The Moment: The Campfire Scene in Blazing Saddles (1974)
Who’s to Thank: Mel Brooks
The Setup: The nighttime scene opens with appropriately hokey dum-da-DEE-da, dum-da-DEE-dah cowpoke-harmonica music and pans past a line of hitched horses, barbed wire and a dozen or so grizzled cowboys sitting down to some prairie chow. Close-up on one mustachioed cowboy slurping down a plate of baked beans. Let the games begin.
The Punchline: What else? For the next 40 seconds (count it off on your watch), gas leaks from every bodily orifice in what remains, after 43 years, the ultimate in so-gross-you-can’t-help-but-laugh movie moments. The sibilant and sublime raspberries proliferate in such a musically comical progression that the sound guy deserves almost as much credit as perennially over-the-top writer-director Brooks. Check out the clip below.
