Ouch. Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles is a classic, one of the best straight comedies ever made. This idea for a TV show based on the movie is just bad. Like the movie, it's about a black sheriff in a white town in the racist old west.
In a 22-minute episode I laughed just once; the majority of jokes here are lame, even if they try to tackle sensitive subject matter like racism and sex. For example, the sheriff threatening to shoot a white cowboy in his nose for using the N-word. That's supposed to be funny? It's common sense that black people won't like being labelled with a racist slur; there's no wit in a threatened violent response. A native American wanting to stop a manhunt for a ceremony? Is this a joke about how much natives like ceremonies? If so, why should I care? Lying about a robbery to get a new gun? Wow. Clever scheme.
It's not just the jokes that bomb; so does the sheriff character. The sheriff of Blazing Saddles was a good guy: smart and adhering to good ethics. This sheriff, on the other hand, breaks a captured prisoner's nose (cruel and unusual by today's standards) and then acts as a judge in a case he couldn't be neutral for. I could see why Bart should be sheriff in the movie; I don't see why he's sheriff here. And I certainly don't see why this pilot should have been made into a series.
In a 22-minute episode I laughed just once; the majority of jokes here are lame, even if they try to tackle sensitive subject matter like racism and sex. For example, the sheriff threatening to shoot a white cowboy in his nose for using the N-word. That's supposed to be funny? It's common sense that black people won't like being labelled with a racist slur; there's no wit in a threatened violent response. A native American wanting to stop a manhunt for a ceremony? Is this a joke about how much natives like ceremonies? If so, why should I care? Lying about a robbery to get a new gun? Wow. Clever scheme.
It's not just the jokes that bomb; so does the sheriff character. The sheriff of Blazing Saddles was a good guy: smart and adhering to good ethics. This sheriff, on the other hand, breaks a captured prisoner's nose (cruel and unusual by today's standards) and then acts as a judge in a case he couldn't be neutral for. I could see why Bart should be sheriff in the movie; I don't see why he's sheriff here. And I certainly don't see why this pilot should have been made into a series.