ANTHOLOGIES ATTACK! - History of the World Part One

We're in wait, miss.

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Welcome back midnight viewers to Anthologies Attacked, where we examine anthologies of every media and a genre and with me my co host, back to me shoot on location on the Arborean Moon. Mis Or Gordon's alive.

Hey, father Malone, how are you today?

I am well, sir, and happy to be talking about another anthology that's lighter hearted.

Yeah, after all that Cohen Brothers heavy handedness and you think you go into a Cohen Brother's picture and you're like, it's going to be fun, and then you're like, oh no, this movie's about dead people and sadness. I got God

Yes, indeed, and that picture is History of the World Part one, written, produced and directed by mister mel Brooks, starring mel Brooks, also starring Dom de Luise, Madeline conn Harvey Korman, Chloris Leachman, Gregory Hines, and Pamela Stevenson, with narration by Orson Well. The film was released on June

From the naked dawn of man to the magnificence of the Bible.

The Lord Jehovah has given onto you The's fifteen.

Ten ten commandments.

From the glory that was Rome to the dark evils of the Spanish Inquisition.

War now begins the Inquisition.

I go about to the French Revolution with its squalor and its splendor.

The Pesses may grow violent, they are my people. I am the sovereign.

I love them.

The History of the World Part one, starring.

Stead the Manor King, o Women, Morman, more Handsometan love long.

Ship, your beautiful that I'm just meeting on a high note.

Hey, what country are you from?

The Ophia?

What part.

On twenty fifth Street?

I'm Miriam, I'm the best Virgin.

I'm really sorry to hear that you should have been here over thirty grains ago. Please, brothers mee chest day drama.

Do you require a bland pol none?

Have you any last words?

None? Chest do yokee action.

Where they're going?

I don't know.

Romance, they win eight Spectacle, The Acquisition what a show.

We know you wish and that we go away.

But the Exquisition's here and it's here to stay.

Tail Brooks. History of the World Part One ten million years in.

The making, Antonio, where did you first see this movie? What are your memories of this movie?

I saw this pretty much like ninety eight percent of everybody from the age of forty to fifty forty to fifty something. I first saw this movie on HBO, probably after school with my buddies Chris Smith and Mike Smith at their grandma's house. It was on HBO constantly, and it was on the superstation constant. Those were the other two, and of course the HBO version being much better. Yeah, and I saw a zillion times growing.

Up, I had the exact same experience. Yeah, I already loved to mel Brooks. I had seen by the time History of the World Part One hit HBO. I know that I had seen Young Frankenstein in the theater. I don't think on the initial run. I think it was one when the movie initially came out, but they did back in the day, if you remember, they would re release movies from time to time, and on one of those re releases, I got to see you on Frankston, so I knew who mel Brooks was, and he was

I'm betting my first exposure to him was probably Spaceballs or my age, yeah, ten or whatever I was when I came out, But maybe this Young Frankenstein. I don't think I saw until I was like thirteen or fourteen. But before we go on, Young Frankenstein is his master. Young Frankenstein is not only one of the funniest movies that ever made, I think Young Frankenstein is one of the finest movies ever made. It is a flawless, perfect film that is not only about making laugh, but it's

It is a masterpiece. And I was a projectionist at a movie theater that was showing The Producers the remake, the musical remake, And I've seen about thirty seconds of it. It played for a couple of weeks at least, but I could not bear to watch more than a few frames of it. It's just so tired. I'm Antonio. I'm not the kind of guy who says things should not be remade.

Go for it.

What's your take on the material? I'm dynasty it. But there's something inherently sad about mel Brooks recycling his material and turning it into comedy. God bless him, he turns it into this whole second life, third life, fifth life of his career. But I, yeah, I don't. You wouldn't remake Citizen Kane, Yeah, exactly.

Now. I don't have a problem with him doing remakes of his music as the stuff as Broadway musicals, But I like that on the stage. There's no reason to make a movie version out of the stage. The movie's perfect. There's no reason to remake the movie if you want to relive the movie as a stage experience. I'm not unopposed to that. I think it's a little out of hand. I don't know why the hell is there back to.

The future but a beach back to the future is that's.

Yeah, But the producers I think lends itself, okay to a musical reinterpretation, because with some musicals they begin with so okay, on the stage, it's cool. I would like to play, you know, in that musical on stage as an actor, it's great. But as a movie, no, why the movie's flawless. And here's another thing too, it's a pretty movie. The production value, the cinematography, the direction of

I don't know, yeah, I don't think he was. Brooks has never been afraid of showing the artifice back then. Yeah, not only the inquisition sequence. Take the opening sequence of the Stone Age. That's just a fucking painted backdrop.

Yeah.

So yeah, I guess to a certain aggrace, he's not afraid of showing it. But like his work in the seventies is so much more dynamic and there's more care into the filmmaking than and this one's a little you.

Know what, I agree with you, But in those cases other than the producers, because that was his own thing. But once he got into parody, he had a target he was aiming at, and so there was a style of filmmaking that he could ape in a way, and he's a very very good mimic of those styles. But when it came to History of the World Part one, what is he supposed to do here? He's left to his own devices, And each of these segments is so different than the previous.

If I had been going to be like, oh, I'm five directed, But if I had been directing it, I would have my goal would have been, Okay, I've got nine vignettes or whatever, eighty five or six vignettes in this movie. I am going to shoot each vignette like the period pe, like a period piece from that genre. So I wouldn't have stopped making. I would have shut

Yeah, it's not look in some cases, I think the jokes aren't landing the way they used to, and he's cannibalizing himself a lot here. But it is also the matter of the budget. I think by nineteen eighty one, it's crazy to think, because he has such a fucking huge run during the nineteen seventies that by eighty one, three or four years later, they're just going, yeah, you can have it this month. You can have ten million for this one, and like he had received ten million

No, not at all. I like, so, is there a like a six to seven year break between this and Spaceballs?

It's four years between High Anxiety, which didn't do as well as Silent Movie, which didn't do as well as Young Frankenstein, until History of the World Part one, and then it is an additional six years still Spaceball.

Yeah, but I did this make money?

This did. It was a budget of ten million, It pulled in thirty. So you figure even if they spent the exact same amount on advertising, it's still made ten million dollars.

Yeah. They probably spent fifteen on advertising, five on advertising.

Back ten so that's a real big success. This is nineteen eighty one.

That's what Star Wars ten million dollars.

In seventy six.

In seventy six, Wow, Burr strikes Back.

Cost like fifty so and they have a big space battle in this.

They sure do it, and it's actually a pretty good space battle. I just watched it this afternoon again, like, well, that's actually pretty good. You definitely see space Balls there.

Oh yeah. I was young enough that when I saw the Fink preview at the end of this movie that I thought it was serious.

Yeah, So that and basically every other kid who watched it. Did they did they include that the sequelized serial.

I don't know, because I watched maybe half an episode and decided, I'm I don't want to tarnish damage. I don't want to touch them. I did watch it, Oh okay, I.

Got through it. I remember, I enjoyed it. But there was too much of it. It was just too much of it, Like you're gonna stretch out a ninety minute movie or a hundred minute movie into six or seven, eight, nine half hour episodes? Are you mad? And they like they would repeat the skits, so the skits would come back, like, why are you redoing this skit? You gotta just cut

My feeling with that sequel series was that when you look back at the original film as hack as some of the jokes are as silly, or maybe some lines don't land, some do, all of that dialogue was written down by mel Brooks, probably rewritten and rewritten, and then brought to the set where actors interpreted it. I got the feeling with that series that they're following the appeto method of we've got an idea here and now let's just play, and we're getting the let's just play takes.

So I've, as the audience may have heard, I've directed a couple of things, feature a bunch of shorts, and we just did a forty eight hour film fest a few months ago with our movie called dead Listing. You can find it on YouTube, and I shot it in

To do these things.

And I don't know anybody who's funnier than mel Brooks in nineteen seventy something, So I don't know that. Being said, it was chaos to shoot like that, and you really got to have strong actors, and you've really got to spend your time in the editing. It's writing in reverse. I don't know. I'm a fan of doing both, to be honest with you, I want to go in there with a funny script and then have my funny actors make what I wrote funnier.

Oh, I'm not discounting the method. I'm just saying, like the jarring styles was just another kind of trigger for me to turn the damn thing off.

But yeah, you're absolutely right, because the folks in it were a lot of the actors in it were a lot of the improvs, the improv tradition, and a lot of groundlings of there and a lot of Second City folks and Ike Barenholtz who's from Mad TV's Great Improv Guy. And Nick Krall is another one who I think is hilarious and I think his show is hilarious. But the what's the show? Big Mouth funnier than shit? But big Mouth suffers the same thing that The History of the World Part two suffer, just.

Too much of it, like ultimately comes down to judicial editing. I would think, yeah, it no need every.

Joke, guys, brevity is the solo whit too. Yeah.

By comparison, History of the World Part one is ninety minutes.

And it's ninety minutes that are all pretty solid. Some of it's a little dated. I'm gonna even get to this. They lean way heavy into the gay jokes in this one, more than in Blazing Saddles, and I can argue in Blazing Saddles, actually they play better, like it's not as mean spirited.

And say why Because in Blazing Saddles, when people would level criticisms at Brooks or say the Zucker Abram Zucker guys, or even Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the answer is always, well, they're making fun of literally everyone, Like everyone is a target, so you can't get upset when it's your group being attacked, and Blazing Saddles feels that way. It feels like you're all our target, whereas this movie doesn't seem to be

Yeah that's what I got to And another thing again in Blazing Saddles, I don't find it as mean spirited. Yeah there's the fag joke so to speak, not to like use for such boorish language, but there there's the the musical number calm girls, let's get them. But I feel like they cast gay dudes to do that, and I feel like they're in on the joke a little bit, and it's more of a spoof of the Broadway Line than of the being like, hey, look at.

The fags again. You know what comedy as always do you trust who's telling you the joke? So intent? You got to know their intent, right. I don't think if I tuned in and heard Mark Marin saying he was voting for Trump, I would know that he was joking. I would know he was being iron you know what I mean. There's no way and just the way I know that if he were to tell something completely off color, that maybe he's making some further point. So intention counts.

That's actually in my notes in the Rome sequence I wrote that's probably the difference is Blazing Saddles. The jokes were funny. When the stunt man gets into the Tulsa with the dancer and they go behind the thing and come out, he's like, I'm not part by the commissary and he's got his arm around him. That joke, that joke eight, as the kids would say today, that is a solid hilarious joke. But in this movie it's just I'm saying blah blah blah, and the fag over here,

Don't because he's already that caricature. He's mincing and lisping, and he's so gay, and then it's and then like the cherry on top, the little fag gets it. Come on, mel calm down.

Mel Brooks couldn't have said twinkle toes. That might even might have played a little better. I don't know. Also, a lot a lot of tho stuff in this picture doesn't play as well. I think he's starting to show his age a little bit, and like his uncoolness, I guess it's starting to show up a little bit. There's a note I have in here about all the old tiny comics in it, like, I never realized how unfunny so many of.

Them oalking about Sid Caesar and Shaky Greening.

Yeah, and who's the guy with the and doing back and it's just so his whole gag is making fart noises. Really, you were a comedian that had a long career doing that, and Sid Caesar and Soupy Sales, Oh my god, just these guys are not funny. I guess these are all dudes he worked with when he was coming up, your Show of Shows and.

That type of Yeah, I mean that very famously. Your Show of Shows was Melbrook's first professional writing career, and on the staff was Carl Reiner and Woody Allen and Neil Simon and creator of the Waltons, and it was just it was an insane fucking group of people. So yeah, he's he. I think always felt behold and reverential to Sid Caesar, and Sid Caesar's appearance is okay. The problem is that nothing he's doing is funny. He's given really lame jokes.

Is what is it? All those guys are like your Semitic super squad of silliness, your finest kid. Yeah, the finest comedian comedy writers of his generation. Mel Brooks is probably the funniest Carl writers. Prettyis funny. That Dick Van Dyke Show was pretty good. I used to watch that when I was little on Nigked Night and Neil Simon. I was a theater kid in high school, so I know Neil Simon never really did much for me though.

Yeah, Neil Simon I really enjoyed in my youth, and I thought it was so clever and witty, and the older I got, I was just like, it's just him talking to him. It's like Kevin Smith. It's just like the description I love of with Neil Simon's like a woodpecker sitting on either side of your head snapping away.

At least Kevin Smith talks about Star Wars, and we said, okay, I've got a cultural reference here, and like Weed, okay, and Woody Allen. I like Annie Hall. I love Annie Hall, and that's about it.

That's fair. I like some of the other stuff we like. We talked about him over on a previous episode of Antholos. He's attacked New York Stars. You can go back on this right where we spoke a bit about mister Allen. Yeah, but of that group of people, I think mel Brooks is the one. I think one who's honestly had the greatest impact. Like, all of these guys have their places in comedy history, and certainly I think everyone else would say Woody Allen, the cognizanti of the comedic world, would

Yeah, and wo Woody Allen I think had the bigger initial impact, you know what I mean with his many like Melbrooks had oscars as well, so they're both equally critically acclaimed, so to speak. I think the high brown nature of everybody, oh, Woody Allen, and then the years of him being a weirdo and a seam bed wainsize like Cuban saying, a shameless kind of guy, and all his allegations and everything, I think his cultural impact has lessened.

Baseball's was also a decade late. That was the problem. If you remember when it came out, it was like, but now.

Yeah, they should have come out in nineteen eighty two, not nineteen eighty seven or eighty eight or everything. Although I do think Spaceballs is the strongest of his eighties and nineties his later directing career for sure, because I think by the time you get to Robin hood Men in tights Man, the jokes are really stale. And there are points in that movie where they tell the joke and the editor waits for the audience to laugh and then makes the cut, and the pacing is just not great.

The Twelve Chairs is also a really good movie. It's not on par with the producers Placing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, but that run right there, Producers, Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein. It's fucking unprecedented and nothing could nothing to live up to it. So and I like Silent Movie, okay. And I like High Anxiety Okay. I think everything after

Yeah, and the gags are good. I think when you know you're twelve, they're better because it definitely he made a comedy for his kid.

What's the Matter? Colonel Sanders Chicken doesn't really ring quite as humorous to me.

Now, But I think he made a movie for his kid, because his kids about my age or your age in that neighborhood. And I'm sure he's like, I want to make something my boy can watch. Maybe that's because I think the jokes are funny, and as a Star Wars and Star Trek fan, it's always going to be sweet to is a sweet spot for me, that movie. But it's still some of it.

I'd say most of it is dated. Yeah, but it has John Candy and you can't go wrong with mister John Candy.

And you can't go wrong with mister Rick mor.

Oh No, not at all. Always great. Yeah, yeah, you're right. There's just quite a bit to recommend that movie. I'm hard on and I should probably revisit it before I open my mouth.

I wonder if they'll be able to coax Rick Moranas out of retirement for that Space full seat.

That would be the fucking get of all time, right, Yeah, that would be like getting the Emperor back unexpectedly.

Somehow Rick moranis returned.

Yeah, that'd be pretty great. Oh my god. You know what if Josh Gatt, if you can do that, I'll go see the movie. I will do my best to promote the movie. Okay, let's dive into this movie. Yeah, as it is our first segment, our first first segment. I'll say about two years ago I attempted to show this to someone who had never seen it. We got to about the first scene and they were like, is this going to be it? And I said yeah, pretty

Yes, my first note on my phone here is jack off.

Kubrick, jack off Cooprick. If it had in any way appeared that any one of those poorly suited men were actually jerking off, I'd give this scene a pass. But it's like watching a bunch of children, like a bunch of twelve year olds who are being naughty.

Yeah, it's weird, it's not very funny, and I think jack Off Kubrick sounds like a dead Milkman song. But you know, and and so it brings us to the stone age, right, but it's still pretty I love everybody loves that opening of two thousand and one. Man, Just if you guys would have watched two thousand and one and aped the movie a little more and the quality of that movie a little more that I think the

And I'll say this in nineteen seventy four before Kentucky Fried movie hit the scene, The Groove Tube. Oh yeah, and the last third of the Groove Tube is a two thousand and one parody, or at least a portion of that movie. Is this two thousand and one parody and it's it's the ground's been covered?

Is that the movie that has got Bill Murray as the clown in it?

No, that's quick change, no.

No from but like him hosting like a kid show or no, it's.

Not Bill Murray, But that is the movie that's the director actually playing that part of chevy Chase is in the movie because Chevy Chase was part of that original comedy.

True. Is that also the picture where the guy runs into the into the black neighborhood and screams the N word?

And no, that's Kentucky Fried movie, Tucky Fried movie. Yeah, that's the Something thrill Seeker.

Which is the one that ends with the guy getting chased by the titties jumping off them.

No, no, no, that is Monty Python's meaning of life.

Oh that's man, that's a lot of a lot of listening with the idology movies, these comedies, he all blend into each other.

Or all over the anthological landscape. We get to the stone age, bro stone Agent. Okay, we just see the major inventions, the inventions of fire, the invention of art, the invention of weapons, the invention of marriage, gay joke.

Gay joke, and of course wars and Wells.

Who evidently was hired for five days, was to be paid five thousand dollars a day, was paid upfront, came in, recorded everything in a few hours, and left.

Yeah.

I had that note too, orson Wells remaining the coolest white dude ever.

Just I love man. I listened to some of those old out take tapes of him being petulant and drunk.

Why I just did it right. Look, I'm not used to having more than one person in there. One more word out of you and you go.

Is that clear? Yes?

I take I take direction from one person under protest, but from two I don't said. Still, but who the hell are you anyway? Well, why the hell are you asking me for another one?

Just one law? Yeah, it was mindful.

I should I said in July, if you can leave every July.

You didn't say it.

He said it.

Your friend every July.

So aw, no, you don't really mean every jewel.

But that's the best bad copy.

It's in July. Of course, it's every joy. It's too much directing around you, and all I can think is good for you. Man, you know what? You're right? This guy from Bird's Eye Frozen Vegetables is directing. He shouldn't be directing you. He should shut his mouth.

The poor guy got the shaft his entire career, made the greatest movie all of all time, kept making these masterpieces that studios are just burying, stiffing him on recutting, like how do you recut Touch of Evil? Touch of evil is fucking believable. How good that movie is. And yeah, it's got Charlton Hesson of the Mexican and somebody's like, all right, fine, I'm stuck with his asshole. I'll make it work. And he made it work.

And you know what, Heston worked against it because he doesn't do the fucking accent. Yeah, so like he knew he was miscast, but he wanted that movie and it's he's He's the reason. He's the reason Wells got on it in the first.

Place because he wanted to work with Wells right, hired.

Him to rewrite it and then was like, now I think he should direct it. This is his script. So yes, he was basically the one who's rammed him through the studio system to get him there. Yeah, it would have been better with a Mexican actor, but fucking there wouldn't be a movie without it.

Yeah, it just that movie like Nowhere to Go But Lady from Shanghai.

Every time you and I fucking talk about Arson Wells, I end up rewatching that flick.

Yeah.

Oh do you really?

Oh yeah? A Touch of Evil is just fucking it's the look you can say. Citizen Case is the best movie of all the time. You could say it's his best movie. It's not. This Touch of Evil is pure cinema, man, it's just whoo, let's go.

I feel that way about Lady from Shanghais.

Oh yeah, that's the other one. That's my other favorite. The final sequence alone, never mind the other preceding night ninety or so minutes and how.

Many times has that sequence been ripped off over and over?

Just every sequence the man came up with.

Yeah, Bruce Lee at the end of Enter the Dragon, it's that sequence and the Dark Knight fucking returns Batman chases the Joker and is the same fucking sequence. Yeah, he's just doing what we gotta do. An Orson and Wealth podcast evidently, Yeah, the university had a bunch of I'm from I graduated from U ANDOV and it's a really good program now too, if you want to study cinema. We had a lot of stuff in their archives with his daughter, Beatrice Wells lived here for a very long

All right, all right, back to the fucking stone We're moving on. I don't know before you go this.

From the Stone Age. The one thing that does play at the Stone Age We're just interesting is that it plays like a tex savery exactly like a tex Savy cartoon, one of the Automobile of the Future or House of the Future sequences, where it's like here the Man of the Future does is the Man of the Stone Age discovers fire and then the guy goes there's the gag, and there's the gag, and there's the gag and it's cool. It goes on too long, and since he'sar just isn't

Since you brought up text Avery, that actually reminds me of the world's first criminal that he did a short that was about a like Texas in the Stone Age and all these cavemen were cowboys and they were riding on dinosaurs. Do you remember this?

Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. I haven't seen that cartoon probably since I was fifteen or something, but remember.

That it's all narrated by this guy who's letting. It's this drawling text avery type character as lenning the entire story and at the end that it's all It shows you at the beginning like modern Dallas, and then this old like stone hewn hewn from the stone jail, and at the end it goes back there and the caveman comes to the door and he says, when you're all going to let me out of here? It's like a

Because it's not as funny as something in tex Savery would have done. Yeah, and it's kind of limited and the gags just.

Aren't very poor, provocatively poor. But moving on, Oh to the Old Testament.

And Moses and his evolving accent throughout the movie.

Yeah, it's it's very hebrew here, it's very Hebrewic.

But he loses it halfway through the scene.

Yeah, and apparently it's a pickup like they had this. Now it's just the Stone Age set, And Brooks said he was thinking, like we were just going from the Stone Age straight to the Roman Empire? Is there nothing in between? Is no joke I can make, and knowing he had the set, he was like, well, oh okay, here's one.

That's a funny gag. Though these fifty ten comments. See that's one thing about this movie though Yet a lot of the jokes are stupid, But so many of the jokes they're just so timeless and perfect and just so on the ball, like they're just oh man, they're really good.

The other commandments are don't impregnate, don't laugh, don't buy, and don't break. That's pretty good, Easter egg. That's as funny as anything else in this movie.

O kid, Yeah, that's pretty good man.

All right, Okay, so now that's the Old Testament? Basically, what are you going to do? Carl Reiner as the voice of God? There By the way that was I have that note?

Is that Carl, and I think it's a playback, a call back to the two thousand year old man to the same interview process.

Yeah, two thousand percent.

But the Carl Reiners delivery is God is just hilarious. Moses, like he's talking.

To his son exactly. It's perfect. Okay. When we get to Rome, here's a boring autobiographical pause. I was dating a girl in college who did a semester abroad and did it in Rome. I made her a mixtape that began with this Orson Wells narration.

Rooms of Civilization Rome and then leading straight into the columns Gets your Columns here, Gets Your Columns, and then followed immediately by in the Coliseum by Tom Waits.

I'm still proud of that mixtape to this day. Clearly, even though it's thirty years later.

That is pretty good. That delivery he is that too, is just it's like a commercial room.

Oh, ro it's it is. It makes the movie grand.

Yeah, that's Orson Wells for you. He made the Transformers great, anything grand. He made fish sticks.

Great, like the most putrid wine available suddenly became appealing or not appetizing, not ultimately.

And those jokes were playing to little kids ten twenty years later on the Animaniacs making and people still laughing at him. Orsen Wells has a great impact. I'm glad people still talk.

Evidently loved Pink's hot Dogs. I am not surprised by that at all, not at all either. They're fucking great. Okay anyway, Rome, this is where we finally get an

No?

The great b Arthur, the Arthur, my.

God, just the queen of dead pan. No buddy, more dead pan than that woman, Just so dry, such great and so tall.

Yeah.

Yeah, ron Carey, who is like a frequent mel Brooks guy, playing Swiftest his agent little pun on Swifty Lazaar love it which.

Nobody's gonna get that job. No nobody under the age of forty might get that joke. Swiftly Lazar was this legendary Hollywood agent known for being one hundred thousand years old and.

Having giant He that character, even though people won't remember his basis, the line he delivers early on has impacted the way I think about this word. If I see somebody refer to something as it being nuts, my mind will immediately fill in afterwards. Envts nuts Buck You Brooks for writing that line and sticking it in here. God damn it.

This opening sequence is just filled with jokes like that a bunch of little Easter egg jokes, the Temple of Arrows, buffet and Orgy the first Served, First Come. That's pretty good, and then all the v's everywhere.

And Pat McCormick exhorting the the benefits of plumbing hump the shit right out of your house.

Now, that's an old, tiny comedian who's funnier than shit.

Though.

Pat McCormick is a funny, funny dude.

He's funny in this movie.

He's funny in this movie, and what a great and those are really good jokes too, like, those are some funny jokes and then they But Soupy Sales, on the other hand, is just like, where is any one of the vendors in there?

I know that Charlie Callous is the soothsayer.

Oh that's Charlie Kallius. I get him and Soupy Sales mixed up. Yeah that guy not very far No.

But then it seems like you either liked Charlie Kallis or you didn't, and I never have. Yeah, he's just a goof you make funny faces. I get it, But there's like that.

One comedian who is just this whole stick was just being drunk.

Oof. Yes, his name has been stricken from my memory.

Murdour maybe something like that.

The whole was being drunk, and it was like this, Yeah, it's painful because it's that Vaudeville drunk. Excuse me, mister and missus a whole this young girl.

Somehow, Dean Martin played it better.

But Dean Martin played it as a caricature of that character somehow.

And Dean Martin's drunk wasn't so loaded. He was like he was tipsy.

He was tipsy, Yeah, and that's funny. Tipsy is funny that the stagger drunk is not funny, But you know what, it may have been in a time where we weren't all terrified of alcohol alcoholics.

And Dean Martin's will have the advantage of being a pretty good.

Yeah, and he's army, very charming. Nothing he was doing in his drunk was not alarming, except for hitting on Adrian Barbo. Don't do that. That's only because she's mine. She's still kicking met her. I met her, Oh, I told her exactly how much I loved her. Yes, and I'm sure she was in retrospect how much I told her I loved her so fine, clean, tiny, my friend.

Oh really, yes, like Ruth Gator Bader Ginsburg, tiny.

Like to my chest, tiny, about the same height. And she yeah, it was startling, but still vava va voom, you know what I mean.

Those actresses, at least for a few generations. It was really really really petite. That and all those actors are tiny too.

That I met stallone was a shock when I met him.

Oh yeah. My sister, my late sister, Jasmine Wrestler, her biggest crush when she was a kid was still Ow the finest man ever. And when she worked at Caesar's later, she met him and had a chat with him, and she's like, Tony, he was short of them.

And here's the thing. When she met him, he was in elevator's shoes. I was That's what I came away with. I went, God, he's fucking short. And then it occurred to me, oh and he's in lifts. Good lord, he's a tiny man. Obviously, Like I wouldn't want to fight the guy or anything, but.

I think in like in Rocky they had to say that Thunderlips was seven feet tall instead of six foot five because they wanted to make Rocky six feet tall or something like that.

It's so still care.

Anyways, back to the h Yeah.

Comicast, the the stan up Philosopher gets gets the plumb of a gig playing Caesar's Palace and then cut to what was my favorite joke in this movie when I was a kid, and now that I live here, it really is my favorite joke where they cut to the chariots rolling up on the real Caesar's Palace here on the strip.

Yeah, that's and it's the brand new they had just opened it to that part in that portion of Caesar's Palace where they like looked like, what a great gag? What a just a stupid, silly, awesome gag.

Yeah, it's just exactly. It's so simple, so fucking stupid. It makes me laugh every single time I see it.

It's also got we got Gregory Hines showing up to here, like always liked you know what movie of his I love is? Uh the one with Billy Crystal, That cop.

Movie Running Scared, the wildly underrated Running Scared.

What a solid movie with the most two believable cops ever almost Oh, look, cops are just regular guys, and there you go. We're two regular guys being so funny. And the only movie where he doesn't do the little sand Dancer doesn't doesn't do any dancing in it, does he?

He does zero dancing in it. Wow, But he does flip off that one kid, and that's fucking hilarious.

Yes, Oh, what a shame we lost Gregory Heines too soon. He was a really talented dude and such a delightful act.

We always end up mentioning the Cotton Clever, at least I do here. But yeah, everyone go back and watch The Cotton Club and Wants the Genius because there you get to see him dramatically and dancing the same with White Knights, the movie he did with Barish Nakas.

Oh that's a good movie too. Yeah.

Oof. He was so fucking talented. I love him. And a last minute replacement in this film.

It was supposed to be Richard Pryor.

Yeah, part was originally believed by Richard Pryor, but he had his accident, his freebasing lit himself on fire accident.

I feel like they were star crossed lovers, those two, like they just can never get it to happen.

Yeah, for those of you who don't know, we obviously Richard Pryor co wrote with Gene Wilder and mel Brooks Blazing Saddles with the intention of playing the lead, and the studio wouldn't approve him, and they got Clevean Little instead, and taking nothing away from Clevean Little, who's fucking great in that movie, but it is one of those could have been moments that Richard Pryor would have starred in

And cleve On Little delivers a beautiful performance in that picture.

But someone was lying the same heart that Clevean Little gave it.

Yeah, cleve On Little gave it heart. And but some of those liner readings that you imagine Richard Pryor's So that scene with Madeline Cohn, Baby.

We are not in Halvena, did we say, Madeline Cohn,

We should all take a moment to Revere. How amazing an actor made. Madeline conn could do anything what upstage anybody. She could sing, she could dance, and was the greatest comic actor of her time. She could just deliver anything, man, and still be fine as hell doing it. And to these voices and these characters, and nobody delivered a monologue like she did. She would find ways to deliver my head and it was come on, man, she was, Oh I still we got robbed of old lady Madeline khn.

Isn't it a drag that she never got like a feature that was all hers?

No, it's a crime she was. She steals every one of those damn friggin' Melbrooks movies out from everybody in it.

She could have waltzed onto the cast of Saturday Night Live at any point on that show.

I love her in Young Frankenstein is it's not such. It shouldn't be that funny of a part like like she shouldn't have the impact in that picture that she does. But the little bit she's on screen, she's amazing, and she's so charmingly unlikable.

Two scenes in that movie, correct, we get to meet her at the beginning and then at the end, right at the end as the bride, right, oh, Freddy, when we first meet her and she's so off putting, just don't touch me, don't touch this, don't know the hair, darling. Oh my god, it's so frustrating and hilarious simultaneously. How do you do that? I guess you have to be Madeline can helps that.

That You've got Gene Wilder, who gives one of the great comic performances in that movie. I've auditioned with with his give My Creation Life, Live, Live, Live that one. And but at that point that movie, he's a puppy and he has an ability to deliver a puppy like performance and all of his stuff so innocent, so gentle, and it's just you want him to win? Are you

Yeah, and I'm not taking anything away from her decade later performance in Clue, because that look too yeah, talking about I'm just being a total pig here. I'm just fucking she was super fucking sexy in that mood.

She's the best one in there. And that's a movie of all a list out of the park comic performances. She just steals it. Every time she talks like that. She is literally a mani and you see it in every shot of her inside of her eyes. She is insane, communicates.

It so well.

I'm so sad that she's gone. I'm thinking, man, can you imagine episodes of Kirby Enthusiasm, or can you imagine someone our age having, you know, grown up with her rediscovering and putting her in a starring vehicle as somebody's mom or grandma where it's like she has Yeah, it sucks. I feel like that about Gilda Randner tu to a

She's given a musical sequence which we love for her or her in Melbrooks movies clearly because yeah, fucking it was so winning. In Blazing Saddles Lily von stuff. But what a character there and again here, like she's got one or two scenes and she just fucking commands every single one of them. You can't even really leave her in the back of a frame because your eyes are just drawn there.

I know they horny, horny, funny lady. She plays a lot, but even men, she plays each one. She's Okay, I've got this kind of cliche character that I keep like, Oh, I'm an oversex woman. Oh she's still managing. Okay, I've got the stupid background. I am still gonna make a meal out of them, and I'm gonna take these came ingredients and I am gonna make a four starmuale like she could just take a little bit and the accents like really commanded for voice. Yeah, you can go on

Don't know, but her, Yeah, no, not in versatility, but in the same sort of genuine, warm feeling I get about a performer that I get with Madeline. I also get with her scene partner, mister dom Delauise.

Yes, to quote Tom Hanks as Dean Martin on Saturday Night Live, mister domb Dean Louie, Yes, Dom DeLuise, That have motherfucker made me laugh a lot. Oh my god, even on those terrible Cannonball Run movies, which I adored off a thousand times ago. Did he come out in that stupid costume? It's hidden?

Oh yeah, I recently. By recently, I made maybe a year or two ago, was a guest on a podcast reviewing Cannonball Run and whatever. You pick a part in that movie, and there is a lot.

There's a lot in that movie.

You can't fault Dom DeLuise at any juncture. Everything he's doing is funny, everything enlightens the scene. I watched it with somebody who was much younger than me. It was just like, okay, if you say so, But I still felt the warm glow of the Deil Louise sun every time he's on screen. This might be his only performance where I don't like it, but that might be the point of the performance.

Yeah, his performance in his character is so disgusting and so off putting and so unlikable, then I'm assuming it's on purpose.

It absolutely has to. Is this Brooks like one upping the round the campfire fart scene? Like he's like, we need something schatological here, and we might as well make fun of the emperor because we represents all of the over indulgence in excess of ancient Rome. But we'll just wrap it up into this one guy. And Deluiz is obviously game to do that.

Yeah, he's up for anything for sure. Madeline Collin's reactions help this scene a lot. This scene has its moments. I do like his stand up routine is pretty funny. The Christians are so poor, they've only got what gods?

How do you make a venet blind?

What's the Joke's the punchline?

No, that's it?

Like this? Well yeah right, it's the point.

Yeah, jab your finger set.

But the next scene is funny.

Are we talking about the is he or is he not? A Unix scene?

Yeah, that's a good scene. Who's the mark Antony Kennach comes? Who's that actor?

Like, oh, that's shacky Green as much green, that's Marcus Vin Dix's Okay, I lumped him in with some of the earlier like comedy greats the Golden Age comedy guys as being completely unfunny. I think he's funny in this he's funny.

And you know who else is funny is as little as his buddy, is his the extra that's like his lieutenant or whatever. There's a point where the guy where Sheky Green, is like gesturing to show the stuff off, and his guy is like aping them like the extra sy And it's hilarious because the look of the guy's face is fucking great.

Yeah, no, that's yes, all that stuff's real good. But you know, we get the unix scene is here's our moment for TNA in this movie.

I loved this scene when I was thirteen. I'll tell you what.

Oh boy, so seems a bit tame now.

Yeah, very tame and a little long, very long.

He goes through three guards. She does a full dance routine for three guards before she gets to Gregory. One would have been enough.

Yeah, the tong is yes.

Of course. Again, Brooks constantly going back to the to the cartoon realm in this. But anytime you do a cartoon gag in a movie, it just makes me wish I was watching a cartoon.

Yeah, it's hard to pull off the Three Stooges do it really The Three Stooges managed to create a live action cartoon, I think very well, but it's hard to pull off that gag, especially when you start putting the sound effect.

The wacky sound effects of the Death of Comedy. I'll tell you what. Our heroes basically have to escape the big roly joint thing that I don't know what's going on there.

Oh, look, the black guy likes weed.

Okay, the black likes weed. And the kids today they like the cheek and the chong, don't they.

I feel like mel Brooks has never done anymore than have a cocktail. I don't think he gets weed humor. And when he does the cocaine it's the funny joke and he's like, oh the colors. I'm like, that's not okay. So the unuch joke too, is funny. Was there like a unique thing going on in the early eighties. I remember, like there's big there's like similar jokes in Ice Pirate. I think it's something else to them.

A lot of must have been floating around. And then it's the detritus left by the by the ocean of National Lampoon magazine from the seven dies suddenly like a Unich is just a fucking joke.

I just that must be it. But from there we go this is oh see Moses again?

Oh right, yeah, on the Universal tour, that's right, Oh my god.

Yes.

And even as a kid, because I'm sure you would see Universal on television it was in like every Universal produced sitcom would have a sequence where their kids or their family takes the trip and goes to Universal Studios. We've seen this gag a million times.

It isn't it on the episode of The A Team too.

I mean, like the A Team, I remember it on different strokes. I remember, you know, just hundreds of shows. Don't put this in the movie, mal, I mean it's a good gag. He held up because the gag afterwards, the son of a bitch, you bastard these kids did there. They don't let you live, they'll let you breathe like that has again just like NVTs nuts just banging around in my skull.

That's a good gag. It's one of the better gags in the movies, the mostest part, at least now that movie history time. I guess that gag with the departing waters is from like the Silent ten Commandments, right, and it's a mini It's what it was. A miniature is what it was.

Right.

Well, there was the Silent ten Commandments that did it. But I think he's probably doing the cecilby the mill, big old Charlton Heston, let my people go.

But the actual the device they use, oh yeah.

It's it's an effect in both.

But that actual effect that they use is the effect from the I just both. Well they mill did both of them.

Yeah, well the effect at Universal Studios was never used in any of them. Oh okay, but the idea was yeah, and I think I don't even think that it's based on I don't know if the riot is supposed to be replicating commandments at all. I think they're just trying to do some cool effect and they did it. I think they need to get their tram from one side to a lake to another. And somebody went, I know a way we can do it.

That's fair. I, as a little kid, just assumed it was a.

Oh I do too, and it probably is. I'm probably speaking or misspeaking here, and there's probably nerds right now going I what.

But now we go to Judea.

Yes, and it's always fucking bizarre to see John hurt and a mel Brooks movie. But he does it here, and he does it in space It made more sense for me seeing him in spaceballs, like oh, because he has that relationship because he was Jesus.

Yes, but and then of course he's spoofing the alien so but but his Jesus. It's I love the scene as a Catholic school kid, this scene slaps and would you like a beverage? Try them? Won't white? I mean, that's what still goes.

He betrayed me.

Judas, it's so good. And the Leonardo coming in and doing the painting. All right, everybody, this is not gonna work. Everybody on the other side of the table. And it's really funny. I hope he just now holding the plate.

With the cheesy ass the mighty art Metrono as Leonardo da Vinci. That's, by the way. I love the crazy anachronism of Leonardo da Vinci being at the Last Supper.

Yes, of course that's the He's in police Academy too, right, Oh yeah, Mauser, right.

That's right. Yaosa Yaosa, mausa, Moosa.

I got white bro I got the white browser.

What are we gonna do? About this all right. I

Yeah, the Inquisition. Here we go, the Inquisition. I screwed up the song, but it's very, very funny.

You're wishing they'd go away, but the Inquisition's here and it's here to stay.

Really good jokes in that in that song. I mean, that's his big one of his big strengths. He's really good at him if they play great this one. It's a long scene, but it's okay. It's really freaking hilarious.

The song is strong enough and then the strong enough. As you said, it's clearly set. Yeah, but it is an Esther Williams musical, which always looked like sets.

Yeah, they always do like sets, and I feel like they were using some pieces from Young Frankenstier.

Too, a lot of the similar I guarantee you. Some of that set decoration was castle stuff from A.

Great just a great number. It was hilarious. But I wanted to ask, was Jackie Mason like a big star or something in the seventies or.

I would not call him a big star, but I feel.

Popped up in things when I was a kid, and like he had a sitcom with The British Lady and then on The Simpsons.

But yeah, and you can't forget his replacing Rodney Dangerfield and Caddy Shak two. I was trying to avoid that, directed by friend of the podcast, Alan Archist.

He did Caddy Shak too. Wow, what a hard job man that was them.

Yeah, Jackie Mason was a personality, I know. I mean he was a stand up, so he was getting play and I know he was on all the talk shows and everything. So but I can definitely see mel Brooks going, well, we need the jewyus jew Here.

I'm sitting flicking chickens and I'm looking through the pickens and suddenly these guys breaked on my bulls.

I didn't even load them, and.

They couldn't called them, and they started playing pink punk with my bulls.

Why theogony ooh the shame? You know, to make my pipe it's public fire game.

That guy is every bad like stereotype almost with the boys.

And yeah, well he made a big fucking career out of that, so he sure did.

God bless him immortalize as Krusty the Clown's dead.

Indeed, the other the other torture to jew in that sequence. Ron Graham, Ronnie Graham, who's a regular in the mel Brooks universe You're not to be, was in Spaceballs. He was the minister in Spaceball is trying to marry them. I wish that the slot machine joke. I wish the dummies hadn't looked quite so dummy? Is that nippicking?

It's the eighties, nineteen eighty one. They figured out that nobody's going to be watching this up close on a high definition television fifty years from now or whatever.

Though, yeah, maybe not. But then again, they went ahead and did They went ahead and bothered to put sparklers on top of the nuns, the swimming nuns.

Which I noticed the girl, the main nun, has her eyes closed when she comes up.

She does. It's a dead giveaway that's reversed.

Yeah, I know, thats the first time I'd ever noticed that. It's like, hey, wait a minute.

Esther Williams wouldn't have done that.

No, she neither would Scarlett Johanson, that's true. Who did that gag in Hail Caesar?

Gotta watch that again, man, that's a great one.

So it gets better, It gets better every time you watch it. The jokes just get funnier and funnier. That Channing Tatum sequence wasn't that funny the first time I saw it? And I'm like this to my life. That Channing Tatum sequence is like a.

Bill brook Yes modern interpretation. That's okay. Look, you can't talk them out anything. I always love that. I love the whole song. Actually, it's very, very funny, in keeping with mel Brooks, taking the worst aspects that humanity has ever delivered and turning it on its head and making it a something we can ridicule and step back at

Well, this is a man who's been carrying a comb in his pocket eighty years, so he can make Hitler joke likes. He makes a great point. He's like, you've got to make fun of these people. You've got to make fun of the worst, because that takes, like you said, it takes away their power, it gives it back to you. You've got to make fun of asshole. That's the only way you can get through difficult.

We're in a mel Brooks universe now, okay, speaking of

Oh boy, count the money for sure?

De Monet. That's an okay, So call back to a joke from in a different way, the joke of Harvey Harvey Carman's Headley Lamar, which I'm sure is a joke completely lost on anyone watching that movie for the first time. Now, they're not gonna know who Hetdy Lamar is, never mind somebody confusing it with Headley.

Yeah. I think the best they can do is, wasn't that a joke on Family Guys?

The Count demon At character apparently was initially to be played by John Cleaes.

Oh no, that would have been interesting.

Due to a scheduling conflict, had to drop out. So Harvey Carmon mel Brooks Stalwart dropped in, and he's great here. This is one of his best performances. Actually, all of his performances in the Melbrooks movies sing in a way that I think television didn't allow him.

Yeah, Harvey Corman and mel Brooks it's a good pairing. He's a great villain in Blazing titles. He's so good and he's so hilarious. This one not so much. He's playing it a little too camp.

They're all playing well, that's the thing. He's playing to what everyone else is doing.

Yeah, it just doesn't it doesn't work. And he's such a good straight man that it's a frustrated straight man. That's what Harvey Korman does best.

No, and this is like the longest sequence. It feels like even if it's not Yeah, I don't know, I'm I don't connect with this. I never really have. It's just prints in the Pauper set against the French Revolution. So the Garson de piss the piss boy looks exactly like the king, and so they swapped places. Carrying on from the earlier discussion of dumb DeLuise that the sort of scatological and gross. This is gross in a whole different way. This one makes me feel gross about sex.

Yeah, the humph death humph death wig. Of course, when I was a little kid we were doing all the time. But yeah, it's I just know it's it doesn't really play very well. Count the money is the funniest joke in it.

Don't get saucy with me, Brenets.

Okay, that's pretty there's a lot of that, and like the end. Okay, here's some social commentary that the poor guys are going to get executed and even though miracle shows up, but you know the idea. Okay, the rich guy's gonna get away with it, and.

Well that that could have been an ending. But then again, let's remember how the French Revolution actually did it.

Yeah, lots of headless people.

Oh man, I love the French. Can I just say that the French.

Hors so drunk?

I'll say Spike Milligan shows up here, English comedian, English legend who plays a senile character better than anybody. He did it here, he did it again in Yellow Beard. I love him. He's one of the He's what Charlie Kalis is going for in my mind. He because it's silly as fuck, but it's endlessly entertaining. Yeah, the Mike Myers taking a lot of his stick from Spike Milligan, the king, genial, silly goofy oh so British.

Yeah, I can get down with that. I agree. I'd Spike Milligan's was like, it's what the Beatles grew, what Mike Myers grew, which is pretty good. He's funny, but like.

The last thing, Oh, it's terrible and I wish you would end. I love that for a history of the world. And I know he tempered it with part one because there's only so much you could do. But this is a ninety minute movie. Jump ahead to something you're that's guaranteed to fucking make us laugh here for the last part of it.

I feel like the editing you needed, you could have chopped the Rome sequence in this one up a little bit and added a World War two finger, added some cowboys, or that would have even Robinhood could have You could have fit all the jokes from Robinhood, men and tights into fifteen minute sequence in this movie.

Yeah, we jumped from Rome to the French Revolution. You can jump again. It's okay. At least get us to the twentieth century.

Mel Yeah, I feel like he just I ran out of ideas, I ran out of time. It's not one of it more complete pictures for.

Sure, though. Whatever bad taste that left in my mouth as a kid, and then again on the rewatch it's really made up for the teaser trailer for History of the World Part two.

Yeah, that's actually the funniest. It's just hilarious because it's just gag, gag, gag, and come on, that Hitler on Ice is hilarious, which.

They do they pay off, okay, And that the Viking funeral is just a one panel joke, got it. But then Jews in Space has the benefit of being very well made but are really great.

It's fun like a minute long short.

Yeah, it's just a bunch of stars of David right, haha. Those ships are awesome.

And the two guys dancing at the end.

I do know that the space ships that they do say kosher on them.

It's an interesting thing is that that sequence gives you a perspective that you hadn't seen in sci fi movies up at that point, the window where the guys are looking watching what's going on, like the mall. They never I think our Trek the motion picture has that that little the shuttle where you saw Kirk flying in the

I did notice the tie fighter sound effect in there.

Oh yeah.

Obviously when Spaceballs came out, Lucas was the one like extolling its virtues more than anybody. Yeah, so I'm sure here there must have been somebody, a twenty century Fox, who said we can make some money by assuming them for using that fact that's ours, right, I'm hoping that that happened and that Lucas shut it down.

But well, when it came to Spaceballs, Lucas is like, do whatever you want, just don't make any toys.

The visual effects by Albert Whitlock.

What did Albert Woodlock work on?

Albert Woodlock did John Carpenter's the Thing?

Ah, but you don't opening that great opening?

Yeah, I mean he is best known as a matte painter.

Albert Woodlock is did he do the title on the thing?

He sure did so, Yeah, it made sense. He was there and they're like, hey, would you mind doing this for us?

It's really well done.

But that brings us to the end, the end of history. It all ended here.

It all ended here.

Jews in space. It ended in the future our history.

At least Choos in space waits.

That's basically what he does. That's the narrator here, Melbourne Brooks replacing Orson Wells, which is a opportunity. By the way, Yeah, they must have it must have been. We've added it. They added it way later, and they're like, we're never going to get him.

Back, not for less than five thousand dollars right there. There is one funny joke on the TV show. There's a sequence about Jesus and you know how they show the title at the beginning of each sequence and he reads them. Mel Brooks reads the titles, so when it says Jesus Christ, he goes Jesus Christ.

That's great.

Mel Brooks is one hundred years old. He shot Nazis, he had the hottest wife ever, and he made some of the funniest movies of all. I mean, I just love the guy. I'm so grateful that I've had him in my life, so to speak. And his kid wrote a book called World WARZ. You've never read it. It's pretty good. The audio drama for World War Z is spectacular, and the movie.

Star the movie is God awful. How did it come out of that book?

What? Huh?

What?

That book is as responsible as twenty eight days later for the trend of zombies. Yeah, absolutely planted all of the seats. Look, they all stole it from Romero, folks. But yeah, that book is great. I love Max Brooks. And you know what if mel Brooks made spaceballs to entertain that kid and then he turned around and norte that book it had added anything to that kid's psyche to do that, then God blessed that movie.

Can you imagine what a fun child that you would have had mel Brooks as your dad.

I'm sure there were trials, because every father son relationship had fuck man. At the end of the day, it's mel Brooks.

Well, the funny thing is, look how he rebelled. He rebelled by going to write zombie books and being a history professor at Harvard.

Yeah, that's the way to do it. We could all hope our children rebel in such a manner.

Well, thank you father alone for a wonderful time today. I was really happy to talk about such a funny movie and such trying times we live in. We've get the funny of mel Brooks to remind us to laugh and punch up in front of the jerks in power, I.

Guess indeed, I don't know that I would recommend the movie overall, but as a completest, you fucking have to see it. You know what, if you need to laugh, and we all goddamn do check it out. There are some actual, genuine fucking laughs in this movie.

Yeah, there are some cringe moment Oh, there are a ton. There are a ton of them.

Get ready to cringe a lot, but I get ready to laugh a lot too, and know that ultimately that that guy's heart is in the right place. The cringey stuff is cringey, but and as means spirited as it seems in overall, I think that's just more of the time period and Brooks competing in an arena he had no business competing it.

I think that's a very very honest and a studavation there.

Well, thank you well, until we talk next time, Antonio. Where can people find you?

Hey, you can follow me at Swamp Media Group on Instagram and you can check out our website at swamp dot com.

As for me, you can check me out at Fathermalone

Bye bye.

Possession the Quisition.

We know you wish.

Mess sssss sing something siss