  
|
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
|
|
Weʼre all celebrating “Mel Brooks Mania.” On May 20, PBS presents the American Mastersʼ salute “Mel Brooks: Make a Noise.” Brooks says, “The roots of my humor are in very old-fashioned Yiddish comedy as well, which is based on some failure--making fun of the inept, which is cruel.” He stutters, falls on a banana peel, and so on. He adds, “Oh, thank God itʼs not me."
ADMIRE
From the age of 5, Mel Brooks has admired Alfred Hitchock more than any
other film director.
“ALT” (OLD)
Brooks said [on being old], “We mock the thing we are to be. Yes, Yes,
we make fun of the old; then we become them.”
“AKTRISE” (ACTRESS)
Mel Brooks is married to actress, Anne Bankroft.
“ARMEY” (ARMY)
Brooks entered the Army and was trained as a combat engineer whose
specialty was to deactivate land mines.
ʻBALNES” (MIRACLE-WORKER)
What touches Brooks? When he first saw his wife on the stage in “Miracle Worker.”
“BAROYGIS” (ANGRY WITH)
Carl Reiner says of Brooks: “The angrier he is, the funnier he is.”
“BAZUKHN” (TO VISIT)
Brooks said, “I have over forty-two thousand children--and not one
comes to visit me.”
BORSCHT CIRCUIT
After leaving the Army in 1946, Brooks returned to the borscht circuit,
where he met comic, Sid Caesar. When Caesar moved into “televizie”
(Tv), he invited Brooks to join him. For the next decade Brooks helped
to write comedy sketches for the Admiral Bʼway Review, “Your Show
of Shows” and “Caesarʼs Hour.”
“BUKH” (BOOK)
Mel Brooks has two favorite books: “Dead Souls” by Nikolai Gogol
and “Robinson Crusoe.” He rereads “Robinson Crusoe every year.
CHAZZERIE (JUNK, ANYTHING BAD; UNPALATABLE)
In 1963, Brooks wrote and narrated the cartoon short, “The Critic.”
It was a 3-minute satire of arly, abstract animated cartoons. The
narrator is a simple Jewish man sitting in a theater. “Dis is cute.
Dis is nice,” he says. Then, suddenly (“in mitin drinen”, he says, “Vat
da hell is it? It must be some symbolism. I think itʼs symbols of junk.”
“FARGENIGEN” (A PLEASURE)
“The egg cream is psychologically the opposite of circumcision--it
pleasurably reaffirms your Jewishness.” (Brooks quote)
“FORURTL” (PREJUDICE)
The landmark film, “Blazing Saddles” [1974] was a slapstick farce with
a serious agenda-prejudice and racism. Mel Brooks believed the first
box-office success with “Blazing Saddles.” One of the most memorable scenes
depicts a Sioux chief (Mel Brooks) drawing his horse up to a black family
during an Indian raid on a wagon train and saying, in Yiddish:
“Zeit nisht meshugge,
Loz em gaien...Abee
gezint”--Donʼt be crazy.
Let them go...As long as we
are all healthy.
“GEBOYRN-TOG” (BIRTHDAY)
Mel Brooks was born on June 28, 1926, in New York City.
“GELEKHTER” (LAUGHTER)
One of the biggest laughs Brooks ever got, he says, was for a bit he wrote
for the 1950ʼs hit, “Your Show of Shows.” A man shakes his fatherʼs ashes
into the East River only to have them blow all over his coat. Whereʼs your
father? “Iʼd have to say Rand Cleaners on 79th Street.”
“HUN” (CHICKEN)
Brooks says that “The whole word chicken is funny. The ch, the i, the
k, put it all together, youʼve got the funniest word in the English language.”
“KINDER” (CHILDREN)
Brooks has four children.
“KINDHAYT” (CHILDHOOD)
Growing up in the tough Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, Brooks had to
be careful of the way he gave vent to the hostility he felt at the loss of his
father. (When Brooks was 2 1/2 his father died, leaving him with a
permanent sense of loss and outrage.)
ʻKALEDZH” (COLLEGE)
After graduation from “hayskul” (high school), Brooks briefly attended
Brooklyn College.
“KOMEDY” (COMEDY)
Brooks maintains that comedy is like a rubber ball; if it is thrown ʻagainst
the hard wall of ultimate reality, it will bounce back and be very lively.ʼ”
“MOYRE” (FEAR)
Fear generates much of Brooksʼ humor.
MUSICAL NUMBERS
Brooks wrote several musical numbers for “Blazing Saddles” and was
nominated for an Oscar for the movieʼs theme song.
“RELIGYE” (RELIGION)
Brooks is Jewish; he saw the results of Hitlerʼs handiwork firsthand,
while serving in the “armey.” According to Kathryn Bernheimer (“The
50 Greatest Jewish Movies - A Criticʼs Rankings of the Very Best”),
“Although he is fiercely compulsively Jewish, Brooks makes some Jewish
viewers uncomfortable.”
SCRIPT
CARL REINER: “Did you live before man believed in the Almighty?”
BROOKS: [as the 2000-year-old man] “Oh, yeah, a few years before.”
REINER: “Did you believe in any superior being?”
BROOKS: “Yes, A guy Phil.”
“SHVARTZERS” (BLACK)
In “Blazing Saddles,” the chief (played by Brooks in full feather) expresses
surprise at finding schvartzers taking part in the Westward expansion. (There
is some debate as to whether the term “schvartzer” is deragatory. Jackie
Mason defends his use of the word by noting that it is the only word in the
Yiddish langauge for black.)
“TUMMLER” (NOISEMAKER)
In his teens, Brooks spent summer vacations working as a drummer and
“toomler” (alternate spelling) at Catskills resorts. His main gig had him
walking out on a diving board with a suitcase in each hand and announcing,
“Business is terrible--I canʼt go on.” Then he would jump in the pool.
“TOYT” (DEAD)
Brooks explained how you know when someone is dead. “Simple, you put
a finger in his nose. If he doesnʼt say ʻHey, take your finger out of my nose,ʼ
heʼs dead.
“TOIT HUNGERIK” (STARVED)
BROOKS SAID, “I DIDNʼT SEE THE [CONCENTRATION CAMPS], BUT I
SAW STREAMS OF REFUGEES. They were starving. It was horrible.”
(Brooks attacked that horror with the only weapon he had--his wit.)
“TSVEY TOYZNT” (2000)
In 1960 Brooks made the first of a series of comedy records with Carl Reiner.
Reiner played the straight man and interviewer# . Brooks was a comically blunt
two thousand-year-old Jewish man with a Yiddish accent.
ʻVELT” (WORLD)
Brooks wrote, produced, and directed “History of the World, Part I, in 1981.
He played several (“etlekhe”) roles in the film, including Moses, Louis XVI,
an Comicus, a stand-up philosopher who is out of work and settles for a job
as a “kelner” (waiter). At the Last Supper he asks, “Are you all together, or is
it separate checks?”
“VITSIK” (WITTY)
Brooks said, “As far as songwriters, Iʼve always been a fan of Irving Berlin,
Cole Porter and George Gershwin: Those guys mean a lot to me. And you
could pick anyone from the Algonquin Round Table of the 1920ʼs--the
Benchleys or Dorothy Parker. They were bright, they were cutting, they were
witty.”
“ZEIT NISHT MESHUGGE...”
(see “forurtl”)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARJORIE WOLFE SAYS TO MEL BROOKS: “ZOLST LEBEN UN ZEIN
GEZUNT!” (YOU SHOULD LIVE AND BE WELL.)
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M |
| N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z |
| Yiddish
Stuff Jewish Humor Schmooze News More Majorie Wolfe |
Principle Jewish Stories All Things Jewish Jewish Communities of the World |