Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I mean I would still love to be in Mel Brooks' movies; he's great.
They wanted me to play third like Brooks so I did play like Brooks - Mel Brooks.
Mel Brooks is one of the few authentic geniuses working in comedy in America today.
I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.
What I learned from Mel Brooks was audacity - in performance as in life. Maybe you go too far, but try it.
We pay homage to the people who came before, doing satires, like Mel Brooks; we're just carrying the torch.
As a kid, I always loved Mel Brooks' stuff - 'The 2,000 Year Old Man' record was something my dad put me onto.
I am a huge Mel Brooks fan. And I do think that not seeing his canon of classics is a bit criminal or clueless.
I grew up on Mel Brooks films. That was film to me until I got a little bit older and realised there were other kinds of movies.
I've always looked up to Amy Poehler and, obviously, people like Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Mel Brooks, and the 'Monty Python' guys.
Preston Sturges is one of my favorites. I learned about dialogue and timing from him - louder, faster, funnier. But I do love Mel Brooks.
I first got involved with Mel Brooks through 'The Elephant Man.' Everybody knows now, but they didn't know at the time that he was the producer.
And I love Mel Brooks. My Dad loved his movies, too, they're awesome, the kind of thing that if you're in for ten minutes, you're in for two hours.
Silence in the turmoil of the theater world made me survive 50 years without speaking on a stage, only to say 'No' in Mel Brooks' film, 'Silent Movie.'
All comedy does that. Every comedian I can think of - Larry David, Seinfeld, Mel Brooks, Chris Rock - that's where the best comedy comes from, from stereotypes.
I think that all the Mel Brooks' company of actors is just tremendous. It was a crazy group of genius people. All of them taught me what kind of actor I should be and what was funny.
The three theater peeps I would love to dine with are Mel Brooks, because he is so funny; Stephen Sondheim, because he is a god-like genius; and Ethel Merman, to compare notes on fabulous belting.
The person who should really write an appreciation of the late great Dom DeLuise is Burt Reynolds, who, even more than Mel Brooks, made of the jolly, beanie wearing fat man a side-kick and a legend.
I'm a working-class former apprentice electrician; at the age of 14, if you'd told me I would one day be standing on a stage with Mel Brooks, I'd have thought you were off your head. But these things can happen.
I have performed my one-man show '700 Sundays' over 400 times now. There were only two times that I can honestly say I was nervous. The first was when I knew Mel Brooks was in the audience, and the second was when Sid Caesar came.
The hardest I've ever laughed in a cinema was at 'Silent Movie' by Mel Brooks. I was 12-ish and I actually fell out of my seat. I saw it 10 years later hoping for the same hilarity but it didn't happen. I'm not sure if that's because of me or the film.
My dad had a commercial film company, so he had a videotape player before anyone. So he got Mel Brooks movies or Citizen Kane or some classic old movies. And every summer the revival house in Evanston would show the great films from the '50s and '60s and '70s.
Mel Brooks is an interesting one because he started out making films about stuff that he was totally affectionate about, like musicals, westerns, horror films, Hitchcock films. And then, as they get further on, and you get to 'Spaceballs,' then it's just kind of contrived.
Apparently nobody really read it, it was a cheap movie, it fit their schedule in terms of things so fine, let the guy make that high school comedy. I used to work with Mel Brooks so they figured oh it's going to be one of those really silly movies and that's how it got made.
'The Dictator' lands somewhere between wan Mel Brooks and good Adam Sandler, whose 'You Don't Mess With the Zohan,' about an Israeli Special Forces soldier at a hair salon, manages to strike better contrasts with vaguely similar culture differences - it's a nuttier movie, too.
The first movie that I ever said was my favorite movie - and I've said for the longest - is 'The Producers,' Mel Brooks' original 'Producers.' The two lead performances from Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are both unstoppable performances and then supported by amazing supporting characters throughout.
I was always a big fan of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner's '2000-Year-Old Man' sketch. I think it's one of the biggest influences on the podcast, definitely. You'd never say Carl Reiner was the funniest dude on there, because he's just teeing it up, but he knows what questions to ask to lead to great improv.
Woody Allen stayed so good because he never left New York. Howard Stern stayed so good because he never left New York - Mel Brooks when he just got out of New York was doing 'Blazing Saddles;' when he left New York he started doing stuff like 'Robin Hood Men In Tights' - he was in L.A. too long. He lost the edge.
I personally find it difficult to accept that there could be anyone on earth insensitive to the comic abilities of Laurel and Hardy, Sid Caesar, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, or Martin Short. But no matter who the comic entertainer is, there is always at least a minority prepared to say, 'What's all the excitement about? He doesn't seem funny to me.'