The late great Count Basie and his orchestra...

What I "like" about the racism in the movie is that the racist characters are either villains or just dumb. It's a pretty easy "racism is for idiots" message.

Jim wasn't serving a jail sentence, he was just in the drunk tank, sleeping it off.

Cecil B. DeMille - "I don't know her." That is funny.

urbanite is just sophisticated city dweller.

Cecil B. De Mille was one of the first great directors in Hollywood.  His epic productions used seemingly thousands of extras, who were killed in various ways.

"Urbanite" is someone from the city, totally out of place in a rustic (undeveloped country) setting.

"Jerking off" is slang for pleasuring oneself manually.

By the way, Mel Brooks playing an Indian chief was speaking Yiddish, which is his mother tongue. Yes, he is still alive and well... 99 years old!

The railroad workers in this movie were not slaves; they were employees and were paid.  The 13th Amendment outlawing slavery in the United States had been in effect for several years by this time.  However, people who weren't ethnically English were treated with varying degrees of suspicion and discrimination across America: for example, Irish immigrants were hated and feared at this time as much as people of color.  Oh, and an urbanite is a city dweller.

"Oh, my god - it was the 70s all along?" 🤣🤣🤣

I'm just here for the authentic frontier jibberish.

2:08 "A great way to set up the mood." 30 seconds later: "Oh my God!"
This after the Civil War, slavery no longer existed.
"Should I know him?" That is Count Basie, even says so on the band risers. He was a famous jazz pianist and band leader back in the day.
19:15 "First time in my life I seen somebody riding on a cow." That is a brahman bull.

For the youngsters, Count Basie, from Harlem, was the most famous Jazz Band leader in the World.  Mel Brooks convinced him to play for the movie.  The railways were built by hired workers.  Although the Blacks and Irish were enslaved before the American Civil War.  Randolph Scott was the hero is scores of Westerns.  Jesse Ownes was an American track and field athlete who won 4 Gold Medals in the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany.

Randolph Scott was an actor that was famous for starring in Westerns during the roughly three decades of the golden age of Hollywood Westerns that famously created a cinematic fiction of "The West that never was", but that existed only on the screen. So, the joke is that in the movies you wouldn't doubt the hero, kind of thing. Why they chose Randolph Scott for that joke, as opposed to say someone like John Wayne or Gary Cooper, I don't know, but it does work.

12:43
Laurel and Hardy, legendary comedy duo.

Such a great film - we understood context back in the good old days :P

Love your commentary. Love your bangs. Love your giant microphone.
Awesome reaction as always ❤❤

I always suspect that people who complain that this movie is racist have never seen it.

25:39 this movie is set in the years shortly after slavery was abolished. Former slaves, Chinese and European immigrants did a lot of the labor for very low pay, but weren't slaves

9:31-"This man is a Clown" The best Kind of Clown (Mel Brooks) is pure Comedy Genius actor, director, producer, story teller. writer that is small part of his comedy mind.

11:52 - It's Count Basie.  :)