Mel Brooks’ 1974 Western spoof “Blazing Saddles” is remembered as one of the funniest and most gleefully absurd comedies ever made — so it’s fitting that its world premiere was just as ridiculous. Rather than a conventional red-carpet screening, the film debuted on February 7, 1974, at the Pickwick Drive-In Theater in Burbank, California. But there was a wonderful twist on the classic drive-in format: instead of pulling up in cars, a large portion of the 250 invited guests arrived and watched the movie on horseback. Among those in the saddle were the film’s two leading men, Cleavon Little (who played the sharp, unflappable sheriff Bart) and Gene Wilder (the washed-up gunslinger known as the Waco Kid). It was the perfect gag for a movie that lovingly skewered every cliché of the Hollywood Western — a drive-in full of horses instead of Chevrolets, guests craning from their saddles to watch a cowboy comedy under the California night sky. The stunt matched the film’s irreverent spirit exactly, and it became a legendary piece of Hollywood premiere history. “Blazing Saddles” went on to become a massive box-office hit and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest comedies of all time, but few of the millions who love it know that the very first audience to see it did so from the back of a horse.
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