the most fun is Vincent D’Onofrio, whose savage yet rolly-polly tracker offers the exact midway point between Blazing Saddles ’ Mongo and the bear from The Revenant .
Aside from the original M7, there are shout-outs to Shane, Hang 'Em High, The Wild Bunch and, most curiously, Blazing Saddles.
Even the basic premise behind “The Magnificent Seven” of a town led by heroes defending itself from a ruthless villain has been used so much it has been parodied on multiple occasions (think “Blazing Saddles” and “The Three Amigos”).
A cultural grab-bag that both parodies and homages the spaghetti Westerns of the '60s and '70s (much as Blazing Saddles was at once parody and homage to the classic Western of the '50s), Rango is the kind of film where hardly one image or line seems plugged in because some studio executive thought it would "sell"; instead, it feels like every last idea is there because director and co-scenarist Gore Verbinski and his team of animators and filmmakers had some urgent want that it should be there.
It's a comedy but, like Blazing Saddles (although without the R-rated edge), it exposes a deep, abiding love for and knowledge of the genre.
It's a real movie lover's movie, conceived as a Blazing Saddles-like comic commentary on genre that's as back-lot savvy as it is light in the saddle.
Ultimately I would say the film is one part Fox, one part Brazil, a dash of Chinatown, and Blazing Saddles in a crunchy animated shell.
This is an inspired comic Western, deserving comparison with " Blazing Saddles ," from which it borrows a lot of farts.
The combination has been around a long while — dating clear back to silent pictures like Harold Lloyd’s Haunted Spooks and Wallace Reid’s The Ghost Breaker.
Of course their grandmother is Cloris Leachman, who years previous perfected the archetype of the kooky German lady in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein.
Prochnow is just one of the ringers brought in by the guys, while Cloris Leachman reaquires her wacky German accent from playing Frau Blücher in "Young Frankenstein," and she gets to let loose with a lot of swearing and nastiness that will make you glad that the guys didn't take some of her scenes even further.
The boys train by drinking dozens of beers a night, occasionally receiving advice from Grandpapa's widow, called Great Gram Gram and played by old pro Cloris Leachman in the same tone of Germanic grandeur she brought to "Young Frankenstein" years ago, when she uttered the famous line "Yes . . .
When their grandfather dies, their grandmother (Cloris Leachman, channeling her Frau Blucher from "Young Frankenstein”) gets them to take granddad's ashes back to the old country.
And though an Alien gag is priceless, recapturing a little of the dada sensibility that gives Brooks' early work its immediacy * , it, like references to the "Star Trek" transporter and the money shot of Planet of the Apes , presumes to lump Star Wars in with hard(er) sci-fi, which seems a rather philistine thing to do.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Directed by Rian Johnson
influenced by Spaceballs (1987)
Visuals Themes
At one point, he throws in a visual gag that could be interpreted as a nod to Mel Brooks’ 1987 parody “Spaceballs.”
From the very beginning Hux’s scenes are made to feel like lost reels from Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, and poor Boyega can’t catch a break as Finn is saddled with lame one-liners at every turn.
The beginning of Star Wars: The Last Jedi has more in common with Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs than it does any previous Star Wars , and comedics don’t stop there.
There’s a touch of “ Spaceballs ” and “Robot Chicken” to some of the jokes.
Moments later we see Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren removing that stupid Spaceballs helmet he wore for no reason in the previous picture and smashing it into a thousand pieces.
Writer-director Rian Johnson approaches the franchise with a bold new vision, influenced by everything from Ran to Spaceballs.
The main premise of the film (both its plot and characters) is mostly influenced by George Lucas’s sci-fi trilogy “Star Wars,” but Brooks borrows from the likes of nearly every popular sci-fi franchise, including “Star Trek,” “Aliens,” “Planet of the Apes,” and even the not-so-science-fiction tale “The Wizard of Oz.” Brooks includes a good collection of quality gags throughout, but it’s Moranis’ crowd-pleasing re-creation of Darth Vader that ultimately wins in the film’s internal battle for absolute absurdity.
A pr�cis of the film's plot is not necessary: Suffice it to say that there are a passel of jokes -- one coming roughly every 20 seconds -- made at the expense of "Alien," the "Star Trek" movies and the "Star Wars" films, with the latter taking the brunt of the attack.
Then rewind a little to Brooks' Spaceballs, and see how all the signs were there: the strained humor, the lame Star Trek references, the downright painful puns.
In addition to Star Wars, Brooks and company take potshots at Star Trek, Transformers (as in Howard Korder's 1985 off-Broadway space spoof "Episode 26," there's a kind of "Heavenly Hoover" involved in the climax), Alien, Max Headroom, and The Wizard of Oz.
Scenes of Bronfman training Puff how to be a man sound a contemporary echo to Young Frankenstein , while playing hip, raunchy and hilarious.
Nathan's plan, a la "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan" (and, more than a little, "Young Frankenstein"), is to take Puff back to the city and civilize him.
It's also an anthology of memories from other films, reminding me intentionally or not of everything from "The Wild Child" and "A Clockwork Orange" to "Young Frankenstein" and, most important, "Mon Oncle d'Amerique," the neglected 1980 masterpiece by Alain Resnais that could have inspired this whole picture.
North by Northwest (1959)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
influenced High Anxiety (1977)
Plot Themes Visuals
Hey, that’s from North by Northwest .
Spellbound and Vertigo are the source of the plot's main inspiration, but North by Northwest, The Birds, Dial M for Murder and many others are also referenced.
It's difficult to satirize an artist--at least in the revue fashion of Mel Brooks--because you're relying on motifs and iconography instead of clichés and conventions, and it's difficult to satirize Hitchcock because he did it himself with North by Northwest , a post-modern send-off for his most formulaic tendencies.
Smartly spoofing scenes from the likes of Psycho, North by Northwest, The Birds and Vertigo, right down to Hitch's famous camera angles, High Anxiety is my personal favorite in the Brooks' canon.
He takes such key Hitchcock moments as the shower scene from " Psycho " (1960), the climbing scene from " Vertigo ", and the shooting in "North by Northwest" and he clobbers them.
And the movie's most memorable gag pays tribute to both the Alien series and the classic Chuck Jones cartoon "One Froggy Evening."
I will confess to experiencing flashbacks to Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters, Lucky McKee’s May, and other riffs on the story while I was watching this…
The story has been moulded into numerous adaptations, parodies and spoofs, including Young Frankenstein (1974), Blackenstein (1973), Frankenhooker (1990), Frankenweenie (2012), and, most recently, Lisa Frankenstein (2024).
The story of the man who would be God and his creation has appeared in numerous cinematic guises, from the flatheaded, bolt-necked monster of 1930s as played by Boris Karloff to Peter Boyle’s all-singing-all-dancing creature in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein…
Along the way, del Toro does something one would think to be impossible — he reclaims the famous blind man sequence from the realm of the comedic, specifically from Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.”
…from the creepy (James Whale’s 1931 classic horror), to the hilarious (Mel Brooks’s 1974 classic Young Frankenstein)…
Even the Mel Brooks spoof Young Frankenstein looms larger over any update.
Sandler seems to be trying to hide under it, with tight and defensive posture perhaps inspired by "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" or Marty Feldman in "Young Frankenstein."
As for Thor’s homeland being reimagined as a hokey seaside tourist attraction offering merch and rides on Viking boats, the concept brings to mind the Brooks classic Spaceballs .