50 Fun Facts About Mel Brooks

What was Mel Brooks's birth surname?

Kaminsky was his surname until his teens, when the young drummer built a stage name by trimming Brookman, his mother's maiden name, down to Brooks.

In which New York borough was Mel Brooks born and raised?

Brooklyn is where Brooks grew up small, sickly and often bullied after his father died when he was two, and where he learned to disarm bigger boys by making them laugh.

Which jazz drummer taught the teenage Mel Brooks to play drums?

Buddy Rich gave the teenage Brooks his drum lessons, and drumming paid first: Brooks worked as a jazz drummer in the Catskills resorts before he turned stand-up comedian.

In which Second World War battle did Mel Brooks serve as a combat engineer?

The Battle of the Bulge drew in Brooks's combat-engineer battalion, which also cleared land mines as the Allies advanced; he says he answered German loudspeakers by singing Al Jolson.

Mel Brooks spent the 1950s writing sketches for which television comedian?

Sid Caesar kept Brooks on his writing staff for Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour; Neil Simon later turned that writers' room into the play Laughter on the 23rd Floor, with a hypochondriac modelled on Brooks.

With which collaborator did Brooks create the comedy sketch The 2000 Year Old Man?

Carl Reiner played the deadpan interviewer to Brooks's 2000 Year Old Man, a routine they improvised at parties in the 1950s; their album The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000 won a 1999 Grammy.

Which spy-spoof sitcom did Brooks co-create with Buck Henry in 1965?

Get Smart was created to cash in on the James Bond craze, with Don Adams as the bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart.

Agent 86 in Brooks's 1965 spy-spoof sitcom works for which secret agency?

CONTROL is the Washington agency that fights KAOS, 'the international organization of evil'; its Agent 86 reports in on a telephone hidden in the sole of his shoe.

For which film, his directorial debut, did Mel Brooks win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay?

The Producers (1967) was Brooks's first film as director; its script won him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the April 1969 ceremony, beating 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What is the title of the deliberately terrible musical-within-the-film in Brooks's 1967 debut?

Springtime for Hitler is chosen as a sure-fire flop so Bialystock and Bloom can pocket the investors' money, but the audience takes it for a comedy and it becomes a hit.

Which two actors starred as Bialystock and Bloom in Brooks's original 1967 film?

Zero Mostel played Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder the nervous accountant Leo Bloom, whose name nods to Leopold Bloom of Joyce's Ulysses; Wilder earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for the role.

In Mel Brooks's The Twelve Chairs, what is hidden inside one of the dining chairs?

A fortune in jewels was sewn into a seat cushion to keep it from the Bolsheviks, and a deathbed confession sends a ruined aristocrat chasing the scattered set across Soviet Russia.

Which stand-up comedian was among the credited co-writers of Blazing Saddles?

Richard Pryor was also Brooks's first choice to play Sheriff Bart; he lost the part but stayed on the script and shares the writing credit.

Who plays Sheriff Bart in Blazing Saddles?

Cleavon Little plays Bart, a railroad worker about to hang who is made sheriff because the villain hopes a Black lawman will so offend the townsfolk that they leave.

What is the name of the town the railroad must pass through in Blazing Saddles?

Rock Ridge is the frontier town the villains want emptied so the railroad can be rerouted through it; nearly every citizen is surnamed Johnson, and they build a fake Rock Ridge as a decoy.

Which bandleader plays 'April in Paris' in the middle of the desert in Blazing Saddles?

Count Basie and his orchestra appear playing 'April in Paris' in the desert as Bart gallops past, one of the film's deliberate anachronisms alongside Slim Pickens's 'Wide World of Sports' line.

Which pair of roles does Mel Brooks play in Blazing Saddles?

Governor Le Petomane and an Indian chief who speaks Yiddish are both Brooks; the governor is named after Le Pétomane, a French stage star whose whole act was breaking wind.

By Mel Brooks's account, which western star turned down Blazing Saddles but promised to be first in line to see it?

John Wayne read the script when Brooks offered him a part and turned it down to protect his family-friendly image, yet reportedly promised to be first in line to see the film.

Who plays the monster in Young Frankenstein?

Peter Boyle plays the Monster, complete with a zipper in his neck; his top-hat-and-tails 'Puttin' on the Ritz' duet with Wilder is the film's showpiece.

How does Frederick Frankenstein insist his surname be pronounced at the start of Young Frankenstein?

Frederick insists on 'Fronkensteen' to distance himself from his infamous grandfather's work; Marty Feldman's Igor retaliates by insisting his own name is pronounced 'Eye-gor'.

What is the label on the brain Igor accidentally brings back for the monster in Young Frankenstein?

The jar is labelled 'Abnormal' (Igor later claims it belonged to 'Abby Normal'); he was supposed to bring back the brain of the 'scientist and saint' Hans Delbrück but dropped it.

Which Oscar-winning actor makes a cameo as the blind hermit in Young Frankenstein?

Gene Hackman plays Harold, the lonely blind hermit who prays for a visitor, then pours boiling soup over the Monster and sets light to his thumb instead of his cigar.

Which two science-fiction awards did Young Frankenstein win for best dramatic presentation?

The Hugo and the Nebula both went to Brooks's horror spoof, which beat John Carpenter's Dark Star and Rollerball to the Nebula.

Who speaks the only audible word of dialogue in Mel Brooks's Silent Movie?

Marcel Marceau, the celebrated mime, says 'Non!' when asked to appear in a silent film, the only spoken word; Burt Reynolds, Liza Minnelli and James Caan play themselves.

High Anxiety (1977) is Brooks's parody of which director?

Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers are the target: Brooks plays a psychiatrist who has a fear of heights himself and takes charge of the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous.

Which 1980 David Lynch film did Mel Brooks produce, keeping his name off the poster so audiences wouldn't expect comedy?

The Elephant Man (1980) was a Brooksfilms production; Brooks hired Lynch after seeing Eraserhead and kept his own name off the credits so audiences would not expect a comedy. It earned eight Oscar nominations.

Which David Cronenberg horror film was produced by Brooksfilms?

The Fly, with Jeff Goldblum as a scientist who fuses with a housefly, reached Cronenberg after he walked away from Total Recall; he signed on once Brooks's company let him rewrite the script.

Which grim event is a musical number in History of the World, Part I?

The Inquisition, the Spanish one, becomes an extended song-and-dance number, with Brooks himself singing and dancing as the grand inquisitor Torquemada.

History of the World, Part I plays on an unfinished multi-volume history by which Elizabethan figure?

Sir Walter Raleigh began The History of the World as a prisoner in the Tower of London and never got past the first volume, so Brooks's 'Part I' was a joke: no sequel was planned.

On which streaming service did the series History of the World, Part II premiere in 2023?

Hulu's sketch series arrived in March 2023, 42 years after a film whose 'Part I' was only a title joke, with Brooks narrating and Nick Kroll, Wanda Sykes and Ike Barinholtz writing and starring.

Which 1983 Ernst Lubitsch remake starred Brooks alongside his wife?

To Be or Not to Be casts Brooks and his wife as the stars of a Warsaw theatre troupe who turn their costumes and acting on the occupying Nazis, with Brooks's actor posing as a dead spy.

In Spaceballs, what kind of vehicle is Lone Starr's spaceship, Eagle 5?

A Winnebago motorhome with wings is the film's answer to Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, flown by Lone Starr with Barf, his half-man, half-dog co-pilot.

Which two roles does Mel Brooks play in Spaceballs?

Brooks plays President Skroob, the corrupt leader of Planet Spaceball (Skroob is an anagram of Brooks), and Yogurt, the diminutive Yoda spoof who guards the power of the Schwartz.

What did George Lucas demand, by Mel Brooks's account, before allowing Spaceballs?

No action figures could be made, Lucas said, because they would look like his own; the film answers with Yogurt's scene selling Spaceballs lunch boxes, a breakfast cereal and a flamethrower.

Who plays the villain Dark Helmet in Spaceballs?

Rick Moranis plays Dark Helmet, a send-up of Darth Vader whose costume is one hugely exaggerated helmet, built with a hinged visor that flips up and down.

Which future comedy star first appeared on film in Mel Brooks's Robin Hood: Men in Tights?

Dave Chappelle was 19 when he played Ahchoo, the son of a prisoner named Asneeze, in Brooks's send-up of Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Which comic actor plays the title vampire in Brooks's Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)?

Leslie Nielsen plays Count Dracula opposite Brooks's Van Helsing; the film took under $11 million at the US box office, and Brooks has not directed a film since.

Who played Max Bialystock when Brooks's musical won 12 Tonys in 2001?

Nathan Lane, with Matthew Broderick as Bloom, led a show about staging a sure-fire flop to more Tonys than any musical before it.

For which sitcom did Brooks win three consecutive Emmys (1997-99) as Outstanding Guest Actor?

Mad About You cast Brooks as Paul Buchman's Uncle Phil; with those Emmys beside his Oscar and Grammy, his Tony wins in 2001 made him one of the few people to complete an EGOT.

Mel Brooks was married to which Oscar-winning actress from 1964 until her death in 2005?

Anne Bancroft, Best Actress Oscar winner for The Miracle Worker (1962), met Brooks at a Perry Como Show rehearsal in 1961 and married him in 1964; their son Max Brooks wrote World War Z.

What is unusual about the handprints Mel Brooks made at the TCL Chinese Theatre in 2014?

One hand has six fingers: Brooks wore a prosthetic extra finger on his left hand when he pressed his prints into the wet cement outside the theatre.

What is the title of Mel Brooks's 2021 memoir?

All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business came out in 2021, when Brooks was 95; talking about it, he called childhood his happiest time, which ended at nine with homework.

Lili Von Shtupp's saloon act in Blazing Saddles parodies which 1939 western?

Destry Rides Again gave Marlene Dietrich the saloon singer Frenchy; Madeline Kahn's send-up of her as Lili earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.

Which studio released Blazing Saddles in February 1974?

Warner Bros. also lent its own lot to the finale: the closing brawl bursts out of the western, through a musical being filmed next door and into the studio commissary.

Which western-theme singer performed the title song of Blazing Saddles?

Frankie Laine, the voice of the Rawhide theme, turned up in person after Brooks advertised in the trade papers for a 'Frankie Laine-type' singer, and his song went on to an Oscar nomination.

Which retired film star sued the studio over Blazing Saddles' running parody of her name?

Hedy Lamarr sued for $10 million, saying the villain's name invaded her privacy; the case was settled out of court, the name stayed in the film, and Brooks said he was flattered.

Which future star quit the role of Franz Liebkind in Brooks's debut to audition for a film starring Brooks's wife?

Dustin Hoffman, by Brooks's account, begged to be let go to audition for The Graduate; he won the lead opposite Brooks's wife, and Kenneth Mars took over as the Nazi playwright.

Where had the lab equipment from the 1931 Frankenstein been kept before Young Frankenstein reused it?

In its maker's garage: Kenneth Strickfaden still had the electrical props he built for the 1931 film and lent them on condition that he finally got a screen credit.

Which studio dropped Young Frankenstein over its budget and black-and-white photography?

Columbia Pictures had a deal for the film but would not meet Brooks's budget or accept black and white, so he took it to 20th Century Fox, which released it in December 1974.

A limping gag of Igor's in Young Frankenstein gave which band a song title?

Aerosmith, by the band's account, had music but no title until members took a break from recording to see the film in Times Square and came back quoting Igor's 'Walk this way'.