Mel Brooks on comedy and love

Hello, would you like to have a volunteer? It's funny in the 1974 classic Young Frankenstein. Legendary

comedy

writer and director Mel Brooks kept the jokes going all these years later, he's still at it. Talk to our man in Hollywood Ben Mankiewicz. Can I clarify something? up mm-hmm I don't get paid to do this. I'm used to getting paid for the album. Mel Brooks didn't get paid, but he still presented the

comedy

just as he's been doing it for almost a century, practically from day one. I knew from a very young age I knew that comedy was my business, comedy was my thing, it was me because people looked at my crib I was only a few months old and they laughed and I said that's all that's what I wanted, when did you know that You were funny and could make people laugh at school?

I guess you know my neck still hurts from being carried by the neck to the principal's office because it was terrible every time I did my Boris Karloff impression James Wales the fabulous monster saying this word as a waiter at a table, I would say: I'll weaken them you know I make the ice too I help you know and I'll just be puffs and that was it and it was so cool the rest of the class was gone they didn't know why they were laughing we've all been laughing since then , as a writer and director, Mel has created some of the most inventive and irreverent comedies of all time, Blazing Saddles, if you will. you are blue and you later that same year young Frankenstein should go where the fashion is C+ history of the world part 1 the Lord Jehovah has given you these 15 10 10 commandments and of course the producers who earned Mel an Oscar for Best Screenplay, don't worry. stupid, be a know-it-all, come and join the party of the blind, a story from a Broadway musical about Adolf Hitler.

You know, this gave me a very good life, you know, and one of the few Jews to have survived Hitler. Well, you know, only Mel Brooks could. get away with having this bottle cap in his house someone sent it to me. I get a lot of Hitler paraphernalia. Hitler was born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn in 1926. Mel is now 93 years old and as smart as ever. You are smarter than you look and very observant. He could have been a star, but you wear glasses, so where do we go? Here, milkman, down. I want to show you something.

Comedy is Mel Brooks' life, but her

love

, and that is America, will always be her and Bancroft to the world, she was one. of the great stage and screen actors of her generation with astonishing range, the miracle worker who earned her an Oscar as Helen Keller's teacher and Sullivan to the Graduate playing Dustin Hoffman's married seductress, Mrs. Robinson Robinson you are trying to seduce but for Mel she was her soulmate he washed everything for me she has been an inspiration she always thought I had talent she believed in me from the beginning as a songwriter and as a screenwriter or whatever I wanted to do it, she He said you can do it on the surface, they were presented as a Hollywood odd couple, but the truth is there was a lot in common.

They both grew up as children of immigrants, a Jewish boy from Brooklyn and an Italian girl from the Bronx. it was a master's degree not for a while she kept it Italian she was Anna Marie Louise Italian Italian he's a real man man I think it was Darryl Zanuck gave her a list of people and she said I like Bancroft and Brooks really liked Bancroft long before that day. They met. Let's go back to 1961. How did you meet her? 1961 On February 5, 1961, at the recording of a Perry Como television special and Mel was rehearsing, four years into his long career as a comedy writer for Sid Caesars' television shows, he and a friend approached to look and she's wearing a white dress and she has shiny jet black hair and the most beautiful eyes and the most beautiful figure and it was like I said kismet look what anyway I'm in

love

I know, I thought I was just in awe of her I'm shocked and in love with her ends the song it's a rehearsal so you can talk and I scream and Bancroft I love you she said who are you I said I'm Mel Brooks she said I have your record You know, I made a record with Carl Reiner, a 2000 year old man, so what You are doing?

She said I have to see someone at the William Morris Agency. Bernice said. I could see it too. I just didn't do it. I went with her. I took a taxi, I went, she liked my whistle, yes, it's a good whistle, then, completely smitten, Mel started chasing her relentlessly every night, wherever she went, I would show up, you know, on the fourth or fifth time , said this, that's it. It just seemed to be going, you know, mean, she said, you know, both of us, she said to her analyst, let's speed this process up. I met the right man, yeah, like she knew it too, I just mean, it wasn't anyone else, she had everything she had.

Look, her. had a brain she had a purpose melanin married in 1964 her son Max a successful writer he himself wrote World War Z grew up in this house how do you remember what your parents were like together? My answer is that I need some kind of context. to compare it to something else and it was only later when I went out into the world that I realized that most people are not that lively and most people are not that fun right now, whether it's or It's not the New York Times, it must have done it. been a good critic I wouldn't be here in 1983 they starred together to be or not to be that starts with an idea and had to sing a duet in another language she learned that song in Polish Jack Shadow released oh shut up sweet Georgie Brussels she learned it, she taught it to me, she drilled it, she drilled me every day until I could do it in a post with her.

I didn't even realize you got her into forensics, yeah, she started liking it and was with him during Blazing Saddles Mel's bold comedy about a black sheriff in a racist western town Do you think Blazing Saddles would be successful today? Could it be done today? Don't know. I don't think so because I went too far with the use of the n- Talking to cowboys sitting down can fart, but I mean scandalous movies and a lot of people you can't blame them for saying I'm a, you know, it should never be terrible, but that That's what I do.

I do things that no one else would do. What does that tell you about the state of comedy today? Well, to me, there are districts about what is in bad taste, what is in good taste, I think MF, you know the MF, what I mean, it has a purpose, it has value, it has truce, truce and value. and you can't, you can't shower people with truth and courage if you're going to be careful about stepping outside the lines, you have to step outside the lines and I think the politically correct thing to do is... I'm sorry.

Say it's too politically correct. She made very good films with very good directors. This one is known. Samantha Mel continues to write and act, but he is always thinking about his wife. She is making some money by actually doing a beer commercial. She wasn't. a good beer they were inseparable for 41 years until Anne died of cancer in 2005 she was 73 years old, you know, I think my dad is at a point in his life where he looks back and remembers everything he has achieved and it is no small thing. It is true that much of his achievements are due to my mother.

My father is the first to tell you that she saved him. You can see it 14 years after her death. Mel wants Anne's legacy to be celebrated and she wants her to be seen. I just thought that before I die I would like to see it. a couple of her movies put together in one box, there's a lot of great stuff here, if you get them early you can get them for $59, you want to save a couple of bucks and see the greatest performance of the great actress of all time. $59 Amazon a presentation for eight and Bancroft movies from the funny man who knew her best.

He could be the main character or an aide-de-camp. He could help the people who are siding with her by silently pushing them away. in something it was a great gift it was a gift from God