Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

  I planned on having this be my post on the 12th but my MS Paint and Microsoft Word skills took a while to make the characters. This is based on the runners-up for the roles of Batman and Robin for the sixties television series: Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell. I also found that Gig Young was considered for the Joker, Suzanne Pleshette for Catwoman and Mickey Rooney for the Penguin. I knew then I had to use it for this blog. Here are the screen tests for the leads:  Batman screen tests

      Mel Brooks' 1974 comedy  Blazing Saddles had Richard Pryor as one of the writers. Brooks had wanted Pryor to play the lead as well. However, the studio did not want to back the film with him starring because of his various drug arrests. The role went to Cleavon Little who made a memorable character of Bart. Gig Young was cast as the drunken gunslinger but when they started shooting he had the DTs so bad they couldn't continue so Gene Wilder was hired with whom Mel Brooks made the movie The Producers . Two years after Blazing Saddles  Wilder and Pryor were in Silver Streak  and they made such a good comedic double act that they made four films together.