...Mel Brooks came from the old school of bad films. Brooks understood that for a bad film to truly succeed, it must start out at a vertiginously high level of badness and then somehow, miraculously, get worse. The secret to this lay not in the material but in the casting. The one foolproof mechanism that can be used to ensure that a bad film keeps getting worse is to keep introducing more and more washed-up old coots in unexpected cameo appearances. Brooks realizes that if you start with Sid Caesar, you have to finish with Henny Youngman, that if you set the trap with Dick Van Patten, you must spring the trap with Richard Lewis. Brooks understands that for a truly bad movie to succeed, the audience must be reduced to a perpetual state of dread, wondering if and when Don Knotts is going to turn up. For if Don Knotts is already here, Tim Conway cannot be far away.
- Joe Queenan
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