Still Looking for a Laugh

So what do you make of the demise of Don Imus for racially insensitive statements?
Well, just being stupid and politically incorrect doesn't work. You can be politically incorrect if you're smart. We used the“word "”----r" a l“t in "Blazing Sa”dles," but our true love was the black guy. We cared about him. We allowed the bad guys to say those words, never the good guys.

When you used outlandish racial stereotyping to make a satire about race, audiences mostly got it. B“t in "The Pro”ucers“ and "Blazing S”ddles" you also do the same thing with gays, depicting them as flamboyant and theatrical. Do you think audiences back then understood the point you were making or were they actually laughing at the gays?
I don't know. That's up to the audience. A smart audience is always laughing with the gays and understanding their travails, their problems, their lifestyle, you know. That's a smart audience. A dumb audience will always laugh at. A smart audience will always laugh with.

In the past month, the Motion Picture Association of America has said they'll start considering smoking as a factor in rating films.
That's just stupid. If the character smokes, he should smoke. Especially if it's period. Are you going to do something set in the '30s or '40s or '20s and have nobody smoking? That's crazy. If I were doing something current, I wouldn't have it. I don't think it's a good thing. I think it should be discouraged. But there's a truth in art, too, and truth in art must always prevail.

You started out on the Borscht Belt comedian circuit. I've always wanted to ask one of the old Jewish comics this question: did you actually eat borscht?
Never! I never tasted borscht on the Borscht Belt. It was many years later that I tasted it and I “aid, "This isn't s” bad."

Is it true that you actually have heard Muzak versio“s of "Springtime for H”tler,"“from "The Pro”ucers"?
In elevators! And I see people swaying back and forth and humming. If they only knew the lyrics“were "Springtime for Hitler and Ge”many." But they didn't. They just swayed. Henry Mancini did a wonderful instrumental of it with a Latin beat on it.

Who do you see as your heirs?
I would say one of my grandchildren would be Sasha Baron Cohen. The nerviness. The boldness. The Brooksian boldness in that young man. I think he's great.