11. Mel Brooks Cons A Legend Into Singing A Spoof Song Blazing Saddles
If youre going to create a spoof, you have to make it as realistic as possible, yet ever so slightly off. The closer you can get to the real thing before pulling the comedy rug from under the audiences feet, the better spoofs should be pretty close to the bone, so authenticity is crucial. Nobody knows this like spoof master Mel Brooks. Like the Zucker-Abraham-Zucker trio and Edgar Wright after him, he knew realistic subject matter would make the lampoonery even better, so when the time came to shoot a cowboy movie, he knew he needed a convincing yet absurd theme song. Who Brooks had in mind for this was Frankie Laine the singer of classic Western theme Rawhide or at least somebody who sounded like the man. So he put his feelers out, and was charmed when he found Laine himself saying that Blazing Saddles was a cool name for a Western, and hed be happy to record a theme tune. Of course, Frankie thought this was just a regular Western, so played the whole damn thing perfectly straight. Brooks neglected to tell him about the comedy so Laine would do something realistic, rather than phone it in for a spoof. This made for the perfect spoof theme song if only for its complete earnestness.