All about Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business

by Mel Brooks

Comedy made me friends, big friends to protect me from bullies. I made them laugh, and you don’t hit the kid that makes you laugh.

If I cut my finger, that’s tragedy. Comedy is if you walk into an open sewer and die.

Comedy is a very powerful component of life. It has the most to say about the human condition because if you laugh you can get by. You can struggle when things are bad if you have a sense of humor. Laughter is a protest scream against death, against the long goodbye. It’s a defense against unhappiness and depression.

My wit is often characterized as being Jewish comedy. Occasionally, that’s true. But for the most part to characterize my humor as purely Jewish humor is not accurate. It’s really New York humor. New York humor is not just Jewish humor. It has a certain rhythm. It has a certain intensity and a certain pulse. Lenny Bruce, Rodney Dangerfield, Jackie Mason, and stand-up comedians like me were not simply Jewish. They were New York—there is a big difference.

Failure is vital. It is an incredibly important quotient in the equation of a career. After you wipe away your tears, it’s not a bad experience and under the right circumstances it will make you better, both as a person and as an artist.

I think it’s important to fail, especially between the ages of twenty and thirty. Success is like sugar. It’s too good. It’s too sweet. It’s too wonderful and it burns up very quickly. Failure is like corned beef hash. It takes a while to eat. It takes a while to digest. But it stays with you. Failure may not feel good when it happens, but it will always sharpen your mind.

The Army didn’t rob me of my youth; but actually, come to think of it, they really gave me quite an education. If you don’t get killed in the Army you can learn a lot. You learn how to stand on your own two feet.

One of the most difficult things to do in comedy is to come up with a good ending to a scene or a sketch. The real struggle is to take a premise, the center of it, and nurture it and blossom it into a punch line.

It’s almost impossible to create a great ending to a sketch. We pulled it off at least half the time.

It’s a stormy wind that doesn’t blow somebody some good.

In every classic comedy duo, from Laurel and Hardy to Abbott and Costello to Martin and Lewis, in order for the exchange to work, the quality of the straight man had to be as dynamic as that of the funny guy.

“A brilliant mind in panic is a wonderful thing to behold.”

the way you bring down Hitler and his ideology is not by getting on a soapbox with him, but if you can reduce him to something laughable, you win.

When you parody something, you move the truth sideways. With Blazing Saddles, we moved the truth out onto the street.

When it came to working on the script, there was never a subject I thought was off-limits or untouchable. If we thought of something, if it even entered our minds, no matter how bizarre or how crazy or dirty or wild or savage or not socially acceptable…we would still do it. Because if it came into our minds, it was worth exploring.

If you want a comedy to last, there’s a secret you must follow: You have to have an engine driving it. In Blazing Saddles, there’s a very serious backstory. Racial prejudice is the engine that really drives the film and helps to make it work.

When Madeline sang the song “I’m Tired,” she was so amazing that she even hummed off-key, which is very hard to do.

Gene was absolutely perfect and I asked myself: Why hadn’t I cast him in the first place? It was because I was suffering the same prejudice everybody had about serious actors and comedy. Either they can do one or the other.

I hadn’t realized if you can find a funny actor who can be serious, then you’ve got heaven. That day I learned the lesson. A really good actor can do both. Hence, Gene Wilder.

Like I’ve said before, as far as movie executives are concerned, always agree with them, but never do a thing they say. When the good reviews, and more important for the front office, the money started rolling in, I never heard a bad word from the head of the studio again.

The concept that has made Frankenstein’s monster such an enduring character in film and literature is that at its core he is a deformed creature who has love in his heart, wants to be loved, but is misunderstood. Even though we were doing a crazy comedy, those important qualities were still there. That was no doubt key to the success and longevity of the film.

I was satirizing specific genres, but I was also paying tribute to them at the same time.

“Sometimes what makes you breaks you.”

Brooksfilms was formed so that I could produce films that were more serious. I didn’t want to be trapped into only making comic fare for the rest of my life. I wanted to help produce any and all movies that touched me, inspired me, and deserved to be made.

Nothing can burst the balloon of pomposity and dictatorial rhetoric better than comedy. Comedy brings religious persecutors, dictators, and tyrants to their knees faster than any other weapon.

history shows that there is no “Divine Right.” Being king came from being the biggest and the toughest guy on the block. God didn’t touch any of the Louises and say, “Rule France!”

Comedy is a weird but very beautiful thing. Even though it seems foolish and silly and crazy, comedy has the most to say about the human condition. Because if you can laugh, you can get by. You can survive when things are bad if you have a sense of humor.