Black Bart

Director: Robert Butler, Script: Andrew Bergman(Story), Michael Elias, Frank Shaw. Cast: Lou Gossett Jr., Steve Landesberg, Millie Slavin

Black Bart was a proposed television series spin-off from the 1974 movie blazing saddles that didn't quite get off the ground. It probably isn't as bad a many people make it out to be. The problem is that people that have seen this are constantly comparing it to blazing saddles. If one takes this show in its own context, it really is not all that bad. It will not generate the laughs of its pilot move but it does have some funny moments.

Mel Brooks had no involvement and the whole cast is different from Blazing Saddles with different character names as well(except Bart). This is to be expected since this was a proposed television show and Blazing Saddles was a feature film. I thought that Lou Gossett would be miss-cast for the part of Bart but after seeing the show I thought he was actually pretty funny. Many people will recognize Steve Landesberg from Barny Miller. He played Gossett's sidekick(similar to Jim or waco the kid-played by Gene Wilder). Millie Slavin played the part of Belle which is similar to the Lili Von Shtupp character played by Madeline Kahn.

Although not a great show by any means, it is still a good addition to the Blazing Saddled DVD and certainly worth a watch. It would have been interesting to see how this show would have evolved had it made it to prime time television.

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.

With BLAZING SADDLES, Mel Brooks did to the western what Sergio Leone couldn't do... make us laugh at all the clichés and stereotypes we've been reluctantly accepting throughout the late-19th and much of the 20th Century. Not surprisingly, Black Bart was meant to capitalize on the popularity of the movie it was based upon. After all, if THE ODD COUPLE and M*A*S*H can go from being successful movies to successful TV sitcoms, so can BLAZING SADDLES, right? WRONG! I don't really mind when other actors & actresses take on famous roles, so it didn't bother me that Lou Gossett Jr. adapted the character that made Cleavon Little so famous. Gossett was actually the best part of this pilot. But when you make a series based on a movie, you should at least stick to the same characters. Steve Landesberg doesn't play as the Waco Kid, he just looked like him, drank like him, and shot like him. Lilli Von Schtupp not only got a different actress to play her, she got a different name(BELLE?!). Noble Willingham only looked like Howard Johnson(John Hillerman). It's even got a half-assed clone of Mongo.

I was going to comment on the original movie rather than this turkey of a pilot, but very few people haven't seen the movie, so there's really not much detail I can or should go into. As far as the use of racial slurs directed at Bart goes, as offensive as they are, they're appropriate from a bigoted white society, who Bart apparently always makes fools of. Too bad this potential series wasn't as good as the movie.

Apparently, "Black Bart" was shown once on TV and, fortunately, that was it....no TV series followed this pilot. I can see why, as there are two glaring problems. First, even in the same time period as "All in the Family", the prolific use of various racial slurs sets this one apart from any other show of the era. Even compared to "All in the Family", this is very excessive. And, had they okayed the series, its value in syndication would have been nil. Second, and more importantly, the show is NOT funny and the spirit of it seems very different and more sit-com like than the movie.

Overall, while Lou Gossett and the rest try hard, this show was doomed from the outset. I just cannot see how any show like "Blazing Saddles" could have aired then, as it certainly was not family friendly and was written rather poorly to boot.

I found Black Bart an interesting bit of history behind Blazing Saddles. However, it isn't Blazing Saddles. Movies made by Mel Brooks have a certain tone to them, a type of comedy that is unique to Mel's style of writing and execution. But remember that Andrew Bergman wrote Black Bart before it got re-written "Your Show of Shows" style by Mel Brooks and other writers, including Richard Pryor. So when Black Bart got made into a TV series, it used concepts from the initial screenplay. So obviously, it ain't Blazing Saddles. But it had a tone of what was on TV at the time, along with M*A*S*H and All In The Family. Louis Gossett, Jr. was funny in the role of Sheriff Bart. But the rest of it could of been better, with a little more comedic polishing. It could have been another TV classic, but it's just another show that didn't quite make it. And it now stands in the shadows of it's inspiration. Black Bart is OK, but not great. And it's just plain NOT Blazing Saddles. Apples and oranges.