{"id":2245367,"date":"2026-01-22T11:17:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T11:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2245367"},"modified":"2026-01-22T11:17:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T11:17:40","slug":"mel-brooks-the-99-year-old-man-review-chronicle-of-a-comedic-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/mel-brooks-the-99-year-old-man-review-chronicle-of-a-comedic-genius\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!’ review: Chronicle of a comedic genius"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio have made a two-part, four-hour documentary about a comedy idol, \u201cMel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!,\u201d premiering Thursday on HBO and HBO Max. It follows Apatow\u2019s \u201cThe Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling\u201d<\/a> and \u201cGeorge Carlin\u2019s American Dream,\u201d also directed with Bonfiglio, in a growing library of comic biographies; a film on Norm Macdonald is in the works.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a basically chronological telling of the life and work of a man who helped shape the comedy of the 1950s, \u201860s and \u201870s, and as an influence, of the \u201880s and \u201890s and beyond \u2014 there is perhaps no \u201cAirplane!,\u201d<\/a> no \u201cAustin Powers,\u201d <\/a>without the trail blazed by \u201cBlazing Saddles\u201d and \u201cYoung Frankenstein.\u201d When I told my friend Jack, 33, that a \u201cSpaceballs\u201d<\/a> sequel is coming, co-starring and co-written by Brooks, he could not have been more excited.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also as a love story, or stories: that of Brooks and second wife Anne Bancroft; of Brooks and best friend and double-act partner Carl Reiner<\/a>; of the love of the audience for the work, and the love between characters in the work, which might not always be obvious but is clear to Brooks. (\u201cHe\u2019s a loving man. It\u2019s about love with him,\u201d says Richard Pryor, one of the writers on \u201cBlazing Saddles.\u201d) There\u2019s a subtle sweetness to the documentary that can be quite moving, especially if the work means something to you, as well. I grew up on the New York Jewish sound of Brooks as the 2000 Year Old Man and the soundtrack album to \u201cThe Producers,\u201d which included large sections of dialogue; I know its inflections like one might internalize every element of a popular song. It\u2019s music to me.<\/p>\n

I also laughed a lot, even at clips from movies I might not have laughed at before, which makes a course of rewatching feel inevitable.<\/p>\n

After Brooks apprenticed as a teen entertaining in the Catskills and served in World War II, Sid Caesar<\/a> hired the young comedian on his own dime to write for \u201cYour Show of Shows.\u201d He joined a murderers\u2019 row of Jewish comedy geniuses there, led by Mel Tolkin (born in a shtetl near Odessa, Ukraine) and including Neil Simon, Norman Lear, Larry Gelbart, Lucille Kallen and Selma Diamond, with contributions from co-star Reiner. Woody Allen came on board for \u201cThe Sid Caesar Show\u201d and \u201cCaesar\u2019s Hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mel Brooks with second wife Anne Bancroft as seen in HBO\u2019s \u201cMel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!\u201d<\/p>\n

(Mel Brooks \/ HBO)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

When Brooks failed to convince Caesar to quit TV and make movies with him, which he saw as the more durable medium, he struck out himself, reducing his income from $5,000 to $85 a week. Even when he\u2019d been doing well, his ambitions were inextricable from anxiety, and it wasn\u2019t until \u201cGet Smart!,\u201d the 1965 sitcom he created with Buck Henry, that his fortunes turned around. \u201cThe Producers\u201d followed, which was not initially a great financial or critical success; negative reviews are displayed here. (In \u201cHistory of the World, Part I,\u201d he had a caveman critic urinating on cave art.) But it earned Brooks an Oscar for writing and started something.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlazing Saddles,\u201d a western about racism, with farting, followed \u201cThe Twelve Chairs,\u201d an underappreciated, serious sort of comedy and a tonal anomaly in his canon. An enormous success (\u201cWe went to that movie like it was a concert,\u201d recalls \u201cDumb and Dumber\u201d director Peter Farrelly), \u201cBlazing Saddles\u201d codified the Brooksian style, mixing smart humor, low humor, surreal humor, metahumor, satire, sight gags, slapstick and an insouciant impudence that smelled like freedom. \u201cYoung Frankenstein,\u201d<\/a> another huge success, came next, with other genre parodies \u2014 \u201cSilent Movie,\u201d \u201cHigh Anxiety,\u201d \u201cHistory of the World,\u201d with its huge production number based on the Spanish Inquisition, \u201cSpaceballs,\u201d \u201cRobin Hood: Men in Tights,\u201d \u201cDracula: Dead and Loving It\u201d \u2014 lined up behind. And then, after a spell, came the Broadway musical adaptations of \u201cThe Producers\u201d<\/a> (which won a record 12 Tonys<\/a> and became a movie in turn) and \u201cYoung Frankenstein,\u201d their scores written by Brooks.<\/p>\n

One of the advantages of taking Brooks as a subject is that he likes to talk, and is smart and funny when he does. (Interviewer: \u201cYou lost your father at an early age.\u201d Brooks: \u201cNo, no. My father died.\u201d) \u201cYour Show of Shows\u201d producer Max Liebman called him \u201ca human interruption,\u201d and Gelbart observes, \u201cMel thought when he got slapped in the ass by the doctor who delivered him that was applause, and he has not stopped performing since.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe 99 Year Old Man!\u201d supports Apatow\u2019s new at-home interviews with decades of talk show and panel appearances, which the directors might cut between to construct a patchwork version of a single anecdote \u2014 the oft-told \u201cCary Grant\u201d never gets old \u2014 and providing a picture of Brooks through the ages. Time, inevitably, is a subject of such a film, and though mortality isn\u2019t specifically on the agenda, many people seen here are no longer alive \u2014 not just Brooks\u2019 peers, who are all gone, and Bancroft, who died in 2005, but David Lynch<\/a>, whom Brooks hired to direct \u201cThe Elephant Man,\u201d and Rob Reiner<\/a>, who has a funny story about meeting him as a child.<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/picture>\n

Mel Brooks, left, on the set of \u201cThe Producers\u201d with actor Gene Wilder in 1967. (Sam Falk \/ The New York Times) <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"A <\/picture>\n

Bill Pullman, left, Mel Brooks and Rick Moranis on the set of \u201cSpaceballs.\u201d (Moviestore collection Ltd \/ Alamy Stock Photo) <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

Brooks is forthcoming about the low points in his life and career. When he met his future second wife in 1961 \u2014 or rather, shouted \u201cAnne Bancroft! I\u2019m Mel Brooks!\u201d from out in the theater where he first saw her rehearsing for a TV broadcast, then proceeded to follow her around for days \u2014 he was completely broke. (She would pay for dinner when they went out, but slip him the money to preserve his ego.) \u201cI was in love with him instantly,\u201d Bancroft said, \u201cbecause he looked like my father, and he acted like my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

As pictured here, their relationship is a delight, not the least because they seem so delighted with each other. Though Brooks calls himself funny-looking where Bancroft was a great beauty all her life, they made a handsome couple; the photographs are wonderful. On some tandem television appearances they harmonize, ad lib, on \u201cFor Me and My Gal,\u201d and sing \u201cSweet Georgia Brown\u201d in Polish (as in their co-starring remake of \u201cTo Be or Not To Be.\u201d) They are wonderful in a meta episode of \u201cCurb Your Enthusiasm,\u201d echoing the plot of \u201cThe Producers,\u201d in which Larry David is cast as a replacement Max Bialystock, in order to close the show.<\/p>\n

Newly interviewed subjects include Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman, Amy Schumer, Nick Kroll, Patton Oswalt, Dave Chappelle (who was 19 when Brooks cast him in \u201cRobin Hood\u201d), Cary Elwes (doing a wicked Brooks imitation), Conan O\u2019Brien, Josh Gad, Robert Townsend, Jerry and David Zucker, Barry Levinson, Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Brooks\u2019 four children and granddaughter Samantha.<\/p>\n

There is discussion of Jewishness (\u201cThere isn\u2019t anybody our age or up that didn\u2019t have the pride of Mel being Jewish,\u201d Sandler tells Apatow), of the appropriateness of Hitler jokes (\u201cComedy destroys the dignity of the enemy\u201d) and of the uses of humor: \u201cI maintain seriously there is nothing that is not the subject for comedy,\u201d says Brooks, \u201cbecause comedy is a sensational and sometimes spectacular political weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel I\u2018m doing a great service to mankind by bringing important ideas in the form of great art to the public,\u201d he says of his studio, Brooksfilms (which, besides \u201cThe Elephant Man,\u201d produced David Cronenberg\u2019s \u201cThe Fly,\u201d the Frances Farmer biopic \u201cFrances\u201d and the Caesar-inspired \u201cMy Favorite Year\u201d). \u201cAnd in return all I want is a lot of money.\u201d But he also lives for \u201cthe moment an audience will abandon its dignity and its self-respect\u201d and laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou give them a little sweetness,\u201d he says, \u201cyou get it back.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio have made a two-part, four-hour documentary about a comedy idol, \u201cMel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!,\u201d premiering Thursday on HBO and HBO Max. It follows Apatow\u2019s \u201cThe Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling\u201d and \u201cGeorge Carlin\u2019s American Dream,\u201d also directed with Bonfiglio, in a growing library of comic biographies; a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2245368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2245367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Mel-Brooks-The-99-Year-Old-Man-review-Chronicle-of.com2F412Fe62Ff1cb22234312a16fb504c1fa.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2245367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2245369,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245367\/revisions\/2245369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2245368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2245367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2245367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2245367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}