Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Melvin James Brooksis an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, composer, songwriter and veteran. He is known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. Brooks began his career as a comic and a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows. He became well known as part of the comedy duo with Carl Reiner in the comedy skit, The 2000 Year Old Man. He also created, with Buck Henry, the hit television comedy series, Get Smart,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth28 June 1926
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.
I only direct in self-defense.
Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.
I realised that all one really had to do was just observe. Observe and slightly exaggerate, and you had comedy. Instead of creating a mythical premise for a stupid joke, I found playing off truth got the best result.
He who hesitates is poor.
The only weapon I've got is comedy
Tragedy is what happens to me; comedy is what happens to you.
We rest our case on the production numbers.
Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance.
When you get big special effects pictures, sci-fi and things, there's little or no comedy. Or it's a domestic comedy and there's not one special effect. But very rarely do these things fuse and come out right.
I've never been happier than when I was writing the musical score of The Producers. One song after another tumbled out of my head in what was the most soul-satisfying experience of my career. And in my less than humble opinion, I must say that it turned out to be surprisingly good.
There's no lightning. There's blood, sweat and tears. There's a good idea and there's 18 months of due diligence, hard work, day and night.
That's Tom Meehan. You wouldn't dream he'd come up with those home runs. You'd think: 'Tom Meehan. Gentile, structure, taste. But you wouldn't think he'd come up with the jokes. But he's got it. He got it all.
I think people should buy 20 of them. Buy 20 and save a lot of them for Christmas presents. Who knows how many of these they make? They might be gone.