Mel Brooks at 100 — A Love Letter From a Kid Who Grew Up on His Films
June 28, 2026
Today is a HOLY DAY for anyone who has ever laughed at a movie.
HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY, MEL BROOKS!
...I mean. ONE HUNDRED. The man who said "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die" is ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD TODAY.
I have no jokes. I cannot compete. I yield the floor to the master.
Here's what I can do — and what I NEED to do — is stand up and acknowledge what this human being has meant to me, to my family, and honestly... to my entire life in entertainment.
Born Melvin Kaminsky in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1926
on a tenement kitchen table, by the way, which is the most Mel Brooks origin story imaginable — he lost his father at two years old. Grew up poor. Four brothers to a bed. Bullies in the streets. No safety net. No roadmap.
Whatever the world threw at young Melvin, he threw back. He fought it with laughter. He armored himself in comedy because, as he once put it, it was better than "a punch in the face." American Film Institute
Then he went and FOUGHT IN WORLD WAR II. He served as a combat engineer, cleared landmines, witnessed the Battle of the Bulge — and came home and decided the best revenge against all that darkness was to make the whole world laugh at it. Wikipedia
...Which, honestly? Most PROFOUND creative philosophy I have ever encountered.
He wasn't "given" anything. He CLAWED his way from Brooklyn tenements to Borscht Belt stages to the writers' room of Your Show of Shows alongside Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, and Larry Gelbart — one of the most formative collaborations of his career, and one of the most enduring friendships of his life. Television Academy
And THEN... he just kept going. For EIGHT MORE DECADES.
The Producers. Blazing Saddles. Young Frankenstein. Silent Movie. High Anxiety. History of the World Part I. Spaceballs. Robin Hood: Men in Tights. To Be or Not to Be. The Muppet Movie (YES HE WAS IN IT). Broadway. The Producers on Broadway winning TWELVE Tony Awards — more than any other single production in history. EGOT status. Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony. Kennedy Center Honor. AFI Life Achievement Award. National Medal of Arts. BFI Fellowship. Honorary Oscar. The MillionsTelevision Academy
This week, the AFI named Blazing Saddles the funniest film of ALL TIME. The Epoch Times
I mean. COME ON.
But here's the part people sometimes overlook.
And it's the part that tells you EVERYTHING about who Mel Brooks actually IS as an artist and a human being.
He didn't just make comedies. He CHAMPIONED storytelling. Full stop.
In 1980, he put his faith in a relatively experimental filmmaker who had only made one feature — a deeply weird, polarizing film called Eraserhead. Brooks loved it. And so Brooksfilms took on that young director's next project: The Elephant Man. Far Out Magazine
And then — and THIS is the part that gets me every single time — he deliberately kept his own name OFF the credits. Because he knew that anyone seeing "Mel Brooks Presents" on a poster would expect a COMEDY. And this film deserved to be met on its own terms. Film School Rejects
He protected the film. He protected the filmmaker. He protected the AUDIENCE.
When the studio tried to cut the more surreal sequences, Brooks fired back: "We screened the film for you to bring you up to date as to the status of that venture. Do not misconstrue this as our soliciting the input of raging primitives." Film School Rejects
(I want that framed. On my wall. In the booth. Immediately.)
David Lynch later said: "Mel Brooks took a chance on me. It put me on the map." Film School Rejects
That's not a comedy producer. That's a PATRON OF THE ARTS. That's someone who recognized that great storytelling doesn't live in one genre — it lives in TRUTH. In CRAFT. In the courage to say "I believe in this" when nobody else does.
Now. The personal part. Bear with me.
Mel Brooks films were TRADITION in my house growing up. Not just "movies we watched." TRADITION. Capitol T. You cleared your schedule. You made the popcorn. You sat DOWN.
My father — my wonderful, hilarious, dearly departed dad — introduced me to Mel Brooks. And I mean he did it RIGHT. We'd watch the movie... and then immediately, before the credits were even done, he'd lean over and go: "You know how this all started? Sid Caesar. Your Show of Shows. THIS is where it came from."
(My dad was a one-man film school and I didn't even know it at the time.)
I probably quote Mel Brooks films more than any other filmmaker in my daily life. More than I quote Shakespeare. More than I quote... honestly, more than I quote MYSELF. (Debatable. My family would debate that.)
But here's the thing I keep coming back to today, on this absurd and beautiful milestone...
Mel Brooks said his secret to reaching 100 was simple: "I think laughing keeps you healthy and happy. It's an amazing sound — people laughing at something I created. Making comedy is a great job. It keeps you sane and happy. It gives you a reason to be alive." TODAY.com
...Yep. That's it. That's the whole thing.
That's WHY I do what I do. That's why I became a voice actor, a puppeteer, a comedy writer (hello, MST3K — where I got to be a PROFESSIONAL comedy writer, which still blows my mind every time I say it out loud). That's why I coach voice actors. That's why I tell stories. That's why I wake up every morning and go into that booth.
Because if I can give somebody ONE moment where they forget the hard stuff... if I can land one joke, one line read, one character voice that makes somebody actually LOL out loud when they're alone in their car...
...then I've done something worth doing.
Mel Brooks has been doing that for 80 YEARS. From Brooklyn tenements to Broadway marquees. From clearing landmines in Belgium to winning every major award entertainment has to offer. From Melvin Kaminsky who "can't make a living" to MEL BROOKS — one of the 22 entertainers in history to have achieved the EGOT.
He turned pain into punchlines. He turned anger into art. He turned POVERTY into PURE GOLD.
...And he did it all while being absolutely, wonderfully, magnificently UNHINGED in interviews. (Which, same. I've been told. By multiple people. Recently.)
Happy 100th birthday, Mel. Thank you for showing all of us what it looks like when you refuse to let the world win.
Thank you for the laughs. Thank you for the tradition. Thank you for protecting the art.
Thank you for my dad and me on that couch.
🎩 "Here I am, I'm Melvin Brooks. I've come to stop the show."
...You didn't stop it. You made it BETTER.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch Blazing Saddles AND Young Frankenstein back to back (did you know they both came out the same year!) and quote every single line out loud, alone, in my booth, with zero shame.
