{"id":191955,"date":"2026-06-28T13:03:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T10:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=191955"},"modified":"2026-06-29T10:10:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T07:10:47","slug":"mel_brooks_100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/en\/mel_brooks_100\/","title":{"rendered":"Mel Brooks, the 2,000-year-old Man, Turns 100"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is your favorite Mel Brooks movie?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That question, posted on Reddit earlier this year, prompted diverse responses:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201c<em>Blazing Saddles<\/em> is absolute perfection. But, honestly, anything Mel made is worth watching.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cWatching <em>Young Frankenstein<\/em> with my dad was a kind of common ground. No<br>matter what disagreements we got into when I was a kid, if it was on, we could always find our way back to a laugh.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cMel Brooks is an odd one because he\u2019s a comedic genius, but his jokes teeter between brilliance and something a 12-year-old would write. That being said: <em>Spaceballs<\/em>.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<em>The Producers<\/em>. The \u201cSpringtime For Hitler\u201d sequence is \u2014 by a wide margin \u2014 the funniest thing I\u2019ve ever seen on a screen. A film by a Jewish director featuring two Jewish leads who played characters who were making money by ridiculing Nazis is an irresistible setup. The fact that the music and choreography is so jolly and \u2026 the chorus line forms a swastika while disgusted patrons walk out \u2014 it\u2019s just beyond belief. Absolutely the funniest thing I have ever seen.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<em>Blazing Saddles<\/em>\/<em>History of the World, Part I<\/em>\/<em>Young Frankenstein<\/em>\/<em>The Producers<\/em>\/<em>High Anxiety<\/em> in that order.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cI haven\u2019t seen them all, but I feel like <em>Silent Movie<\/em> is underrated.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<em>[Robin Hood:]<\/em> <em>Men in Tights<\/em> makes me laugh every time.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This response might\u2019ve been the most reasonable: \u201cUnreasonable! I refuse to choose.\u201d<br><br>The exchange was timely, ahead of the 100th birthday on June 28 of the legendary screenwriter-director-actor.<br><br>In a new HBO documentary, <em>Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man<\/em>, the comedian born Melvin Kaminsky in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, appears plenty vibrant. And get this: Brooks will appear in a film in his second century of life; <em>Spaceballs: The New One<\/em>, a reprise of his 1987 parody of space films, is due out next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spaceballs: The New One\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/efpL1E_fI3E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Such spoofs are Brooks\u2019s calling cards. Consider: <em>Young Frankenstein<\/em> (monster movies), <em>Blazing Saddles<\/em> (westerns), <em>High Anxiety<\/em> (Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s films) and <em>Robin Hood: Men in Tights<\/em> and <em>Silent Movie<\/em> (no need to explain those, right?).<br><br>Brooks\u2019s greatest mockery was 1968\u2019s <em>The Producers<\/em>, about a Broadway producer and his accountant who plot to stage a tasteless play trivializing the Nazis, thereby defrauding investors in an intentional flop. The plan backfires when audiences take the play as a satire, laugh their heads off and make it a hit.<br><br>Brooks \u201cis an acquired taste \u2014 or tastelessness,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/newspapers\/jweekly\/2001\/04\/27\/article\/103\/?srpos=20&amp;e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7CtxTI-mel+brooks-------------1\">culture reporter Michael Elkin wrote in Philadelphia\u2019s <em>Jewish Exponent<\/em><\/a> when <em>The Producers<\/em> was revived more than three decades later as a Broadway play. The review went on to state that Brooks\u2019s works achieve \u201ca show business version of baseball\u2019s dazzling double play\u201d: They \u201cshowcase his pride in being Jewish\u201d while attracting attention and succeeding at the box office.<br><br>It would play to a sold-out St. James Theater for seven years.<br><br>\u201cThe best way to ridicule something is with comedy. If I make fun, it\u2019s better than standing on a soapbox and saying, \u2018Hitler was wrong.\u2019 You can laugh badness away better than you can shout,\u201d Brooks told a U.S. television interviewer then.<br><br>In another interview, with British TV host Michael Parkinson in 2004, Brooks said, \u201cIt\u2019s all about Hitler. He\u2019s been very good to me. I made a nice living. I think I\u2019m the only Jew that\u2019s profited by all the terrible things he\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"457\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-september-27-1974-edition-of-the-australian-jewish-news-melbourne-the-historical-jewish-press-collection-at-the-national-library-of-israel-1-457x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-191996\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-september-27-1974-edition-of-the-australian-jewish-news-melbourne-the-historical-jewish-press-collection-at-the-national-library-of-israel-1-457x600.jpg 457w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-september-27-1974-edition-of-the-australian-jewish-news-melbourne-the-historical-jewish-press-collection-at-the-national-library-of-israel-1-228x300.jpg 228w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-september-27-1974-edition-of-the-australian-jewish-news-melbourne-the-historical-jewish-press-collection-at-the-national-library-of-israel-1.jpg 503w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 457px) 100vw, 457px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/newspapers\/ajnm\/1974\/09\/27\/01\/page\/18\">the September 27, 1974 edition of <\/a><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/newspapers\/ajnm\/1974\/09\/27\/01\/page\/18\">The Australian Jewish News (Melbourne<\/a>)<\/em>, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>After returning from battle in World War II, Brooks wrote for Sid Caesar\u2019s television comedy program,<em>Your Show of Shows<\/em>. He worked there with fellow writer Carl Reiner, and the two collaborated on five comedy albums featuring Reiner feeding Brooks, playing a 2,000-year-old man, questions about life millennia ago. In the late 1960s, Brooks co-created a TV series, <em>Get Smart<\/em>, about a bumbling spy; the series ran for five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a film director of his own scripts, Brooks had favorite performers, casting several again and again, like Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn and Gene Wilder. Wilder told TV talk-show host Larry King about meeting Brooks while acting in a play with Anne Bancroft, when Brooks, her boyfriend (and future husband), picked her up after work. That led to Brooks casting Wilder as accountant Leo Bloom in <em>The Producers<\/em>. Bancroft and Brooks co-starred in his 1983 film <em>To Be or Not to Be<\/em> and were married 40 years until her death in 2005.<br><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"674\" height=\"502\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/producers-ad-nov-1967.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-191971\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/producers-ad-nov-1967.jpg 674w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/producers-ad-nov-1967-300x223.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 674px) 100vw, 674px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An ad for Mel Brooks&#8217; film, <em>The Producers<\/em>, published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/newspapers\/detroitjn\/1967\/11\/17\/01\/page\/26\/?e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7CtxTI--------------1\">the November 17, 1967 edition of the <em>Detroit Jewish News<\/em><\/a>, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>As a younger person, I enjoyed Brooks\u2019s silly humor, especially on <em>Get Smart<\/em>, even while not always understanding what Brooks was satirizing. My mother and I traveled to Manhattan\u2019s East Side to see <em>Silent Movie<\/em>. I went to see <em>History of the World, Part I<\/em> with an aunt and uncle and was taken aback afterward at being rebuked for enjoying a musical number mocking the Spanish Inquisition.<br><br>It was more egregious, the person said, given that we\u2019d just visited our Cousin Rose, who related having escaped Germany with her husband and young son on the eve of World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"738\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/from-the-january-7-1982-edition-of-the-australian-jewish-times-738x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-191991\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/from-the-january-7-1982-edition-of-the-australian-jewish-times-738x600.jpg 738w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/from-the-january-7-1982-edition-of-the-australian-jewish-times-300x244.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/from-the-january-7-1982-edition-of-the-australian-jewish-times-768x624.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/from-the-january-7-1982-edition-of-the-australian-jewish-times.jpg 963w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 738px) 100vw, 738px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/newspapers\/austjewishtimes\/1982\/01\/07\/01\/page\/16\">the January 7, 1982 edition of <em>The Australian Jewish Times<\/em><\/a>, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Brooks is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/newspapers\/ajns\/2003\/08\/01\/01\/article\/84\/?srpos=15&amp;e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7CtxTI-mel+brooks-------------1\">\u201cmaster of politically incorrect humour,\u201d<\/a> <em>The<\/em> <em>Australian Jewish News<\/em>, stating the obvious, wrote ahead of <em>The Producers<\/em>\u2019 stage opening in Melbourne in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"376\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-december-25-1987-edition-of-the-detroit-jewish-news-1-376x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-191980\" style=\"width:376px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-december-25-1987-edition-of-the-detroit-jewish-news-1-376x600.jpg 376w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-december-25-1987-edition-of-the-detroit-jewish-news-1-188x300.jpg 188w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-december-25-1987-edition-of-the-detroit-jewish-news-1.jpg 465w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 376px) 100vw, 376px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/newspapers\/detroitjn\/1987\/12\/25\/01\/page\/60\/?e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7CtxTI--------------1\">the December 25, 1987 edition of the <em>Detroit Jewish News<\/em><\/a>, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Brooks\u2019s comedy seemed juvenile but somehow thoughtful. Recently, in an Israeli newspaper\u2019s pop-culture quiz, friends were surprised when I correctly answered this question: \u201cWhich actor spoke the only word in Mel Brooks\u2019s <em>Silent Movie<\/em>?\u201d It was Marcel Marceau shouting \u201cNo!\u201d and the joke\u2019s irony was remarkable: Marceau was the world\u2019s most renowned mime.<br><br>\u201cHis trademark or his signature is dumb comedy and brash comedy and rude comedy,\u201d said Patrick McGilligan, who teaches at Wisconsin\u2019s Marquette University and authored a 2019 biography, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/books\/NNL_ALEPH990050378910205171\/NLI\">Mel Brooks: Funny Man<\/a><\/em>.<br><br>\u201cHe represents and reflects an entire generation of Jewish comedy and Jewish humor, <em>schtick<\/em>, Borscht Belt, vaudeville \u2014 the great nonsensical comedians, to a great extent,\u201d said McGilligan, who sometimes screens <em>Blazing Saddles<\/em> in his communications classes. \u201cHe kept that tradition alive \u2026 and brought [it] to a modern era.\u201d<br><br>A cherished possession of retired journalist Lydia Wilen is Brooks\u2019s letter in November 1975, regarding a magazine column of celebrities\u2019 responses to her question about how they relax. He\u2019d answered the phone when she called.<br><br>\u201cI like to play stickball on a trampoline. &#8230; You never get any hits or have to run the bases,\u201d Brooks told her.<br><br>She mailed him the published article. From his Beverly Hills office, Brooks wrote back by hand: \u201cGot your funny letter. Say hello to anyone worth a hello from the Jew. Love, Mel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"572\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/melbrooks-2010-angela-george-572x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-191985\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/melbrooks-2010-angela-george-572x600.jpg 572w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/melbrooks-2010-angela-george-286x300.jpg 286w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/melbrooks-2010-angela-george-768x805.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/melbrooks-2010-angela-george.jpg 1360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 572px) 100vw, 572px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mel Brooks in 2010, photo by Angela George<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sure you can imagine how surprised I was to get a note from Mel Brooks,\u201d Wilen said recently of the exchange. \u201cSurprised, excited and then thrilled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Writer-editor Hillel Kuttler can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"mailto:hk@HillelTheScribeCommunications.com\"><em>hk@HillelTheScribeCommunications.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The comedic writer-director-actor from Brooklyn has made some of America\u2019s zaniest films. A Jewish sensibility stars in his movies, too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":450,"featured_media":191956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[1737,6624],"tags2":[2784,3067,6625],"class_list":["post-191955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora","tag-american-jewry","tag-jewish-humor"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mel Brooks, the 2,000-year-old Man, Turns 100<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The comedic writer-director-actor from Brooklyn has made some of America\u2019s zaniest films. 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