It was the spring of 1974 when I was first exposed to the comic genius of Mel Brooks. My family wasn't much for movie theaters, and we had a 20-mile or so drive to even get to the nearest one, a one-screen affair typical of small Midwestern towns in the early 1970s. My brother and his wife, however, had seen a trailer for a movie that looked funny, and even talked my Dad, a notorious hermit, into bringing Mom and me along to see it. So, one spring Sunday, we went to Decorah, Iowa, and saw the movie.
That movie, of course, was Blazing Saddles. I laughed all the way through it, and even though I was 12 at the time, I got most of the jokes. And Dad - that was the most I had ever heard my taciturn father actually laughing out loud. This was a movie destined to become legend, and to this day I think that Blazing Saddles may well be the funniest, and possibly one of the most-quoted, movies in the history of film. And it was those things because of the creator, Mel Brooks.
On Sunday, June 28th, 2026, Mel Brooks observes his 100th birthday, and he's still a pretty funny guy.
Born Melvin James Kaminsky in 1926, Mel Brooks has had a history in show business that spans over seven decades. During World War 2 he served in the United States Army in Europe, an artillery observer with the 78th Infantry Division. Maybe a view of the horrors of war inspired him to spend the rest of his life making people laugh, but for whatever reason, he has made making people laugh his life's work, and he's pretty good at it.
He has worked on both sides of the camera, as an actor, a director, a comedian, a songwriter, and a playwright. He's swept the awards, having an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony to his name. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, an American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, a British Film Institute Fellowship, a National Medal of the Arts, and an Honorary Academy Award.
In 1950, Brooks launched his career on Sid Caesar's television comedy show, Your Show of Shows. His work on his own began with a collaboration with Carl Reiner on a comedy sketch that would forever be associated with his name, The 2,000-Year-Old Man. Then, with partner Buck Henry, he created the great television spy-drama spoof, Get Smart.
Then, began his amazing career in films, starting with the 1970 film The Twelve Chairs, then breaking through with 1974's Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, the 1976 film Silent Movie, 1977's High Anxiety, moving on to the 1987 film Spaceballs, 1993's spoof Robin Hood: Men In Tights, and 1995's Dracula, Dead and Loving It. He was married to Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her passing in 2005.
Here are a few tidbits from some of his best films; in the first, we see Mel in front of the camera, as Governor William J. Le Petomane, in Blazing Saddles.
A big part of what made Mel Brooks such a genius was the people he chose to work with. In Blazing Saddles, it was not only the young star, Cleavon Little, who absolutely ran away with the show, but also Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, and the great Slim Pickens. Brooks also worked with Wilder, the young and lovely Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Peter Boyle, and the rubber-faced Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. In Robin Hood: Men in Tights, he brought on not only Cary Elwes as Robin of Loxley, but took a role in the film himself - as Rabbi Tuckman, who was, among other things, a mohel. Mel was never shy about appearing on the talk shows, including rendering such show business veterans as Johnny Carson helpless with laughter.Laughter is important. Laughter helps us to deal with the various unpleasantnesses that the world sometimes burdens us with. Laughter, as the saying goes, is the best medicine, and Mel Brook is perhaps the best practitioner of that medical art alive today. He has brought us thousands of hours of joy and some of the most memorable lines in cinematic history:
"What in the wide, wide world of sports is a'goin' on here?" (Slim Pickens as Taggart, Blazing Saddles)
"What hump?" (Marty Feldman as Igor, Young Frankenstein)
"Unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent." (Cary Elwes as Robin of Loxley, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, taking a thinly veiled shot at Kevin Costner's Prince of Thieves)
"It's good to be the king!" (Mel Brooks as King Louis XVI, History of the World, Part I)
Mel Brooks has given us thousands of moments you simply can't find anywhere else.
Read More: To Celebrate Mel Brooks' 98th Birthday, Let's Look at His 98 Best Movies
Mel Brooks Has 99 Problems - and One of Them Isn't Having a Birthday
Now, at 100, Mel's still working. He is reportedly even now working on two sequels: Spaceballs: The New One and Very Young Frankenstein.
Thanks, Mel, for making us laugh so long and so delightedly for all these years. Happy birthday. Nobody has deserved it more.
