AFI Names ‘Blazing Saddles’ Funniest Movie Of All Time For Mel Brooks 100th

Mel Brooks turns 100 years old today, so in honor of that, the American Film Institute (AFI) has decided to officially change the order of their signature AFI’s “100 Years…100 Laughs” list, thereby in what AFI terms as an “honorary” reorganization of the list, moving Brooks’ 1974 western spoof Blazing Saddles from 6th place to 1st and proclaiming it “the funniest film of all time.” It replaces at the top, Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, which AFI notes in its release that Brooks “has long kvetched that his film is far funnier than Some Like It Hot.”

“He’s right!” said Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO. “We’re happy to right this wrong as Mel
celebrates his centennial. It’s good to be the king, and may he live to be a 2,000 year old man.
Happy birthday, Mel!”

Brooks is the only filmmaker with three films in the top 15 on this list. The Producers (1968) is No. 11 and 1974’s Young Frankenstein is No. 13. Wikipedia has already taken note of the change today by correcting the original list released in 2000, one of several lists AFI has for various genres, including their first which came out in 1998 for AFI’s “100 Years….100 Movies”, noting the 100 best films of all time as voted by a poll of 1,500 industry artists and leaders from a list of 400 movies nominated, and which was updated in 2007 by eliminating 23 titles and replacing them with others. No Brooks film, including Blazing Saddles, made that list or the updated version, but Some Like It Hot was high on both (currently No. 22 on the 2007 list). Several other comedies on “100 Years….100 Laughs” list also have the honor of being in the company of Singin’ In The Rain now at No. 5 of all time in any genre.

For my money, if you are going to make a list of the best comedies and put a Brooks film at the top of it, as the AFI decided to do today, it wouldn’t be Blazing Saddles, which though still hilarious (I recently appeared in the extras on the new 4K restoration DVD and rewatched it), has some humor that seems a bit dated and certainly offensive to some. Nothing wrong with that, but Brooks himself has said the film couldn’t be made today, at least not the way he and his four co-writers including Richard Pryor did then. It didn’t land an Oscar nomination for its screenplay that year, but Brooks (and co-writer Gene Wilder) did for Young Frankenstein instead.

I would opt unquestionably for the very first Brooks feature film, The Producers, which represents his only competitive Oscar win—for Best Original Screenplay—and is every bit as funny now as it was the day it was released nearly 60 years ago. It has, as AFI likes to say about lasting works of cinematic art, “stood the test of time.” Incidentally, Brooks has long said, and even told me once, his own personal favorite of his films is 1970’s rather unheralded The Twelve Chairs, which didn’t even make the “100 Years…100 Laughs” list at all, but should have. Happy 100th, Mel Brooks. And many more.

As for the way these AFI lists are curated, the AFI says it is to “celebrate excellence in the art of the moving image and reflect the collective opinion of a wide range of scholars, artists and experts who champion the power of the art form.”