Black Bart

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 laughed at this show, mainly because I have seen many people with the same attitudes that this show harpooned. it was not as good as the movie, and would have been much better if they had stayed more with the characters of the movie, but in its own right it was not that bad. most pilots are made more to showcase the idea of the show than the show itself.

An example is Charmed. it had two pilots, the one that was made to show the studio execs and the one that aired. they were basically the same, but one was well done, and had the actors that became the well loved sisters and their companions, while the other was shot, not with the best cameras and sets, but what they could use within their budgets. the same could be said of this pilot. it would have had to be redone if it had ever gotten on air. It might have made it if Mel Brooks had had a hand in it.

The Blazing Saddles phenomenon spun off this spin-off pilot episode which probably never made it to television in the first place. Lou Gosset revives the character of Black Bart from the Blazing Saddles film. The cast of characters has changed into a small town but none of the original players are there. Steve Landesburg played the Gene Wilder role under another name. The pilot is rarely uneventful and not very funny even though there was a laugh track there. It was film on the back lot for westerns. True, the show could have been better if there was more than Black Bart in the picture. The other cast members aren't known to me. Gosset would win an Oscar and Landesburg went on to Barney Miller. Still, I can see where they tried to capture Blazing Saddles success for television but the original cast of characters and the film itself was the allure not just the story.

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.

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.