Wyatt Cenac on Blazing Saddles

Writer, comedian and actor Wyatt Cenac joins Chuck to talk about the stone cold classic, Blazing Saddles.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.

(00:28):
Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush. Charles W Chuck
Bryant here on Friday for an interview, A Dish and
you guys. I got to sit down with my old
friend Wyatt Sinac. It's been a long time since White
and I have seen each other. Actually we met boy
many years ago and actually kind of remind why of
this story. He's he was the first kind of famous

(00:51):
entertainment person that I became pals with way back when
when he shared stuff you should know with John Hodgman
and said you might like is John when they were
working on the Daily Show together, and John got in
touch with Josh and I and said, let's all go
to lunch next time he come to New York. We
went to New York and Josh and I and uh,

(01:12):
John and Whyatt all had lunch together. And it was
a very big deal to us. And I told why
It about this and what that meant to me. Um,
kind of that that we felt like we had arrived
a little bit. And UM, I don't think why It
had any idea that that meant something to us. So
it was kind of funny to talk about. But we've
seen each other off on on over the years and

(01:34):
done some pretty fun stuff together, but it's been a minute,
so it was great to get why it in here.
He was Originally he was one of the first guests
I had on my last way back when, UM, but
it was always hard to kind of track him down.
But here we are, three years in, I finally get
whyatt in here. We had a really long, great conversation
about his awesome underseeing show on HBO Problem Areas and

(01:58):
what he was trying to do there. We really got
into it with Problem Areas. We talked a little bit
about King of the Hill when he was a writer
for that uh TV show, which was kind of cool
because I somehow had never talked to White about King
of the Hill. And we eventually got around to Blazing
Saddles after an hour plus of great conversation. So Blazing
Saddles was his pick one of the great comedies of

(02:19):
all time, one of the great subversive comedies of all
time as well, and we talk a lot about that
in the role that it played back then and can
still play today as far as subverting racism in some
very fun and interesting ways. So it was a great conversation.
I really enjoyed it. And here we go with the

(02:39):
wonderful and charming and funny whyatts sanak on blazing saddles?
How are you doing? I'm all right, yeah, I'm still
getting used to this whole the world now exists on laptops.
I said, things are about to be fine, right as
your adjusting hopefully. I uh, yeah. I got the Johnson

(03:05):
and Johnson vaccine, which, yeah, has been an interesting experience
because the day I got it was the day that
they recalled fifteen million doses because of the like batch problem,
and then um, and then yesterday obviously there was the

(03:26):
news of six people getting blood clots. So I really
feel like, in terms of vaccines, I could have chosen.
I'm really getting all the all the things that would
have me worried. I'm they're getting front loaded, right, So yeah,
let's get Did you have a choice, Actually I didn't.

(03:49):
It was a strange thing in New York there, like
there was just one day where the governor decided, on
like a Tuesday, that he was going to open up
the vaccine availability to anyone like thirty and older, and
the week before it had been fifty and older. And
as you know, I'm I'm thirty and a half and

(04:13):
I so as soon as he made that announcement, I
just happened to see it and I immediately called my
local pharmacy and they were like, sure, come in on Friday,
and uh so I was just like, I it wasn't
even a thing of oh, let me go and check

(04:35):
whatever the website. I was just like, no, just call
the pharmacy and texted everybody I knew, like as though
there were some sort of gold rush, and just like
call your pharmus, say and so h yeah. So that
was that was how I wound up doing it. But
I thought I was going to get Maderna. That's what

(04:57):
I got, yeah, And so it was a little disappointed.
And when I got there, because everyone I know has
gotten Maderna. And it seemed like even when I would
go on social media and I see on Instagram everyone
be posting photos of their vaccine cards like Maderna, and

(05:18):
so Maderna seemed like, you know, it was the the
jet kids of of of vaccines, like everyone's flying Jet
Blue to Cancoon. Johnson and Johnson started to feel more
and more like spirit airlines. Right, I think most of

(05:39):
my friends got viser so far, and I'm kind of
an outlier. Oh wow, that's interesting. So maybe it's just
kind of where you are and what they've got in
your area. I was gonna say, yeah, is that are
those regional friends or is that across the country. I
think most of my friends here in Atlanta got viser.
I feel like, and and my wife family and I

(06:01):
got MODERNA And I don't know anyone here that got
Johnson and Johnson, so wow, who knows. Yeah, No, it's
a it's a very it's an interesting it's an interesting thing,
and it's I hope that it makes people more curious
about like medicine and like science in general. But like

(06:26):
I I just know for myself. I think when I
was starting to feel a little bit of that like
sort of fear of missing out that I somehow got
the the you know, grocery store brand vaccine, I started
looking up the different things on the CDC as far

(06:49):
as like not even the efficacy of the vaccine, but
just who it got tested on, how many people it
tested on, and in some in some ways I start
to feel a little more comfortable with the Johnson Johnson
vaccine because even the demographics of people that they had
done trials on was more diverse than than it was

(07:12):
for Maderna and Fiser, and that I when we were
making problem areas, we've done a thing about just the
way medicines get tested and how there more often than
not tested, primarily tested and engineered primarily for white men

(07:33):
first and then everyone else. And so that's why you
tend to see women continually have worse side effects for
any medicine, because they're very rarely tested with them in mind. Yeah,
I saw that episode. Well, thank you. Let's uh yeah,

(07:53):
I can't I can't really repeat any stats to you
because it's been a long time. But it was great, man,
I mean that was on my us to talk about anyway,
and uh, it was so good man, it was really great.
I mean I love the I love the way it
was styled, and just the the intro and the set
and how you did that little animated pieces, and it

(08:13):
just felt like like people from sort of our generation. Um,
it felt it kind of was like what I always
hoped a stuff you should know show was going to
be like a sort of electric company for adults, and
we you know, we missed the mark. But you nailed it. Man.
I thought it was good how you how you jumped

(08:33):
around between a lot of issues. But in that season one,
you know, how you had the police thread and you
handled that in a way that I just thought was
so thoughtful and um reasonable, and it was the kind
of thing I wanted people who needed to see that
to see it, because I was like, here's a guy
that's like I think could really get through with the
way you were approaching it and um, you know how

(08:55):
it is though, I mean, unfortunately the people that are
watching you probably aren't the people that need to be
seeing that in the first place. True, but you you
never know. I mean, I feel like there's a there's
the interesting thing, and I feel I I don't think
that our show did it the best, but I feel
like we maybe get credit for at least starting a

(09:20):
conversation on it, or bringing not starting a conversation, but
bringing a conversation to television. And that was the episode
around police abolition. And it's interesting now is people have
that conversation more and more. I think what I appreciated
about the show was the idea that Okay, yeah, we

(09:44):
can talk about these things, and maybe maybe most of
the audience will be the echo chamber. But even in
the echo chamber, they may not be aware of something
like police abolition or aware of something like a civilian
complaint review board. And if they're not, perhaps if they

(10:07):
have that to add to their vocabulary, they can start saying, Hey,
why doesn't our city have this thing, Why don't we
have social workers that go out with police officers and
partner and let's redefine safety as something like that that
can go hand in hand um with actual like care

(10:34):
and compassion approaches and so I so in that way,
and then yeah, the hope outside the echo chamber was
that you did have those people who were like, yeah,
I'll be honest, I don't believe in anything you stand for,
but you've made me think. And when we made the
show are I the building that we made the show in,

(10:57):
we were on the fifth floor, and on the fourth
floor was actually the police union, the NYPDS, UH like
the line Officers union, and so there was very little interaction.
But like the head of the New York Police Union

(11:19):
is really like a very fiery troll who just like
goes on Fox News all the time and it's just
really a ship ster um and I always was like,
oh am I going to run into this guy on
the elevator and never did. But one of the security
guys who worked the building was like a longtime police officer,

(11:42):
and he would sometimes stop me in the elevator where
it was just like the two of us, and I'd
be like, I watched your show and a part of
me was just like, are you about to stop this
elevator and hit me or you know, like hit me
about the ease with a telephone book and he'd be like, yeah,

(12:03):
you know, I didn't agree with all of it, but
I like what you're doing and yeah, like you're making
some good points there, and it was just kind of like, Okay, yeah,
you're not the person that I would have expected to
engage in this conversation. And I feel like you you
you know, but I feel like I'm I'm maybe cracking

(12:25):
through the the armor there a little bit. And totally, man,
I mean you could tell that you just took such
great care and it was so thoughtful and how you
tried to source conversations with different kinds of people and
it wasn't just the familiar talking points and let's hear
only from kind of one side. Like you were. You
were bringing in people and having like real conversations around it,

(12:46):
and I think, I mean, that's the only way to
do it if you're gonna make any headway. So I
just loved it. And then beyond that, the policing stuff
just you know, it was just you had stuff about
you know, mosquitoes and space traveling and dogs eating chicken bones,
and it was just I just love the variety of
But all I thought it was great. How How was

(13:06):
it working with HBO? Was that cool? Um? It was interesting,
It was it was. I'm appreciative. But at the same time,
when I look at the experience, we had to make
so much with so little, and not just from like
a budgetary standpoint, but the moment that production officially started,

(13:31):
we I think started in September of I guess that
would have been, and they were like, you are premiering
April of and go and from from starting up from scratch, Yeah,

(13:52):
from hiring. We had started slowly hiring some people in August,
but we didn't have a full staff until sometime in September.
And then in that first season, for every for every
policing story that we shot, we were only budgeted and

(14:13):
calendared for two days for each shoot, and so when
I think about the stories we were able to kind
of like get into total two days of shooting, it's
truly a testament to the hard work of everybody at
the show. And also it's also this unfortunate thing that like, oh,

(14:37):
we shouldn't have been locked into a like you have
to premiere April at this time. Really should have given
us the time as though we were making a documentary
where it's like, Okay, take the time and take the
resources to really get it right or get it to

(14:58):
where you want it to be. Because is I think
there are certain things when I think about the show,
and especially that first season, there there were certain story
things that I wanted to do, but because of the schedule,
we never had the ability to do. And I think
about some of those things now where I'm like, oh,

(15:22):
part of the conversations that we're having right now, I
wonder if those things would have added to some of
those conversations, you know, in a better way. Like when
I think again about like the abolition stuff and just
the idea of like defunding the police, I remember I'd

(15:46):
had this hope and thought that by the end of
the season, I'd wanted to do this thing that by
the end of the season we would actually start our
own police force, because I'd start it to learn about
how certain communities actually created their own police forces. And

(16:08):
in New York, for example, UH, where we had our offices,
there was a police force that was created specifically to
serve that population, which was which is a population that's
predominantly Asian and Asian American, and so they were able

(16:30):
to kind of like through the NYPD, there's a way
in which you can sort of create your own police
force and you get your own police cars and your
own officers, and so I and there are also in Brooklyn,
I believe in the Hasidic community they have a similar thing.

(16:52):
And so I was kind of I became fascinated with that,
but thinking about it with this idea of like, well,
could we do that at and then as a police force,
could we then also get government funding to get one
of those UH military m wrap vehicles because they're the

(17:20):
I believe the I can't remember the exact name of it,
but there's an office in d C that's whole focus
is like the office of like Budgetary waste Management or
it's like the o m B or the Office of
Budgetary Management or something like that. They have a podcast,
Um did they really do? But they did a whole

(17:40):
thing about how they basically set themselves up to get uh,
military grade equipment from these like horrible kind of like
tax incentives and things that are created where you know,
you ask why police departments get like SWAT get these

(18:04):
huge like military vehicles, It's because they are incentivized through
these deals that the federal government has given them. And
so this Office of of Budget Management had done that
to expose it, and they were like, I think they
got like a rocket launcher and they and so I
was like, oh, could we do that? Could we start?

(18:28):
But in my head I was like, could we start
our own police force? Could we get an M wrap?
And then in redefining what policing could be, the idea was,
could we paint the M wrap into something that seemed
not aggressive and then it rather than fill it with
police officers, fill it with social workers, fill it with

(18:53):
and basically have it as like a mobile kind of
like emergency response unit. And so if you do need
the person who has to physically subdue somebody, that person
is in the car too, but there are just as
many social workers, mental health experts, you know, they're all

(19:13):
these like even like E M T s and it's
and so it's basically like a voltron of like risks
of response that you could then be like, this is
what our police force looks like. It's this big vehicle,
but in it it's like, Okay, we got the call,
like there's someone in mental distress, and you can be like, okay, uh,

(19:36):
you know, Rick, you're gonna sit this one out. We
don't need cops on this one. We're gonna go. We're
gonna go with Dr Johansen here, who's gonna just kind
of talk to do some talk therapy. Do you know
Dave Hill the comedian. Yes, have you seen the stuff
he's painting where he's taking like Dave, you know, really

(19:58):
talented at everything, but he's he's now taking like axes
and stuff and he paints he's really beautiful flowers and
sunflowers and stuff all over him in these cool patterns
and it's really gorgeous. And the stormtrooper helmets and axes
and hatchets and stuff like you could get Dave to
paint it up with all these beautiful sunflowers. Yeah, and
just then send the team in exactly and then people

(20:21):
are like, oh, what's that weird, what's that weird pretty
tank doing. It's like, no, it's just here to help.
It's you know, even instead of having cops do those
weird like viral videos where they shoot baskets with kids
or whatever right right in the truck, you can also
just have like some you know, some stuffy, some stuffy

(20:44):
looking professor type. Their whole thing is like they come
out and they have a top hat or they you know,
have a hoop skirt on, and then they go and
they you know, do some sweet sweet moves on a
basketball court and they go viral and there a city
employee and they go viral that way. Oh man, that
would have been great. Yeah. I could see HBO getting

(21:07):
down with that too. I'm surprised they didn't. Well, I
think again, it was the it was the amount of
time I think we I wished. I wished when we
had the show that we had that the network maybe
had a little more faith in us as opposed to
I think they I feel as though they didn't necessarily

(21:27):
trust what this show was and what it was going
to be, and perhaps also didn't trust me, and so
I think they were very skittish about everything, and I
think in their head they were like, well, we'll lock
you to the schedule and thereby like you have to

(21:48):
deliver something, which the irony being there are plenty of
people on that network who signed really lucrative deals to
make things that have never been made, and it's like, oh,
wait a minute, you paid that person tens of millions
of dollars to deliver something for you and they never

(22:13):
did it right, and you're not paying me anywhere near that.
But I'm the I'm the one who is seen as
the risk. Yeah. That's a shame too, because usually, and
I've even heard this with HBO that like, if it's
a smaller show that they won't give much money to,
they'll at least leave you alone, you know, And and

(22:36):
they do that. I think it depends on, you know,
the executives that you have and the relationship you have
with those executives, and so I think in that regard, um, Yeah,
I know people who have great relationships with executives, and
I know on the West Coast they are really good

(22:57):
about I just kind of like trusting the creative voices
and giving them the space and ultimately, you know, you
do have to earn those things. And I think it
at at the point at which I had gotten to HBO,
I had hoped and would have liked to have believed
that I had earned that at that point, that I

(23:20):
had made enough stuff that had done well or had
you know, had had a good critical reception, that I
had at least earned the respect to kind of like, okay,
give let's give space to actually make the best thing
as opposed to trying to, uh you know, kind of

(23:42):
put as many constraints on this thing, uh and see
see if they can see if they can spin it
into something. With season two any different season two. The
main difference in season to you was when it came
to shooting all of the education stories. We had four

(24:06):
days instead of two days. We're able to get a
couple more days. The challenge, the schedule was still the same.
We're still kind of locked into a schedule, the challenge
with both policing and with education as subjects. And this
again is something where I feel like, unfortunately we were

(24:33):
kind of between a rock and a hard place them
It's one thing to say, Okay, I want to I
want to go talk to people about police brutality. There
are people who will talk to you about that. If
you want to talk to people about like the failings
of a school, their parents and students who will talk

(24:55):
to you about that. Where you come up against roadblocks
with police departments and schools and they are incredibly skittish,
they are they're incredibly guarded, and two crack through that.
It takes a lot of time and it really impacted

(25:19):
our abilities to tell stories because we would have situations
in both seasons we had it where we had situations
where there were police departments and school districts that had
agreed to sit down with us. We booked flights and

(25:39):
then they said no, never mind. Wow. Disappointing it is,
and it's unfortunate because the stories we wanted to tell,
we're stories where it was like, these are about these
kind of partnerships and relationships that exist with communities and
these institutions and right to not be a part of

(26:02):
that conversation and to be that guarded about it to us,
like I get, okay, not everybody wants to be on camera,
but to be that guarded kind of places puts a
window to what these communities must feel that like, okay,

(26:23):
even the things that you're supposed to technically be proud
of in terms of the work you're doing, because it
wasn't like we were going to the police department or
the school that was like oh, this is the school
that you know just beats children, or this is the
you weren't Michael Moore walking in there. No, And with
all these places, they were places where it was a

(26:43):
thing of like, Okay, this school district has you know,
a program that's actually speaking to something that is supposed
to be you know, whether it's like an alternative to
criminalizing student. It's like, oh, okay, yeah, we want to
talk about that. We want to talk about the work

(27:04):
you're doing. It's like, oh no, we don't want to
talk about it. Or police departments, you know, I remember
there was one police department in Cincinnati that the work
that they were doing was one that was much more
of a public private partnership where the community worked with
the police to create programs and things to help kind

(27:28):
of like curb crime in their neighborhoods. And so, you know,
one of the things was the community was saying like, oh,
there's this park that there's often a lot of crime
in this park and the park is overrun with trash
and there's no lawn maintenance and there are all these trees.

(27:52):
Maybe we could clean up the park. And that's what
they did, and it was like oh okay, yeah, and
then they saw crime statistics went down and it was
like oh right, okay, and that and when and with
that story, we got to Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Police
Department we landed and they decided once we got there

(28:16):
they didn't want to talk to us. And it was
like why, Like, this is what you like, this is
what you're doing, and it may not be perfect, but
it seems like if you're as proud of it as
you claim to be, then talk about it. And the
irony being that I think uh Vice had done a
piece earlier that year with that same police department where

(28:42):
the police department was showing off more of the kind
of like more of the aggressive things they were doing.
Then it was weird where it's like, oh, you'll show
off the things that you think make you look like,
you know, a tough guy. Yeah, but those are the
things that keep getting you into trouble. Yeah, it's so weird.

(29:06):
It's such a closed I mean, skittish is the tamest
way to say it. It's um trying to break through too.
I mean, it's it's just so such a closed system
I imagine, I mean, would you do once you got there,
once you were there and you were denied, just try
and find a story. So we talked to everybody else involved,

(29:28):
although the cops did tell some people not to talk
to us, so it wasn't even that they had They
were like, you know, we're not going to talk. They
tried to convince community members not to talk to us,
and a couple of community members didn't talk to us
as a result, and I think uninvited us from an

(29:49):
event they were doing. So it was it was tough
and and so but we talked to everyone else that
we could with the story, and and there was a
a community meeting that the police were going to be at,
and so we went to that and figured we'd film
that and if possible, try to just see if we

(30:12):
could get the chief of police to chat with us
on camera for a moment. But it all also became
part of the story where it was just like, what
does it say when these cops are this like afraid
to talk about what it is that they do like

(30:33):
that's a problem and so um so yeah, so it
it I think added to the story in this kind
of uh in a roundabout way, but it I feel
like it would have been nice to have gotten the
the entire story. And I think with that one, ultimately
we also had to go back and get one interview

(30:56):
with a police officer, a retired police officer. I think
the best we were able to do as far as
getting any cop on the record was to get a
retired cop. So, um yeah, who could talk about Cincinnati
and the history of policing and Cincinnati. Um, but yeah,
it's really it's a very unfortunate thing. And I think

(31:16):
you see it now even with like the way that
policing and that kind of like that blue line exists
where you know, you see even the events of the
last week. Oftentimes retired police officers have less of a

(31:38):
problem saying like hey, that's not good police work. And
yet the police officers who are still working and are
still walking a beat are just like closed miles and
it's kind of like, well, yeah, it's never gonna change
if you all just immediately rather than call out bullshit,

(32:05):
you all just immediately kind of like huddle together and
rally behind the person who clearly did something wrong. Yeah,
and it's it's I mean, that's one of the most
frustrating parts because if you want your image changed, like
you could actively be a part of that without selling
out or whatever, like you could you know, like they

(32:28):
don't want their image to be that, but they won't
do anything to let their image not be that. Right,
And it's and that's what's so strange is that weird,
that weird thing. And I think again when I think
about what I had been thinking about with problem area,
is as far as like that the sort of dream

(32:50):
idea of like, well, what if we made our own
police force? Within that, some of that too was looking
at there was an episode that we didn't do that
I've been fast needed with the story about police uniforms
and just how you know that idea that the clothes
make a person and that there in the past there

(33:10):
were police departments that decided to quote unquote soften their
images and they started switching their uniforms to things that
were a little more professional looking. Where there was one,
I believe in California where the police officers war like

(33:30):
blazers and instead of having like a hard badge. The
badge was like a patch on their on their jackets
and little things. The story and it's all anecdotal, but
the story goes that when they did that, there became
a little bit of a shift of the types of

(33:51):
people who were signing up for the police academy, and
it was people who like had more of a kind
of like social work background, or was people who were
coming out of like the seminary and and so. And
it's all anecdotal, but they it may have been who

(34:12):
the department was trying to recruit. It may have been like, oh, yeah,
I like, I like an outfit with a snappy blazer um.
But then apparently they they dropped it after a while.
It seemed to be successful for a while, and then
I guess they dropped it after a while because there
were complaints of police brutality, but it was different. It

(34:37):
was brutality against police officers because people didn't feel threatened
by these guys who had like I think they even
had like pocket protectors like it, like they had pens
and ships. So I think it was oh, they they
became too the the image got like, no, that's a

(35:00):
teacher and I can go fight a teacher. I have
no idea if that's if, if if those what the
correlation as far as those instances of police brutality, as
you know, it's also without knowing what those stories are,
it's hard to say that, you know, is police brutality

(35:20):
Just like I tried to arrest somebody and they kicked me,
like yeah, versus like no, we were walking the beat
and then these kids started throwing eggs at us. Uh
so yeah, but it but it I I found myself
thinking about, you know, as we have a conversation around

(35:43):
policing in this country, and it's the same conversation I
think around something like education and also around something like
healthcare and housing. We have only loosely defined what we
want these things to be. And because they're loose defined,
it then winds up being the responsibility of the person

(36:08):
who is in charge of that institution to define it,
and they get to define what it is. And so
that's why it then becomes that much easier for a
police department to prioritize militarization over actual like crime prevention,

(36:31):
which we know isn't something that happens through policing. It's
something that happens through putting those resources elsewhere into social
services that can actually help people to get a better education,
to get quality education, to get quality housing, to get
quality employment. And so it's like, oh yeah, if you're

(36:55):
getting to define it, you're never going to define something
in a way that says, oh, you know what, maybe
I am getting too much money and that money should
go elsewhere. And so I think with all these things,
you know, you see it. I think even in this
moment where we talk about health care, we've allowed private

(37:17):
healthcare companies to define what health care should be, and
there is no with all of these things. We have
these umbrella terms, but we don't have umbrella definitions that are, Okay,
you know what, policing should only be this, and it
should and this is. This is the minimum of what

(37:40):
policing should be, and this is the maximum of what
policing should be. And in the same way, we have
no minimum for what we expect education to be. We
like or a maximum, but definitely we have we've we
have no definition of like this is this is what

(38:00):
the base level of educational access every kid should have.
There's no definition, and so that's why it's so easy
to find a school where textbooks are decades out of date,
they have no resources too higher or retain teachers, and

(38:20):
schools are crumbling because we haven't said, like, oh, you
know what, every school should have structural updates every five
years and that should just be a locked in thing,
and every three years their textbooks need to be updated,
they need to be replaced. It's just automatic. Yeah, And

(38:41):
instead what we do is we say, well, the students
need to learn X, Y Z, like they need to
prove this level of reading comprehension by this age, or
we cut funding to this school, but we don't say, well,
wait a minute, if that school doesn't have enough teachers

(39:02):
and yeah, and when we talk about like things like
classroom size, again we know like classrooms should probably be
twelve kids maximum, and yeah, we say like, well, this
school in this neighborhood, they don't have the funding, so
thirty kids are going to be in a classroom. Tough shit.

(39:24):
And it's just like, no, there should be a minimum.
And the moment your classroom goes over whatever fifteen kids,
it's like, Okay, that school needs more money, and that's
what we gotta do, and we just gotta pump more
money into that school so that they can make a
new class for that group of kids. And but we

(39:45):
don't define these things, and we just say like, oh, yeah,
a bad school is like you know, it's a bad school,
and but we don't say, like, right, but what is
the floor for what every school should be? So yeah, yeah,
and and parents, uh, just know what the bad schools
are so you can do everything you can to try
and get your kid to a different one. Yeah, I

(40:07):
mean yeah in New York, you see that here because
there's all of what they call like the high performing schools,
and there's you know, all of this competition to get
into these schools. And on the one hand, I feel
like the city looks at that and they wear it
as a badge of honor, of like, look at how
many parents compete to get their kids into these schools

(40:31):
and how many kids are competing every year to get
into these schools. When to me, what it says is like,
what does it say about the rest of your schools
that people are so desperate to get out of those
to just get into these handful of schools. Yeah? Yeah,

(40:53):
I mean I was a public school kid. My parents
were both public school teachers. So this is like a
situation I've been intimately involved with my whole life just
through their eyes. Uh, interesting stuff. And you know what,
everyone listening. The Problem Areas is still on HBO Max,
So if you didn't get a chance to see it,
please do. It's very funny. I mean we're talking about

(41:15):
all this like sort of heavy stuff, but it's also
a very funny show. I feel like we're having a
fun conversation about it. Of course, I don't know if
you want to talk about it or not. We don't
have to. But I did see what happened with John
Stewart coming out with his show The Problem, and uh,

(41:40):
before I even saw what what you tweeted out, I
was just like, right, like, seriously, that's that's the title
of it. Yeah, well, in the title and at least
by the description. The description is that it seems like
it's a show that is going to each season focus
on one issue. Right. Sounds familiar. So yeah, it sounds

(42:03):
really familiar. And yeah, I tweeted something about it, and
I found it curious. I mean, I think what also
to me struck me about it was that, uh, the
executive who bought my show and who was the one
who was you know, like, oh, I love this idea

(42:25):
of looking at one topic over the course of a season.
And you know, I think was the person who could
you know, held my show's life in his hands, could
use to renew my show or not? He when my
show was up for renewal left HBO went to Apple

(42:46):
and is the exact over this show. And so I think,
to me, that's what that's what feels a little fishy
about it all, is that like, a wait a minute,
the guy who bought my show also bought this show,
and I think was the person who held a deciding

(43:08):
vote on the life of my show, right, and then
you know, just opted not to vote and left left
the network. And then basically it's like, you know what,
you know what a good idea for a show is
a show that spends a season looking at one issue.

(43:32):
Uh yeah, I like that, and I should I should
get a guy to host that show. Oh you know what,
I'll get John and we gotta come up with a
title for it. Right. That was where it was so egregious.
It's like, are you kidding me? Yeah, it's just disappointing.

(43:53):
And but also, and but you had that one great
clip from your show where uh said, go ahead and
quoted exactly because I don't want to just paraphrasees. Sure,
there was a clip that we had had in the
show and it was based off of this guy that
I had interviewed. Had he had talked about policing and

(44:15):
he made a really uh just a really great statement
about how you have to you know, he basically made
like a really good statement about policing and just like
what the expectations for police officers should be. And he
was a he was a young black man, And so
I cut back to studio where I was and I said, wow,

(44:38):
you know, what he said was really deep. But if
there's one thing I've learned from being on television, if
you want people to take something that a black person
says seriously, you really need to have a white guy
say basically the same thing right after. And I mean
it was so perfect. At least you had had that

(44:59):
at your disposed, you know. Yeah. No, the one thing
that I'm I'm grateful for that HBO probably isn't, is
that I was able to hold on to the masters
right my show and I have a very rudimentary understanding
of Eye movie. Right. Oh that's great, man, Um, before

(45:21):
we get into blazing settles, I did want to talk
about one more part of your career because I know
and this is something I've never talked to you about.
Like we've we've hung out like a number of times
over the years, and for some reason, I never talked
to you about King of the Hill and your years
writing for King of the Hill, and I would just
love to know a little bit about what that was like,
because it's just such a beloved show and I know

(45:42):
a lot of our listeners love it. Sure, it was
a really it was an interesting experience because I think
one it was my first job in television as like
a writer. It was was it? Really? Yeah? I Mean
I'd had like jobs where I was a p A
and stuff, but this was like my first, like a fish, Okay,
you're you know, you're a TV writer. And I for me,

(46:07):
I grew up in Texas and I grew up not
too far from uh where Mike Judge went to college.
And it's something that Mike and I have talked about
where I when I was a kid, we would ride
our bikes over to his college campus. And my friends

(46:27):
and I at the time were you know, really big
into like g I Joe and army stuff, and so
we would always like get our like little camouflage outfits
and we tramped through there was like a little creek
that went into like a sewer, and we kind of
trumped through there at the edge of campus. Or we'd

(46:47):
run around the campus on the weekends with water guns
and do like our you know, little army ship. And
so it it was funny to think about the idea
you that he was he may have been in school
around the same time we were these idiot kids running

(47:08):
around and just how like bizarre that that is to
think about, like, how are you know just that we
sort of walked the same the same grounds at different
times and had different experiences with it. And so in
that way, for me working there, there was a strange

(47:28):
sense of like, this show feels incredibly familiar to me
because a lot of the references and things were things
that I saw. I saw versions of that. There was
the first episode when I started what season was that
I came in in season seven, and so my first

(47:51):
day on the job, they were doing an animatic screening.
Um and for those who don't know what an animatic
screening is, look it up. I'm not going to teach.
You know, it's basically before the but before an episode
is fully animated, they do the audio track to rough animation,

(48:15):
and so you see the shots, but you don't see
full animation. Um, and so you get to kind of
like see it half alive and you rewrite some things,
you talk about different shots. And so my first day
they were having an animal attic for this episode called

(48:35):
New Cowboy on the Block. And I remember the show
runners were on vacation when I started, and Greg Daniels
was in the office and so he was overseeing this
animal attic screening. And the writer for the episode was
a writer named Dean Young and Greg, who I didn't

(48:57):
know very well. You know, I just started and Greg
was like, why don't you come into this antimatic And
I was like okay, And I watched the animatic and
the episode was this episode where h and Dallas Cowboy,
a guy who played one year for the Dallas Cowboys

(49:19):
Special Teams had moved onto the Block and as a
result was seen as a god. And so I had
that same thing happened when I was a kid. There
was a special teams player who played one season with
the Cowboys. He played one season with the Bears and

(49:41):
one season with the Cowboys, and he moved in, he
moved onto our street, and he was like a god
to the name, and it was like he didn't like,
I don't know that he ever you know, I don't
know that he ever saw any serious playing time. I mean,
you know, two years of football and he was out

(50:02):
and uh. But he was considered like this god on
the street and people were like, oh my god, there's
a cowboy Dallas. Cowboy lives on our street. And you know,
people puff their chests out in this way where it
was like we like, this wasn't like a wealthy street
by any means, but all of a sudden, everyone thought,
like our property values just went up. And so there

(50:26):
was this real sense of like, oh, yeah, this like
this show. I can relate a lot to what this
show is talking about, despite the fact that, like, these
characters don't look like me or my family. These a
lot of these stories I I feel a connection to.

(50:46):
And so I think there was something for me that
was really I I really connected with um and and
it was a big fan of Mike, and so it
was like really great. Mike at the time lived in Austin,
and so he wasn't a part of the day to day. Um.

(51:08):
But every summer we would take a writer's trip to Austin,
and that was really cool because it was an opportunity
to get to spend a little time with Mike. And
for a lot of the writers, they weren't from Texas.
There were a handful of us. There was me, there
was a writer, Christie Stratton, um and another I think

(51:31):
Jim do Trieve was from Texas as well, or definitely
went to school in Texas. Um. Yeah, Jim was from Texas.
Uh So, yeah, there was just a handful when I
was there that were from Texas. Oh, and then there
was a guy jb was also from Texas. And so
there was just a handful of like writers who grew

(51:53):
up or spent considerable time in Texas. And so for
the other writers, it became this opportunity where we'd all
go down there and obviously, you know, we'd eat well
and drink well, but also go on little field trips
and so people it was it was kind of great.
And I don't know if other shows do this, but

(52:16):
you know, the like different writers would find different things
to do, Like some writers would go to like a
church singles group really and yeah, and they would just
do it and it was all with the idea that
like they wanted to just do research and look for
stories and yeah, and it was it really was like

(52:37):
a weirdly journalistic approach to it where I remember there
was an episode. There's an episode that I I had
pitched that got written after I left, and it was
it was. It was one of those things where as
much as I there was a lot that I got
from the show, and then there was also some terrible
ship that I dealt with at the show, uh, which

(53:00):
constantly being reminded that I was the only black writer
and that I was only there because the network had
created a diversity initiative. My salary wasn't part of the
show's budget. It was something it was something that Fox
would pay for to encourage shows to hire people of color.

(53:24):
And I was constantly reminded of that by my boss
um and so uh, and I think he was reminding
me of it in a way he thought it was
a good thing, and to me, it's like, no, you're
telling me I'm not like everybody else. And so but
in when I left the year I left, one of

(53:48):
the things I had become fascinated with was roller derby,
and there was a big roller derby scene that had
popped up in Texas and an Austin specifically, and I
had had this idea that lu Anne uh joined a
roller derby team and that potentially Peggy might want to
join too, because it fits right into Peggy's wheelhouse of

(54:09):
like everything she would want to do. That either she
joins or she decides she wants to be a coach
and becomes an incredibly aggressive roller derby coach. Um. But
I but I had become fascinated with it, and I
was like, oh, you know, there's roller derby and we
should go check it out. And so uh that year,

(54:29):
I remember they didn't want me to do that episode.
I pitched it, and I think they initially weren't into
it and then got into it and another and then
they gave it to another writer to to write and
I was kind of like, oh, that's I was really
excited about that. And so but I'm glad. I'm still

(54:52):
glad that they made the episode, um, and glad that
the story found the found a life somewhere. Was it
a good episode or were you kind of like, I
don't remember. I think when I left the show. Admittedly
I left the show, and I as much as I

(55:13):
loved the show, it, I left because I wanted to
do other things. But I also left because I didn't
feel particularly comfortable there and uh and so I think
when I left, there was a little bit of me
that it became tough to watch the show afterwards, and
uh and so I didn't really watch I recently, NPR

(55:36):
pop Culture Happy Hour had done an episode recently where
they talked about King of the Hill and they were
just kind of they had a guest on our journalist
named Sir Riah McDonald and they were all talking about
King of the Hill and they were talking about how
they felt the characters would have voted, and it was

(55:56):
an interesting conversation to hear some fans talk about it,
and I was kind of I just started thinking about it,
and so I was like, you know what I I
this is the story I would pitch, and so, you know,
with the knowledge of the characters I had I pitched.
I just basically went on Twitter and I was like,

(56:18):
this is what I think would happen. And I just
kind of went and I laid out my pitch for
a King of the Hill episode. Obviously Mike has final say,
but I was like, this is what I think it
would look like. And it's you know, Hank is somewhere
between a you know, he's a conservative, he's somewhere between

(56:39):
a conservative and a libertarian and uh, and so he
may feel like he has to vote his party. And
I think the way I kind of laid it out
is like he's a little torn. He's not crazy about it,
but he's he's a little torn. I have to read
the tweets again, but basic, basically he gets. The episode

(57:02):
starts with him catching coronavirus from Bill, who was asymptomatic
but just got Hank sick. And so Hank is in
the garage where he has to now stay for you know,
until he's until he's safe again. And while in the garage,

(57:24):
he sees Bobby acting really rude, and Bobby is saying like, oh,
he's acting like Trump and that he sees Trump as
the comedian in chief and that you know, like, oh yeah,
people like Trump does all these terrible things, and he
says they're a joke, and like, you know, he says

(57:45):
he's kidding, and so Bobby is sort of emulating this behavior,
and upon seeing that, Uh, it gets to a point
where Bobby does something that that offends Connie and his
offense the Connie and Uh, Hank sees that, and he's like,
you know what, screw this, I'm not going to vote.

(58:06):
Like I like, I don't want to vote for this party,
and I don't like the idea of a politician being
a comedian. I still don't forgive Nixon for going on
laughing like um. But he's like, I can't, I can't
do it. And then one night in the garage, he
has a fever dream where he's visited by h Ann

(58:29):
Richards and and Richards reminds him that, like I was
governor of Texas and I was a Democrat, and like,
it's not always about party there, you know, there are
people across party lines who do things that are the
in the best interest of the people. And so that's

(58:52):
what ultimately convinces Hank and he decides to vote for Biden,
but he won't tell anyone except Bobby, who he swears
to secrecy. Uh, you know, Bobby start he has to
at some point teach Bobby that, like what Trump is
doing is in comedy, and you shouldn't expect your politicians

(59:15):
to be comedians. You should expect them to be the
people who enact what you as as the public want.
Bobby sees that, you know, he apologized to Connie. Uh.
Peggy and Lewin have a storyline where while all this
is going on, because it's in the middle of a pandemic,
they head to the megalo mart where they're going to

(59:38):
they're trying to load up on toilet paper like everybody else.
But when they get there, they see that there's a
strike happening. Because all the people at the megalo mart
are like, hey, we are we deserve a raise, like
we're you know, front facing in the you know, are

(59:59):
at risk and people are getting sick who work here
and very much echoing what's going on what was going
on with like Whole Foods workers and Amazon workers, where
it's like, oh, yeah, all these people are getting sick
and they don't have healthcare. And so Peggy and Lunn
see this and then wind up getting involved in the strike.

(01:00:19):
And Peggy, you know, Peggy sees herself as the norma
ray for this group. Whether they see it is another story,
but Peggy has kind of like gone, you know, full
full on board. And so even in at the moment
when Hank has decided he's not going to vote, like
Peggy gets very upset and it's like you have to vote,

(01:00:41):
like this is you know, uh like because she sees
herself now is this labor organizer? And uh. And so
that's so that was kind of like the episode. And
then I and then I kind of talked about how
the other guys would have voted, and I said, well,
you know, Dale's off the grid, so or as off
the grid as a guy who's owns a house that

(01:01:05):
is in his wife, is in his wife's name and
paid for by his wife. Um, he's but he wouldn't vote. Uh.
And then Boom Howard. I think I wrote out Boom
Howard's vote in his voice where he was just kind
of like, uh, you know, talking about Bengal bad knees man,

(01:01:27):
talking about football man, talking about you know, Bengal legalize
it man, um. And so he's voting for anybody who
will legalize marijuana. Uh. And then I said that Bill
would get arrested as part of the January six insurrection
only because he had been catfished there for love by

(01:01:51):
Dale and that Dale had cat fished him with some
woman who had been involved in Q and On. And
you know, Bill is not really paying attention to what
Q and on is. He's just kind of like this
lady loves me and like she's you know, and she
told me to meet her in Washington, d C. And so, dude,

(01:02:15):
I want to see that episode. Thank you. Yeah, a
fair number of people wanted to also. They echoed that,
and what wound up being funny. I I tweeted all that,
and then it was actually a very sweet thing. I
I also tweeted an image that the animators had drawn.
There was an l A Times article about the show

(01:02:37):
when I was working there, and they had had the
animators draw the writing staff and so we were all
drawn in that style in the writer's room, and so
I kind of tweeted out my you know, this was
the episode in response to that pop culture happy our episode,

(01:03:00):
and I tweeted all out, and then at the end
of it had put this illustration, Uh, in part because
I think as people were reading it, I don't know
that people realized that I had worked for the show,
and they were just like, oh, wow, like you you
seem to know a lot about this show, and it
was like and so I tweeted that and it was

(01:03:24):
something that was very sweet. Was one of the writers.
Uh had seen it, and he had responded his his
name is kid Boss, and he had responded that both
a sense of like of you know, fond memories, but
also in looking at the the image, a sense of

(01:03:45):
embarrassment at the fact that it was this sea of
white guys and a couple of white women and me
and Uh and Uh. And in his tweet, Uh said,
uh he he it was. It was a very funny
thing where I'm paraphrasing, but he was like, if this image,

(01:04:08):
if there were a song to go with this image,
and he linked to the song white Room. It was like, yeah,
you're not wrong, and you know what, that song will
follow me to a few more places. Oh man, that's great.

(01:04:36):
You were my first sort of entertainment celebrity friend. Did
you know that you and John? I didn't know that.
Well wait, was it me and John or just me?
Well I meet you guys both on the same day.
I know you don't remember this stuff because people only
remember like meeting people that are more important than they are.
Was it? It was the quiz was before that that

(01:04:57):
that is what we wrote you into. It was, Uh,
John got in touch with us, Josh and I about
Jesus probably like eleven years ago, and said, my friend
Wyatt Sinak uh told me about stuff you should know
and said I would really like it and to give
it a listen. And so I'm reaching I love I
love it, and I'm reaching out to you guys. I
let's see if you want to have lunch next time
you come to New York. And Josh and I were

(01:05:19):
just like, oh my god, did you see that? Like
White Sinek is listening to us and John Hodgens listening
to us, and uh we met for lunch at Shopson's,
you me and Josh and John, and that was our
first like meeting with someone in the entertainment. Like we
were just very removed and still kind of our to

(01:05:41):
be honest, but very removed from all of that and
in our little room recording our show and just it
was a big deal. Man. It meant a lot to
us that y'all listened and y'all reached out and uh
took us to lunch, and uh so sort of twelve
eleven years later, I just wanted to say thanks. So
it was a big deal to us, and it sort

(01:06:01):
of felt like, you know, we had arrived in a
certain way for two guys who sort of accidentally fell
into this career as a non professional you know, broadcasters
and comedian types. And it was a big deal. And
and so much fruit has been born from the relationship
with John two of him introducing me to people. You
know how John is, He's just such a connector. And uh,

(01:06:23):
but you were, you were the conduit man, so and
and and I'm not surprised you don't remember, but it
was a big deal. No, not that you say it.
I remember us going to shops and I like, that
was you. I think that's the I've only been the
shops since maybe or that iteration of shops s AND's.
I think i'd only been to it. That might have

(01:06:43):
been my first time there. Maybe I went one other
time and then I've since been to the new iteration
of it. But yeah, so, uh no, I mean one,
I enjoyed listening to the podcast so much, and I

(01:07:04):
really became this a weird little evangelist for it, where
I was like, oh my god, you should listen to
this episode that listen to them talk about zombies like
this is so fascinating. Well that was huge, man, it
was a big deal. And so it's to meet you guys.
I think I was enamored with what you all were

(01:07:24):
doing and how you know, you talked about my show,
But I feel like when I listened to your show,
what was great was that you were taking all of
these ideas that I people kind of like no more
as concept and digging into them in ways that we're

(01:07:47):
thoughtful and approachable to a listener, where yeah, it became
a really enjoyable thing to consume, whether you're in a
car driving and listening, or you're on the train and
you got your headphones on, or you're just sitting in
your apartment and you want to be entertained, and it

(01:08:11):
I I feel like it it was that the the
interplay between both of you was always very fun and engaging,
and it felt like it felt like you were sitting
and eaves dropping in on a wonderful conversation that you
would walk away from it and be able to go
someplace else and be like, hey, do you want to

(01:08:33):
know something I just like And you kind of walk
away looking like a genius and it was just like, yeah,
I know all this information. It's like, where did you
get it? I just overheard these two chaps having a
lovely conversation about it. Well, thanks man Um, and you
were as a result, you were one of the first
people I wanted to get on movie Crush, and I
tried to a few years ago, and I bugged you

(01:08:54):
a little bit, and I think it was just not
the right time, And looking back, it might have been
when you are probably making problem areas, so it was
probably terrible timing. But I'm glad to finally get you on. Uh.
And when you pick Blazing Saddles, I was really excited
because this was a very big movie for me, especially
in college with me and my friends. We I mean,

(01:09:16):
I don't keep count of how many times I've seen
specific movies, but this one is up there along with
Spinal Tap as far as comedies go, um seeing them,
and you know the Christopher Guest all of his stuff.
Really seeing movies probably dozens of times, and uh, I
remember seeing it, believe it or not. This is the
first movie I saw in the theater. When I was three,

(01:09:38):
my parents took me to a drive in a Blazing
Saddles and it's one of my first memories in life
is and I only remember a couple of things. I
remember Cleveland Little when he first rode into town with
that sweet, badass suede outfit. Yeah, the Gucci outfit in
that cool horse. And I remember Mango punching out the horse.

(01:09:59):
And those are only two things I remember from being
like three and a half years old or whatever when
this movie came out. But um, what I mean, let's
get into it. Man, what what does this mean movie
to you? It's a lot, It's it's it's an interesting
movie because I feel like it's one of those movies

(01:10:19):
that I like in rewatching it. I've watched a bunch myself,
and I rewatched it in anticipation for our conversation, And
there's a part of it where you watch it and
it's just like the storyline is almost secondary or tertiary

(01:10:41):
two all of these just ridiculous scenes. But also it plays,
it plays a role in it. And I think one
thing I've always appreciated about the film is when you
watch it, there is there's a real like there's a

(01:11:05):
real difficulty level to doing a movie like that. That
and I think, I think if you were to look
at probably reviews of that time, people would say, like
the plots thin Ye. What's interesting is like you're setting
things up that you're calling back later throughout the movie.
You're weaving things in, You're making choices where you have

(01:11:29):
like you know, the executioner that's outside of Headley Lamar's office,
where it's like you've got a medieval style executioner Middle Ages. Yeah,
and like what a weird like what a weird thought
process of like this has nothing to do with the
overall story, but we want to do this joke, and

(01:11:53):
so we have to justify like this joke somehow where
you have a plot thing happening and then you just
hear a noise, like and then it's just like the
noise is really just to go and tell this one
executioner joke, which isn't a cheap joke. You've still got
to get a set and do all these things, and

(01:12:15):
it's like you've got that joke and then it's almost
a throwaway, but it like shows up a little bit later.
But the idea that like, when I think about crafting
a movie like that, like the idea that something that
seems like a throwaway you then justify later when you

(01:12:38):
have to. Like it comes back towards the end of
the movie again when there's another execution happening, and I
think the part of me that knows how these things
get made, it's like, oh, however many days this shoot was.
That's a set and you had to you had to

(01:13:00):
get that set for a certain number of days, and
you've got to justify using that set, and like and
just how like, I don't know, there's just something about
it that feels like, oh, the there's an execution that's
that's going on there that's like so weirdly thoughtful, where
everything is connected and also seems so unconnected at the

(01:13:24):
same time. And I just remember watching it and thinking like,
this movie seems so like wonderful in its zaney nous
and but also so intelligent in how it's in how
it seems chaotic. And I always thought like, oh, one
day I would love to make my own version of

(01:13:48):
a Blazing Saddles, Like that's always been the thing of like, Oh,
when I think of a satire, I think of that movie.
And when I think of Cleveland Little and just the
role he's playing as well, where it's like he's taking
he's basically Bugs Bunny but doing something that and and

(01:14:08):
I'd be curious if like this was the thought process
when they were crafting it. But you know, so many
of those old cartoon characters, whether it's Bugs Bunny or
Mickey Mouse, their origins are in minstrelsy and the you know,
the white gloves are part of that kind of like

(01:14:31):
minstrel uh, that minstrel wardrobe. And that's interesting and that's
where they that's where a lot of it comes from,
the roots of it, are taking a lot of those
minstrel shows and those characters, those characterizations and just putting
them into animals. And so that's and that's oftentimes you

(01:14:55):
would see when the characters wind up like in black
face from time to time it's a little bit of
a nod to that. But the gloves were that's a
holdover from that. And yeah, and so there's something that's
interesting about then, like, oh, now you have cleve on
little basically taking and at one point even going as

(01:15:17):
far as doing like a Bugs Bunny bit where and
taking all of that and now actually taking something that
has its origins and minstrelsy where you had white people
in black face and now you've sort of taken some
of those movements and the and the characterizations and you

(01:15:38):
put them into animals, and then you've built something out
of that. And then here is a black person taking
all of that and using that to point at and
make fun of racism in in this world. And so
there was something about it that I was that I
found like very subversive, whether intentionally or unintentionally, about his

(01:16:04):
performance and what was going on there. And so I think,
to me it was both like, oh, here's this really
funny movie, but also one where when I think about
things like representation, it is one where it is, you know,
in a nineteen seventies way, trying to be representative and

(01:16:26):
talk about racism and even talk about sexism, but you know,
doing it in a way that I think today probably
feels antiquated. But you know, forty over forty five years ago,
I think to look at it through that lens, it's like,
holy fuck, Like what like, like you're really doing something

(01:16:48):
and doing it in a way where you're using comedy
to do it. I was, yeah, it's it's It's always
meant a lot to me in that regard. Yeah, I
mean what struck me today it was how quickly it
subverts that the racist thing right out of the gate.
Like the very first scene is on the railroad, when um,

(01:17:10):
what's the guy's name? I love him? He was in
the fletched movie, Slim Pickens. No, he's great to Burton
Gilliam when he's he's trying to get them to sing,
singing and seeing the good old slave song, and it
subverts it right away. Cleveland Little exerts his power and

(01:17:30):
start singing. You know, some get their kicks from Champagne.
And it's just immediately it sets the tone for this
movie of what's going to happen, which is Cleveland Little
is is probably the smartest guy in the movie. At
least he and Jim probably are are equals. And these
guys are all idiots, and we're gonna and we're gonna

(01:17:53):
show that right out of the gate. And then those
guys start singing the Camptown Lady and dancing around like
a much morons. And then and that just set that
just sets the tone right away, and you know what
kind of and you know, so much of this was
probably lost on me when I was certainly when I
was three, but when I was nineteen and in college
It's a movie that the more you watch it over

(01:18:14):
the years that not only do you find new jokes
somehow you still find new jokes, but you really get
the subversion of the whole thing more and more as
it ages. I think, yeah, No, I think it's it's
an interesting one to watch in that way, And I
think to what you're talking about, I think of another

(01:18:35):
There's another thing I think about, especially with Cleveland Little's character,
where I think about the story of Brear Rabbit, which
was a story that I was always fascinated with as
a kid, and it was, you know, that idea of
it's the trickster and Cleveland Little was the trickster, and

(01:18:58):
the trickster. You know, brear Rabbit comes from African folklore
and the stories of like a Nanti the spider who
was the trickster, and originally breat Rabbit stories were stories
that enslaved people told each other, and brear Rabbit was
the embodiment of the enslaved person who got one over

(01:19:23):
on either the overseer brear Fox or the plantation master
brear Bear. And so there's something that I think even
in that when I think about, like Cleveland Little's character,
it falls in that same line of like Tricksters where
I think of a Nazi the spider brear Rabbit and

(01:19:45):
totally I never really thought about that and that, but
that moment in particular where it's like, you want me
to do this thing, so I'll pretend to be dumb
so I get you to do the thing, and it
was just like, oh yeah, there's some thing that's so
brilliant about Oh yeah, I'll let you show yourself how

(01:20:06):
stupid you are. And I just thought it was really
such a smart movie and how it did those things,
and even I think about, you know, you mentioned that
like Barton Jim are kind of the two smartest people
in the room, and then I feel like Madeline Kahn's
character kind of gets there that like she starts off

(01:20:26):
as like she she starts off as a smart person,
but one who is willing to kind of be Upawn
in this in Hedley's game, and then at some point
besides oh no, I don't want to be a part
of any of this, and I think, you know, she

(01:20:48):
kind of becomes this third character. Like the movie ends
with Barton Jim kind of writing off in the distance,
and I think if it were to be rewritten today,
I feel like there would probably be a little more
to Madeleine Khan's journey where you know she where she
also joins them at the end, well, she probably wants to.

(01:21:11):
I mean that was one of the funniest parts of
the whole her whole sequences. You know, she sent into
to romance him and leave him, and none of that
ever makes sense. It's such a thin sort of premise anyway,
and and she's just kind of cooled and cold and
cool to him. But you know, then she sleeps with
him overnight and she's just like she's fallen for him.

(01:21:33):
She's like she doesn't want him to leave, she's trying
to keep him there, and she completely turns against Edley Lamar. Yeah,
there's like an interesting sort of like the radical the
radicalization of certain people in this movie where it's like
you think about her because by the end, yeah, she's like, uh,
singing to the Nazis to get the stuff fighting, and

(01:21:55):
so it's like she's kind of been radicalized. Mongo has
been rad ecalized because he has he's never untreated as
nice and so there is this weird like wave of
like people seeing oh wait a minute, there's maybe a
different way to do this, and even by the end
they've radicalized the whole town where it's like Okay, yeah,

(01:22:20):
you like you see that we can work together and
to do this, like it's it's you know, it's a
very sort of uh, building blocks kind of thing, but
it is that thing of like, how are we going
to build a fake town in overnight? And it's like, well,

(01:22:41):
I got all the Chinese rail road workers and enslaved
black people to come and they're and they're gonna help.
And the townspeople were like uh, and then it's like
they're gonna help and they're gonna save you. But to
do this, you're also going to have to give up

(01:23:03):
being racists and and give them some land and give
them some land. And there's something that's interesting in this,
like in that conversation that's like it's almost so rudimentary
and how simple it is, but it is that thing
of like, yeah, that's that's the core of what it is,
is like we're never gonna stop this unless we all

(01:23:24):
work together. But in working together, it also means that
like everyone's going to have to get like their fair
share when it's all over, and it's it's almost like
it's almost this weird, beautiful message in an in a
movie that also has a scene that is just three

(01:23:45):
minutes of people farting NonStop. Right, Yeah, the scene when
you were talking about the trickster thing. I think that
is so evident in the And you know that the
setup of the movie is very it's all very funny.
I mean, joke for joke per minute. It may be
one of the funniest movies ever made. And the first

(01:24:05):
thirty minutes is certainly funny. But the h I feel
like it really heats up when Bart finally comes to
town and the town welcomes him with a big ceremony
and um he the beraar rabbit thing is most evident
in the scene where he takes himself hostage. You know
they all pull the guns on. I mean, he immediately
is like, well, here's what I have to do. I

(01:24:26):
have to go into this sort of uh, typical you know,
typical black man mode that they will recognize and uh
they can identify with that, because like that's the only
thing they're gonna recognize and identify with. And uh and
then you know, he plays it so perfectly. Cleveland Little
is so great in this, and when he finally gets

(01:24:48):
behind closed doors in the office, he's like, you're baby,
you are so talented and they are so dumb. I
mean they say that a few times. Gene Hackman calls
him morons. He calls them dumb. I Harvey Corman is
the other sort of smart one because he knows. Oh yeah,
what I say, Gene Hackman. Yeah, that would have been
interesting cast. You know, John Wayne was originally they sent

(01:25:12):
that to John Wayne. That doesn't seem like it would
be the same movie. It doesn't, and especially considering now
you know what we know about John Wayne's politics right
at the time, even and it was he apparently liked
the script a lot. They said he thought it was
too blue and he there's he just there's no way

(01:25:35):
he got the There's no way he got it. Not
that seems so bizarre. I doubt if he understood it.
I cannot imagine him in that role. No, because because
Gene Wilder and uh and Cleveland Little were such a
great team. And I know, and I'm sure you know

(01:25:55):
that Richard Pryor, one of the writers, was gonna play
Jim as well. But we're going to play bart And
they didn't do it. I mean, I've heard a few
different excuses on why they didn't do that, but I mean,
I love Cleveland Little, but I totally could have seen
Richard Young, Richard Pryor in this movie. I could have.
But it's interesting because there's a part of me that

(01:26:17):
m it would have been interesting to see Prior and
Wilder just given the then real they would kind of
create a comedy duo as But I feel like there's
also something about Cleveland Little that I feel like, I

(01:26:38):
he wasn't somebody that I thought of as a comedic
actor in that way, and he's he has this kind
of leading man quality that like I could see him
playing a superspy or you know, see him playing like

(01:26:59):
a lawyers someone, someone with real gravitas, and it's interesting
to then see him bring that into this role that
is comic. But also I think he he leans on
his serious acting as well in a way that I

(01:27:19):
don't know if it makes it and it makes it
funnier than if Prior would have done it, But I
think it just makes it more interesting to me in
a way, and in the same way that I think
of like Jeffrey Wright, to me is one of the
funniest actors when given comedic things, but is such a
great just actor in general. But there are moments where

(01:27:43):
there was something I saw him do and it was
just like a short video that I think was for
like the New York Times or something like that, where
he's he's in an airplane and he's narrating it and
he's just sitting on an airplane, and his ability as

(01:28:04):
an actor is just like, Oh, he's such a great
serious actor. And then there are these moments for him
to be funny, and I think it's almost because it's
because you forget that he's funny. It hits you like
this gut punch in a way that's like, oh, yeah,

(01:28:26):
this is I expect Richard prior to be funny, So
I think I would anticipate any scene he walks into
that he's gonna be funny, and I'm almost I'm almost
more shocked when he's serious. And when I think about
like a movie like Jojo Dancer, like you're almost you're
more impressed at him being serious in those moments. And

(01:28:50):
in the same way someone who is a really great
serious and stage actor, to see them be funny, it's
a it hits you in this different way, and and
not every serious actor can pull off comedy in the
same way that not every comedian can pull off serious stuff. Yeah, yeah,

(01:29:12):
for sure. It also hit me today watching the Townspeople
and just how much it sort of echoes what we've
seen during the Trump years of these people that are
determined to act against their own self interests just to
hang on to racism and just to be able to
say the N word to somebody. And it's that that

(01:29:33):
grievance politics that we've seen so much of lately. It's like,
but you're acting against yourself interests politically, and like like,
do you understand what you're doing? And they don't care
as long as that as long as they can say
bad things about people, like that's what matters more. Yeah,
and that it's it is. It's a very it is

(01:29:55):
a very good kind of like uh analogous thing that
think about with the Trump era. Yeah, it's funny because
as you say that, Yeah, there's a lot of it
where it does feel like I think about the one uh,
the one woman who brings brings them some dinner that

(01:30:16):
comes to Bart and Jim and yeah, like earlier in
the movie had yelled at Barton called him a nigger,
and then later shows like shows up at the jail
and brings him a pie, and it's like, I'm sorry
about that from before, and also here's this pie, and

(01:30:39):
thank you. But then also, don't tell anybody about this.
And it's that it's that weird. It's the weird identity
politics that I feel like exist. We often think about
identity politics extending to like anyone who has, you know,

(01:31:00):
who doesn't fit what we consider the sort of the
conservative American pie norm whatever. But I feel like there's
the identity politics that exist of the people who, like
you said, vote against their own interests or feel they
have to live up to some to some version of

(01:31:23):
what a like white person from the South or a
rural area supposed to be. And I think about there's UH.
There's a filmmaker. Her name's Elvira Lynde and she made
this She made this show for Vice and it was

(01:31:47):
an interesting show. It was a show about these two
trans Brooklyn nights who decide to take a cross country
trip together and one of one of the people in
the UH in the story, and I'm trying to remember
their names. I feel like one's name one. One person

(01:32:11):
was named Twizz. I think it was like Twizz and Tuck.
I think is the name of it, if if somebody
wanted to go look it up. I think it's called
Twiz and Tuck. I think it's Twizz is from a
very rural area and decides to go meet up with

(01:32:32):
the guy that took them to prom when they were
still presenting as as female. And so they go to
this incredibly rural place and they meet this guy and
you know, he looks like he could be one of

(01:32:55):
the like a cousin of the Duck dynasty guys like uh,
you know, beards not as long, but he's got the
camo baseball cap that's that's curled, and he's wearing sunglasses.
And they meet this guy and his family and the
guy is a little throne now seeing you know, a

(01:33:19):
male version of his prom date. And they talk and stuff.
But then you discover in this conversation and I'm talking
the the guy has kids and one of his kids
is gender nonconforming, and they're supportive, and it's and it's

(01:33:42):
like and it's such a strange thing where it's kind
of like and yet and I'm sure there are people
in this community who are supportive of this kid, and
yet this community may have voted overwhelmingly against that kid's
interests despite the fact that they've seen that kid in

(01:34:06):
school plays and you know, at church or wherever, and
they embrace the kid. And it's that weird thing of
like the identity politics of well, I still have to
come off as this like conservative that can't like actually say, well,
hold on a minute. Maybe it doesn't make sense for

(01:34:29):
us to be closed minded and these and maybe this
touches our doorstep a little closer than we realize those things.
I mean, it kind of goes back to it goes
back to my King of the Hill episode, my fan
fition episode of hay Thank feeling like he has to
vote party over everything else. And but it is that

(01:34:52):
it's but it was funny when I think about that
scene emblazing saddles. It's very much that to to your point,
there are so many of those people who have who
voted for Trump and said like, oh, you know, build
a wall, and uh, you know, we don't want gay

(01:35:13):
people to have rights, and and yet probably have people
in their lives who are immigrants who they may or
may not know their documentation like some may be documented,
some may be undocumented or in their lives and they're like,
well that person is different, right, Well that's what you

(01:35:35):
hear a lot is but like you know, they're they're
an undocumented Mexican. But like, man, they're really good on
the job with us, and you know, really good coworker. Yeah.
It's like, well, you don't have to caveat any of that, no,
and you just say, he's a really good coworker. He's
a really good coworker. And also, if he's such a

(01:35:56):
good coworker, shouldn't he have the same rights as the
rest of his co workers and shouldn't have access to
the same rights and privileges. And if he's a good
if he's such a good worker, couldn't you then agree
that probably the vast majority of people in the same

(01:36:17):
situation as him are good people and good workers and
deserving of those same rights, rather than he's the outlier. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh.
I love. I mean you mentioned the scene earlier with
the old lady in the pie um. I love how
he handles her and how he handles everybody in the
town with just such a plum Like right after the

(01:36:41):
scene where they basically are where he gets welcome to
town and they all pull their guns on him. He
hoodwinks him, goes in the office, and it shows him
the next day on the job, he's just sort of
whistling and he's putting up his wanted signs, and you
know when the lady comes, she comes back, she leaves
the pie and then comes back and says, of course
you'll have the good judgment to not tell anyone we talked.

(01:37:02):
And he's like, oh, yes, of course, man, Like he's
just such an affable guy to everybody. And and Jim
wakes up in that jail celle a cell and immediately
realizes that, like this is a friend for him, like
their pals. Right out of the gate. The first thing
Bart does before he goes out on on the job
is gets stoned, which, like I remember that scene a

(01:37:25):
hundred times of them smoking the joint, but it never
really occurred to me that, like that's before he goes
out on his first day sort of walking the town.
He's like, I'm just gonna smoke this joint and then
just kind of walk around in a good mood. Yeah. Yeah,
it's I mean, it's interesting even that, I mean there's
something that's there's there's there's an interesting comment that's being

(01:37:46):
made about the criminal justice system and yeah, in general,
like the carce Rol system that we have where yeah,
into Bart, Jim isn't isn't irredeemable and neither is Mango,
and it's you know, they both can have they both

(01:38:06):
can find redemption if they're willing to do the work
and like Mango just pawn in Game of Life. Yeah,
Mango and exactly, And that's the thing and Mango, that's
I feel like that line breaks me every time, but
it is it's it's uh, but there's something that's interesting
about Yeah, perhaps if more cops smoked a joint before

(01:38:29):
they walked to beat, they might they might approach things
from more of a de escalation, uh situation, or just
like oh right, maybe maybe my job isn't even get
involved in half of these things and that like oh right, yeah,

(01:38:50):
we don't have to imprison people like yeah, Jim is
like Jim's crime is that Jim was drunk, and it's like, right, yeah,
the drunk tank, Yeah, that's maybe not a crime. Maybe
that's maybe let me get to get to know this
guy and understand and even in that conversation, he's like,
you don't eat and you're just gonna drink, right, that's

(01:39:14):
a quick way to die. And just that idea that like, oh,
the concern, Like that's like like their friendship is forged
in a place of concern, totally care. And that's what
also makes it so like beautiful and you see like
a real like even by the end where it's like, okay,

(01:39:35):
well what are we gonna do? Well, whatever we do,
why don't we go together and venture? Man? I love
the ending. I mean, that's so great that he took
him along where you go in Nowhere special. I always
wanted to go there, and then you know they ride
their horses in and getting that cattle back. No. I
feel like that's what's also so great about that movie,

(01:39:56):
is like they take everything and then subvert it and
it's just okay, they're riding off in the sunset, but
then they get in the Cadillac and then they zoom
out and you see where they are in context of
like it's a back lot and like all those things.
And I think something that I really appreciate about the film.

(01:40:17):
Something I really appreciate about the film that um, I
feel like you don't see as much in comedy today
comedy movies is mel Brooks really uses the camera as
a comedian as well. And I feel like so often
when you watch a comedy film, it's all shot in

(01:40:40):
sort of shot reverse shot close ups, and it's people
feeding lines off camera where it's you know, I think
a lot of people, I think a lot of people
saw what Adam McKay did with Anchorman, and they focused
purely on and the sort of improvised alt takes on

(01:41:04):
things and carried that but didn't take into account Oh no,
Adam McKay also tried to build shots where you saw
you had wide shots where there were jokes, and I
think mel Brooks does that, and it's and and so
I think, yeah, one thing that I feel like a

(01:41:25):
lot of comedies they don't, I don't see as much.
They tend to just focus on those kind of like, Okay,
the cameras on, the cameras on Wyatt, and he sets
up Chuck for a joke, and now Chuck has a
witty come back. But also the director then says, okay,
now say this, and Chuck says the next thing, and

(01:41:47):
then the next thing, and you'll say fifteen different versions
of a joke, and then they'll take it into the
edit and it's like, Okay, whatever the funniest one is.
And a lot of calm any filmmaking today, I think,
relies on that without often doing the other thing that
I feel like Blazing Saddles does really well, which is

(01:42:08):
choreographing a comedic moment, right, yeah, yeah, And and obviously
I mean they had I think four other right, mel
Brooks and Richard Pryor and I think three other writers.
And I remember hearing stories from mel Brooks saying how
writing this movie was the most funny had in his career.

(01:42:29):
In that writer's room, he said, all they did was laugh,
And he said that Richard was just invaluable because he
was their sort of barometer on what they could say
and what they couldn't say as far as, you know,
sort of racially upsetting things. And Richard probably was like,
you gotta say that stuff, man, He's like, because those
people would have said that stuff, and if you don't,

(01:42:49):
it's just it's phony. And so he sort of gave
them permission to go where they went, I think. But
apparently prior didn't write much of that stuff. He wrote
a bunch of the Mango scenes and some like I
think with people here that Richard Pryor wrote this, they
would think like, oh, well, he wrote all the black
jokes because that was just the way it had to be.

(01:43:10):
And apparently that just wasn't the case. Yeah. I remember
reading that he really loved the character of Mango, and
I think Mongo just Upawn in the Game of Life
is like that's his verbatim, and um, yeah, I feel
like I had watched a documentary where they talked about
him doing that, and you know, I think Prior was

(01:43:32):
very coked up at the time, and so I think
because I know that one story was that Warner Brothers
said they couldn't ensure him because of his coke habinot. Yeah,
I heard that too, and there are a couple of
movie UH studios that I didn't want to ensure him
because of cocaine. But but I could see him. I

(01:43:54):
feel like in some documentary or a book that I
read that talked about his experience there, it seemed like
he was acting out a lot of things, and Uh
may have been kind of like playing different parts, right,
improvising I think probably like improvising with mel Brooks where

(01:44:15):
you have two performers who are also writing. Uh, and
so I could imagine, yeah that just that interplay was
probably had to be a lot of fun for them.
Um yeah, that's uh, it's I feel like that version
of writing can be. It's really fun, especially if you've

(01:44:38):
got someone who can record all of it and be
the person at the keyboard to be like, Okay, yes,
all right, I'll put that in and then the magic
is happening. Yeah, and then we'll find a way to
make all this makes sense. Uh. And then I mean
there's just so many good dumb jokes. I mean it's
a movie that's uh, it's relentless in its dedication to
the joke. Whether and so many great like I'm a

(01:45:01):
big fan of dumb jokes and wordplay and whether it's
Higgins from Magnum p I saying, you know, we want
to extend to you a Laurel and Hardy handshake, Like
that's just such a good old school sort of busch
Belt comedy that you know, Like that's just like mel
Brooks signature stuff and so much of the Governor stuff

(01:45:23):
that you know, mel Brooks is the governor. So much
of that stuff was just great dumb jokes one after
the other. Yeah, no, I uh, And you may know this,
but I I was. I was looking up something about
the movie and his name Lopato Maine. Do you know
this where that name comes from? No, Lpato Maine is

(01:45:47):
apparently the name of a French performer. And I don't
remember what what era this French performer was around, but
their whole thing was that they were a performer that
would just get on stage and fart, and so they
were just a perscaremative, which feels very much like h Brand. Yeah.

(01:46:18):
Well he has another good line too that I never
noticed when um, I think it's when they had the
little below paddles. Is that what they're called with the
rubber band in the ball and we're talking about kind
of swindling the Native Americans out of their land, and
mel Brooks says something about, you know, we gotta get busy, gentlemen,
we gotta protect our phony bologny jobs. And I never

(01:46:39):
really noticed that line until today. And that's such a
great subversive line just about government and like, you know,
these sort of white dudes in charge, we're protect our
phony blogny jobs. So great. Yeah, uh, I'm trying to.
I mean, it's so easy just to let's say your
favorite lines over and over. Just the relationship between Jim

(01:47:01):
and Bart. It was just so great right out of
the gate. Uh you know, since you were my guests
and I'm your host, what are your pleasures? What do
you like to do? Oh? I don't know, play chess?
Screw let's let's play chess. And then what's a dazzling
urban nite like you doing in a rustic setting like this.
There's just so many great lines, really is and then

(01:47:24):
everything madelon Con does, like how she I mean, just
one of my favorite comedians of all time on screen,
and how she came up with that, I mean, it's
a ridiculous German accent, and then that sort of speech
impediment that she had just to throw that on top
of it is such a fun, weird choice, I think, yeah,
and that everyone went with it. Where then later there's

(01:47:48):
a letter that's right that same like accent with the
sort of Barbara Walters kind of Uh yeah, it's saying
a cross between Bbara Walters uh and and German and
uh yeah, no it's it's it was great. It's funny

(01:48:09):
watching her. I I found myself. She I've seen. I've
definitely seen like a lot of movies that she's done.
But like, I think about her and I think about
Kate McKinnon in a similar way as far as their
ability to kind of like take a character and both

(01:48:32):
make it ridiculous, but also you can tell that they're
fully enjoying the ridiculousness of it. Yeah, they're having a
good time. Yeah, And that just translates in this way
that's like they're both in it and not in it
at the same time, like winking at it while they're
doing it, and uh, yeah, it's uh yeah, she's she's great. Uh.

(01:48:59):
And then there was another one of the subversive lines
that I've never really noticed before was after Candy Gram
from Mango. After he outsmarts Mango with the candy Gram
and he comes back and it's the next day, and
and Mongo is tied up in Gene Wilders telling him
how great that was, and he goes, yeah, the hardest
part was inventing the candy gram, he said, he said,

(01:49:21):
but I know I'm not going to get credit for that. Yeah,
I never noticed that line before. Yeah, it's so great.
It really was. No, that was a very funny. Yeah,
it's there are just so many yeah things that kind
of it's it's the perfect movie that like demands second
and third watch because there's so many things that happened

(01:49:47):
here that like you catch and then you missed the
thing that happens right underneath. Yeah. Did you know the
HBO Max had a it's not on there now, but
they ran it last summer and had a had a
lady on at the beginning um talking about putting it
into the proper perspective as a like a disclaimer, almost

(01:50:09):
putting it in cultural perspective of today. And it was
just like a two minute thing that this lady did.
Apparently they did the same thing with Gone with the Wind.
I think it might have been the same lady. And
I went to look for it today and of course
they it wouldn't even on HBO Max anymore. But I
think that's a really interesting thing to do, uh, because
you know, this is one of those movies where half

(01:50:31):
the people will say like, oh, you couldn't make that
movie today, And the conversation around that is interesting to
me because what I learned online from talking to movie
crushers about this is to some people you can't make
that movie today means they're almost sad because you can't
say awful things anymore. And when I say you couldn't

(01:50:52):
make that movie today, I don't mean it that way
at all. I mean this kind of comedy and satire
is so hard to you successfully, and the conversation around
that stuff today has so little nuanced that That's why
I think it would be hard to make today. Yeah,
I mean I think it would be difficult, but I
still think you could do it. It's just I think

(01:51:15):
you'd have to pay more things off, Like there's definitely
towards the end, like like I think I feel like
in the movie, the movie really tried to tell a
black and white story, but then also had Native Americans,

(01:51:42):
gay people, women, Asian Asians, Jews, Germans, everybody. And I
think what's tough is that the the sort of cruelty
that's enacted on some of those groups, there's never a

(01:52:03):
there's never a moment to really sit with it. Like
the first thing in the movie, you know, a Chinese railroad,
a Chinese rail road worker collapses and is just kind
of met with a slur and the very first thing
that happens, Yeah, and there's never like there's it just

(01:52:26):
kind of is there and goes away, and I think
like that's the thing that like, oh, yeah, you can't
get away with that anymore, like you've got you've gotta
have some comment or something about that, or even at
the end of the film, it's very much you know,
these dancers are being played as very flamboyantly gay, and

(01:52:52):
it feels like, Okay, you're making fun of a a
caricature of someone. Yeah, was funny at that time because
for the people who actually lived in that reality, many
of them couldn't feel comfortable or safe being vocal about

(01:53:15):
who they were. And so I feel like it's those
things where it's like, okay, yeah, those those are the
areas that really are like, yeah, you can't do those things.
They pay off the Bart stuff because he he wins
in the end, and he wins everyone over and he
is the smartest guy. But yeah, I know what you're saying.

(01:53:36):
Although that that in sequence does have one of the
funnier parts to me when uh, one of the big
cowboy guys goes to beat up on one of the
gay dancers and they kind of go behind the wall
and then two seconds later they come on the other
side of the wall and the guy's got his arm
around him and he goes, well, you know, I'm parked
over by the commissary. Yeah, And I feel like in

(01:53:58):
on some level that was maybe their their attempt to
comment on on that, but it's yeah, I feel like
there's you know, if you were going to make that
movie again, I think you want a room where, if
you're still going to do those scenes, you want that
representation in the room to to sort of figure out

(01:54:22):
and craft the best way to make those comments so
that it's not so that no one can walk away
thinking it's okay to just make an anti Asian slur
all right and then leave it there. Yeah, and that
that's somehow funny, or that it's okay to uh say
something homophobic, and and that you can just kind of

(01:54:44):
like that there's no consequence for that. And so in
those ways, I feel like, uh, yeah, that's the part
of it where it's like, oh, you can't do that anymore.
But it is interesting the way that these things get
explored and shared, And yeah, I don't know. I feel

(01:55:05):
like the Disney cartoons when they when they were on DVD,
Leonard Malton would do a disclaimer at the at the
beginning of the DVDs, where I think it was a
very similar thing where it's like, some of what you're
about to see is old, you know, old stereotypes that uh,

(01:55:28):
you know aren't don't fly today. And it's weird because
I feel like with kids things, I have a different
feeling about it with kids things. And I saw this
and I I tweeted about it, but I'm not I
don't have enough of a Twitter following that like things

(01:55:50):
really go viral in that way. But I tweeted because
I had watched when the pandemic started, I watched old
episodes of Scooby Doo and there are some very racist
things in Scooby Doo that are just throwaway jokes, and
in rewatching it, I found myself thinking, at the very

(01:56:14):
least with Scooby Doo or with those old cartoons. And
I don't think they put a disclaimer on Scooby Doo,
but it did feel like, you know, it wouldn't be
that hard for that company to just animate a new
a new bridge to get out to like to either

(01:56:38):
cut that out of it and replace it with new,
Like you could very easily cut audio and it's easy
enough to like make animation kind of match that style. Yeah,
that's just the beauty of animation. You can change it
later that. I feel like you could update something like

(01:56:59):
Scooby Doo where it's purely children's entertainment, but it's also
that thing that a parent is like, oh, I watched
this and I want to watch it with my kid,
and you know, and it's like, oh, yeah, you could
maybe do that rather than make that moment for a
kid for a kid in the parent if they're watching

(01:57:21):
it together, hopefully they're watching it together that parent didn't
just park the kid in front of it. And it's like,
and now Scooby and Shaggy are in Chinatown dressed in
like clothes like or something. They're like turn of century
clothes and they're doing like buck teeth and accents, and

(01:57:42):
it's like, yeah, you don't need that, And you could
very easily just animate a new twenty seconds and take
some audio and like it's not like it's not like
those storylines where that fucking strong to begin with, So
you're probably not going out the sanctity of of Scooby Doo. Yeah, Like,

(01:58:06):
I feel like I feel like it would be easy
to do that, Like, I feel like Tom and Jerry did.
I didn't. I remember they did something where they just
revoiced the the black woman who lived in the house
or he worked in the house, and I felt like
that didn't work. I feel like what you wanted is like, no,

(01:58:27):
just reanimate a new scene where it's like the same,
like you know, it's whatever. It's someone saying like Tom,
I'm leaving you in charge and whatever. Because it's also
the like everything about this character is like even the
visual of this character, you're evoking something, and so by

(01:58:49):
changing the voice, it's not like not enough, it's you're
still taking that kind of mammy character and you're just saying, oh,
now she can sound like she's, uh, you know a
lawyer from Atlanta, right who still dresses like a mammy. Alright,

(01:59:10):
why listen, man, I know you gotta run. I think
we did blazing settles justice. I'd like to think we did.
And I appreciate you coming on and being so genness
with your time. Man, it's good to see. It's been
a while. It's been a while. It's good to see
you too. Your beard has grown much since I last year.
It's kind of ridiculous. I'll next time I get to
New York, I'll hit you up. Maybe we can have
a drink or something. I would love that. And the

(01:59:32):
next time I get to Atlanta, maybe we can go
to Fox Brothers. Oh, totally, man, anytime I'm ready. Yeah,
or what's the other there's there's another place. I went
to a gun show. Yeah, gun show is good. Uh.
I'm thinking it closed down because the pandemic. That was
actually the last restaurant I went to for my my

(01:59:55):
birthday March last year. So oh, well, happy belated birthday,
thanks man. Yeah this year, well, happy belated birthday to
belated birthdays. Yeah, all right, thanks buddy, thank you. Take
care all right, everybody. I hope you enjoyed that as

(02:00:16):
much as I did. This one was supersized. Why. It's
a great guy. He's always got a lot to say,
and he's always really interesting to have a conversation with.
I Uh. I usually have these conversations with Wyatt sitting
at a bar um sometimes just the two of us,
which is really nice, but this time it was over zoomed. Unfortunately.
I can't wait to get to New York and maybe
see him again, because, like I said, in the show.

(02:00:36):
It's been a while since I've seen seen one of
my old pals, so big thanks to Wyatt. I hope
he did blazing saddles justice. I hope you guys got
a lot out of his conversation about his career and
especially with problem areas. Like I said, you can still
watch it on HBO Max. It's a really really good show.
And uh, if you missed it the first time around,

(02:00:57):
I encourage you to go out and check it out now.
Problem is on HBO Max. So thanks for listening, everyone,
and we'll see you next week. Movie Crash is produced
and written by Charles Bryant and Meel Brown, edited and
engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, and scored by Noel Brown
here in our home studio at punksty Market, Atlanta, Georgia.

(02:01:17):
For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.