There was one gag in particular that Mel Brooks ended up cutting that he wishes he had kept in “Blazing Saddles.” “It had to do with Madeline Kahn going into Cleavon Little’s dressing room after the show,” he recalled to Fresh Air host Terry Gross. “And then she says something like, ‘Relax,’ you know? And then she says, ‘Oh […] how are you built? Oh, you’re — oh, how beautiful […] the way you’re built, your people are built,’ you know? And it was too much. And she’s — and he says, ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Von Shtupp. You’re biting my arm, you know?’
The scene was a satirical take on the way that white women objectify and fetishize Black men. It’s a gag that’s designed to make the audience uncomfortable with the way that Ms. Von Shtupp is treating Little’s character, Bart, but this discomfort mixed with humor might have felt too complicated and sexually charged for Brooks’ intended audience. The film still earned an R rating for its strong language, comic violence, and sexual and racist references (per BBFC).
Probably the biggest controversy in “Blazing Saddles” is the use of the N-word, but Brooks doesn’t lament this choice either. “I use the N-word in ‘Blazing Saddles,” the director told Men’s Journal in 2013. “But it was to show how despised, hated, and loathed this Black sheriff was. Without the N-word, you couldn’t have the story. You got to tell the truth.”