What Blücher Has to Do With Young Frankenstein

In Mel Brooks classic film parody  Young Frankenstein  (1974), Cloris Leachman plays a  character called Frau Blucher. If youve seen this great film, you know that every time someone utters the words Frau Blucher the whinnying of horses can be heard. Somehow an explanation for this running gag arose, claiming the hidden reason for the horses reaction was that Frau Bluchers name sounds like the German word for glue, and implying that the horses fear ending up in a glue factory. But if you bother to look up the word glue in German, you wont find any word that is even close to Blucher or Blà ¼cher. Do the words  der Klebstoff  or  der Leim  sound even remotely similar? What Is the Meaning of Blucher in German? If you look up  Blà ¼cher, some German dictionaries  list the expression er geht ran wie Blà ¼cher (he doesnt loaf around/he goes at it like Blà ¼cher), but that refers to the Prussian general  Gebhard Leberecht von Blà ¼cher  (1742-1819), who earned the name Marschall Vorwà ¤rts ([Field] Marshal Forward) for his victories over the French at Katzbach and (with Wellington) at Waterloo (1815). In other words, Blà ¼cher (or Blucher) is just a German surname. It has no particular meaning as a normal word in German and certainly does not mean glue! Turns out that director Mel Brooks was just having some fun with a classic cinematic villain gag from old melodramas. There is no real logic for the horses neighing since most of the time there is no way they could even see or hear Frau Blucher or the people saying her name.