You Couldn't Make Blazing Saddles Today

Obviously, because Gene Wilder is dead, and no other reason 😬

BONUS POST.

I started writing this in a comment reply but I wanted it to have higher visibility.

The other day, I remembered one of my favourite childhood TV shows. (“All the weird shit we saw on Canadian cable TV in the 90s, that we thought was normal and Americans would be aghast at” is another blog topic. Hooray for house hippos!). It was called History Bites, and it ran in the early 2000s.

The premise of History Bites (which you can watch all episodes of on Youtube, apparently), is introduced at the start of every episode: “What if they had TV in history”. They will introduce some historical event, and then say “what if they had TV back then”, and then the entire episode is 20 minutes of sketch comedy parodying 90s TV.

So for example, my favourite sketch I remember (which I can’t find on their Youtube, so fact check: you cannot watch all of the episodes) is a parody of Seinfeld, set in the Persian empire. It opens with George saying “THATS IT, JERRY. I’VE FINALLY DONE IT. I’VE JOINED THE IMMORTALS. NO DEATH FOR ME, NO SIR”, and then it’s two minutes of an extremely Seinfeld dialogue where Jerry and Elaine try to explain to George that “Immortals” is just their title, and they can still actually die.

I got back to idly rewatching episodes of this show while playing the Kittens Game¹, when a frankly astounding episode came on. It was called “The Uncivil War”, and you can take a guess as to what it’s about. I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with “bravery”.

All of you need to go watch this episode right now, for the most visceral feeling of “holy shit our culture has changed when I wasn’t looking” of your life. This aired, PG13, on broadcast television in Canada, in the 2000s. For one example, fast forward to 18 minutes, 48 seconds. It’s a sketch where Steve Irwin (may he RIP in peace) is hunting the world’s most dangerous animal. Actual quote from the sketch: “CRIKEY. We see these quite a bit. The Negro male likes captivity, and he’ll crawl into any small space so he can feel like he’s even more in captivity”.

You couldn’t air that on TV these days. Hell, I’m surprised that their channel hasn’t gotten a TOS strike for that video. I don’t even think you could get away with it, if you remade it to be a hamfisted woke morality play about slavery being evil. Which, surprisingly for Canadians, is most certainly not what this episode is about. They even bookend it with a thing about how the south weren’t unvarnished evil, they had legitimate concerns, that were largely unaddressed after their loss.

CANADIAN TELEVISION IN THE 2000s AIRED SKETCH COMEDY MAKING FUN OF BLACK PEOPLE FOR BEING SLAVES, AND SAYING THAT THE CONFEDERACY WEREN’T BAD GUYS, THEY WERE JUST THE LOSERS. Let that sink in for a second.

You couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today. Or, for that matter, anything at all that was common and popular fifteen years ago.

1. The kittens game is like, “what if Factorio wasn’t autistic enough”. So, if you’re one of the 300 people on the internet who that speaks to, and you haven’t heard of the Kittens Game yet, you’re welcome. Just… don’t start playing that game immediately after your morning Adderall, or else you’re not doing anything else that day.