Black and White and Red All Over

Young Frankenstein was produced by Michael Gruskoff (Gruskoff/Venture Films) and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was originally to be distributed by Columbia Pictures, but they didn't want it to be shot in black and white, so Mel Brooks took the film to 20th Century Fox, who didn't care if it was black and white or pastels. Okay, they probably would have cared if it were pastels. Even though Frankenstein is one of the original Universal Studios monsters, they had nothing to do with it, and 20th Century Fox is still producing Frankenstein films into the 21st century.

Fox was very busy in 1974, distributing 17 films, including Zardoz, which is Turkish for "Sean Connery half-naked for two hours," and disaster epic The Towering Inferno, which features O.J. Simpson as a security guard. Protecting people. The '70s was crazy like that.

Producer Michael Gruskoff's production company Gruskoff/Venture films produced only one other film, Lucky Lady starring Gene Hackman, who makes a brief appearance in Young Frankenstein as the blind priest. Sometimes lightning only strikes once. However, Gruskoff produced a number of other successful films like Quest for Fire, Pink Cadillac, and My Favorite Year. He also got his name on a gasthaus (guesthouse) in one of the scenes in Young Frankenstein (Gasthaus Gruskoff was probably irresistible to Brooks), so there's that.