"Blazing Saddles" in S.C.

Is Mel Brooks directing this movie?

Tonight’s final South Carolina debate will no doubt start as usual with the gang sitting under the palmettos full of Tea Party beans, competing to exude the loudest brain farts about Barack Obama and one another, but where do they go from there?

Will Rick Perry, who almost started a war with Turkey last time, punch another horse? (Nope, late news is that he's doing a "Shane" and riding off into the sunset.)

Can Ron Paul, booed for preaching the Golden Rule about foreign wars, escape being strung up by local Pentagon contractors?

What about Rick Santorum, who began debate season by constantly kissing his former Speaker’s ring? Now that they are neck and neck, will he roll up a sleeveless sweater to hurl at Gingrich’s head?

Will Newt himself, who insulted black sheriff Juan Williams last time to delight the crowd, show up in sheets to belabor Mitt Romney, who still has tax-return cream pie on his face. (“I fully expect the Romney campaign to be unendingly dirty and dishonest for the next days because they are desperate,” Gingrich declaims with a straight face.)

Or will it all end like “Blazing Saddles,” with a giant brawl breaking through studio walls and spilling from one movie set to another?

At least one such scene is at hand as the second Mrs. Speaker is scheduled to be interviewed on ABC's “Nightline” after the debate.

Odds are it won’t be a Gingrich endorsement but a detailed account of how Newt, who believes marriage is for one man and one woman, proposed adding Mrs 3 to the menage without divorcing Mrs. 2.

Mel Brooks, where are you now that we need you?