“That’s Hedley.” |  Harvey Korman brought an exhilarating dose of madness to everything he did, Blazing Saddles included.

Scott Weinberg, Cinematical | “You young’uns might not remember Harvey Korman all that well, seeing as he hasn’t popped up in any movies over the last several years, but trust me on this: He was one of the planet’s funniest men. Seriously. I do believe his last appearance in cinemas was in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, but don’t judge the man based on that. Hollywood has very little use for very old comedians, regardless of how talented they are.”
Brian Doan, Bubblegum Aesthetics | “Korman, who died Thursday at the age of 81, took the fussiness and deadpan onstage ‘selfishness’ of an earlier generation of comics and comedic actors like Jack Benny or Edward Everett Horton—their constant need to be right, to control an uncontrollable situation—and merged it with a more ironic, self-aware sensibility of that persona’s limitations; it’s no accident that some of the most beloved moments on The Carol Burnett Show came when the three leads broke the fourth wall, let the audience in on the mechanics of their humor, and struggled to keep from laughing at one another’s jokes. This style of humor makes it easier to see Korman as the missing link between that ’30s and ’40s era of comedy and a later sketch comic like Phil Hartman.”
Bill Gibron, PopMatters | “It was what we did every Saturday night. Before we discovered dating, drugs, and delinquency, the pre-adolescents of the ’60s and ’70s sat down in front of the boob tube with complete parental guidance and gave Carol Burnett and her merry band of parody pranksters 50 minutes of our undivided attention. We would wade through the endless shots of Lyle Waggoner’s chin, tolerate Vicki Lawrence’s Mini-Younger-Me version of the star attraction, and the lunatic fringiness of later addition Tim Conway, just to see... him. It took Mel Brooks’ shrewd eye to give Korman the roles he required to break out. Hedley Lamarr remains Blazing Saddles’ most surreal creation, a fourth wall-breaking bad guy who sees greed and goofiness as shared positive attributes. It was a perfect role for someone as sly as Korman.”
Glenn Kenny, Some Came Running | “Was there ever a movie role quite as eccentrically particular as Hedley Lamarr, and if ever there was, could anyone besides Korman have played it? It’s probably the broadest comic role ever—Lamarr is never not ridiculous, no, not for a second—and hence has to be played by someone who (a) is not afraid of being broad and has the energy to keep it up and (b) is broad in a way that won’t exhaust the audience. Korman had no inhibitions and quite possibly the most impecabble timing of any comic actor of his generation. Korman will be missed.”