‘I’ ON CULTURE
While some folk celebrate and others bemoan the 250th birthday of the United States, we can probably all celebrate the centennial of Mel Brooks. For more than half a century, he made so many of us laugh, sometimes beyond any sense of proportion. And often, he made us think about the reasons why. Of course, why should we only think about a 100-old-man when he was also “The 2,000 Year Old Man?”
For those a bit too young to remember, Brooks was brought up in poverty by a single mother after his father died when he was two. After serving in World War II, he became a writer for one of the early greats of television, Sid Caesar. That whole crew was amazing. It contained Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart (creator of the M*A*S*H television series), as well as Brooks. A fictionalized version of this is in the movie My Favorite Year (produced by Brooks).
But he gained personal fame working with comedian Carl Reiner doing skits about “The 2,000 Year Old Man.” His advice about flying: “If God wanted man to fly, he would have given us [airline] tickets.” His humor was infectious and won him and Reiner a Grammy for their album.
Then he turned to movies. I was lucky enough to see The Producers as a sneak preview in 1967. My date and I had no idea what we would be seeing, but we began to laugh right from the start, as fictitious producer Zero Mostel worked to charm accountant Gene Wilder to allow misspending on a show. Then came the stroke of genius: He could make more money on a flop than a hit, since no one would care about the money. That led to finding the worst script ever: a paean to Hitler. And this was about 20 years after people learned about the Holocaust. But it was funny! And when the ultimate satire came on, the song and dance “Springtime for Hitler,” there was hysteria. Some people rushed out, not offended, but needing the rest room because they had lost control. The movie was outrageous, offensive to Jews, gays, and, of course, Nazis, but it was hysterical. It seemed the best way to treat the Nazis might just be to ridicule them.
Then came Blazing Saddles. It is a treat to watch YouTube as young Black people wind up laughing at the idiots who are racists. Yes, it can be over the top, but that is the point. It’s about a Black sheriff (Cleavon Little) of a small town in Texas. His greeting from those folks is heavy on what we now call the “N word.” Of course, by the end, we have brotherhood. Brooks appeared as a Yiddish-speaking Native American. My favorite scene is when a moron redneck demands the Blacks who are building the railroad sing “like they did when they were slaves.” Little and the others do an a capella version of Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You,” whereupon the rednecks do “Camptown Races” and look like morons. But what most people (not all, unfortunately) get out of this is how moronic racism is.
Then there’s his movie Young Frankenstein (pronounced Franken-steen, of course) that shreds that story. And somehow the Robin Hood story survived Robin Hood: Men in Tights, where Robin and his merry men did a Rockettes dance in panty hose.
There was a Brooks revival a bit later on in his life when The Producers was turned into a very successful musical — and he won a Tony Award for best score! Yes, he is a man of many talents.
The key one though is that Brooks brought decades of laughter; laughter often at topics thought to be out of bounds, demonstrating the ridiculousness of modern life. And we laughed. And we still watch many of his films. Just before writing this, I watched Spaceballs, his take-off on Star Wars and other similar films. He was in it, enjoying himself and letting his Jewish humor show with “the power of the Schwartz.” He was proud of who he was and let it show.
But Mel Brooks could understand the plight of others. He was and is a proud champion of America and its people’s freedom to be who they want to be. A wonderful gift for his 100th and our 250th birthdays.
