Blazing Saddles: 8 Ways It’s A Spot-On Parody Of Westerns

Mel Brooks has written and directed a number of classic parodies in his time. Spaceballs is a hilariously meta send-up of the Star Wars trilogy. Young Frankenstein is a spot-on satire of the Universal Monsters movies complete with black-and-white visuals, familiar lab equipment, and the titular mad scientist and his monstrous creation performing a duet of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

Related: Why Blazing Saddles Is Mel Brooks’ Best Spoof (& Why Young Frankenstein Is Second)

But arguably Brooks’ strongest spoof is Blazing Saddles, his lampoon of the western genre. Co-written with a team that included none other than Richard Pryor, Blazing Saddles is easily Brooks’ masterpiece – and probably the greatest western spoof that will ever be made.