I swear I read all the newspaper reviews of Men in Tights, saw all the TV interviews and have just combed all the Internet critiques. And NOBODY has made an obvious comparison with this movie.
Folks reach far back to Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles or not-so-far back to Spaceballs. They bring up non-Brooks films such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Hot Shots.
But am I the only one who remembers that Mel Brooks actually parodied Robin Hood PREVIOUSLY? He produced a TV series in 1975 titled "When Things Were Rotten." It is amazing that nobody, not even Roger Ebert, has compared Brooks' earlier foray into Robin Hood lore with the most recent one.
So I guess it's up to me. The earlier treatment was, of course, episodic. This was a one-shot film. The earlier one drew from the legend itself while poking fun at TV sitcoms in general. For example, the real legend didn't feature a set of twins -- one working for Robin Hood, the other for the sheriff -- but that's the kind of cute thing that TV does. (When Brooks' writers had an episode explaining how the brothers split up, it was less funny afterward.)
This outing draws a great deal from Hollywood and in particular the Costner pic. Brooks keeps Prince John, a character in the Errol Flynn movie and other treatments, even though Costner removed the prince from his tale.
In the TV show, only the sheriff and his chief lackey spoke with English accents. This time, they make a point of an English-accented Robin.
Both featured Brooksian sight gags and visual puns. But I think they worked better in the TV show. Maybe they were just fresher. Brooks' humor was insane and hilarious when contrasted to the starchy confines of 1970s TV. But now his work is getting stale. There were some cool gags in Men in Tights, such as the quarter-staff fight and the Everlast chastity belt, but far too much of the parody is aimed at a single previous movie. And a good parody goes for general conventions, not specifics.
Rabbi Tuckman, though, was a good touch. Pure good ol' Brooks! Interesting that Dick van Patten, the TV show's Friar Tuck, gets to play the Abbot this time with a similar allusion to Abbot & Costello.
And I think for Brooks, 1975 WAS when things were rotten. Because not enough people were watching his show. It lasted one season. Despondent, he went out to make a Silent Movie and left TV for good....
Folks reach far back to Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles or not-so-far back to Spaceballs. They bring up non-Brooks films such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Hot Shots.
But am I the only one who remembers that Mel Brooks actually parodied Robin Hood PREVIOUSLY? He produced a TV series in 1975 titled "When Things Were Rotten." It is amazing that nobody, not even Roger Ebert, has compared Brooks' earlier foray into Robin Hood lore with the most recent one.
So I guess it's up to me. The earlier treatment was, of course, episodic. This was a one-shot film. The earlier one drew from the legend itself while poking fun at TV sitcoms in general. For example, the real legend didn't feature a set of twins -- one working for Robin Hood, the other for the sheriff -- but that's the kind of cute thing that TV does. (When Brooks' writers had an episode explaining how the brothers split up, it was less funny afterward.)
This outing draws a great deal from Hollywood and in particular the Costner pic. Brooks keeps Prince John, a character in the Errol Flynn movie and other treatments, even though Costner removed the prince from his tale.
In the TV show, only the sheriff and his chief lackey spoke with English accents. This time, they make a point of an English-accented Robin.
Both featured Brooksian sight gags and visual puns. But I think they worked better in the TV show. Maybe they were just fresher. Brooks' humor was insane and hilarious when contrasted to the starchy confines of 1970s TV. But now his work is getting stale. There were some cool gags in Men in Tights, such as the quarter-staff fight and the Everlast chastity belt, but far too much of the parody is aimed at a single previous movie. And a good parody goes for general conventions, not specifics.
Rabbi Tuckman, though, was a good touch. Pure good ol' Brooks! Interesting that Dick van Patten, the TV show's Friar Tuck, gets to play the Abbot this time with a similar allusion to Abbot & Costello.
And I think for Brooks, 1975 WAS when things were rotten. Because not enough people were watching his show. It lasted one season. Despondent, he went out to make a Silent Movie and left TV for good....