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 MEL
BROOKS,
CARL REINER and
Their Comedy Classic
2000 Year Old Man
by
J.C. Johnson / Spring 2001 issue of
Talking Comedy Webzine |
Jerry
Seinfeld has said, of Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks' classic comedy routine,
that it was and is "one of the greatest bits in 2000 years of comedy
history." Whoopi Goldberg has called it "one of the all-time greats,
on par with Who's On First." Alan Alda, star of television's
M*A*S*H, agrees, saying… "The 2000 Year Old Man will live
forever." Larry Gelbart, who shared the writers' room on Sid Caesar's
Your Show of Shows with Mel Brooks and went on to write and produce
M*A*S*H, shares the sentiment… "2000 years from now, people
will still be laughing at the (by then) 4000-year-old-man. This is comedy
supreme, comedy sublime." Adam Ferrara, headlining comic at clubs across
America, and one of the latest generation of comics to sing the praises
of Mel and Carl's classic routine, says… "Most comics I know just
bow to the 2000 Year Old Man, 'cause it was just great, it really was.
It's amazing. It's hysterical. It's universal." No, it isn't hard finding
comics of all ages who rate the 2000 Year Old Man among the legendary
comedy routines of all time.
The 2000
Year Old Man sprang to life one afternoon in the writers' offices at
Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows. …OK… maybe I shouldn't
say sprang to life, with our dear old friend the 2000 Year Old
Man, it was probably more of a jaunty, jolly, sauntering to life…
one has to be careful at the age of 2000, you know. For those of you
who are too young to know of Your Show of ShowsÉ it was early
television's premiere variety show. From inside the walls of this show's
comedy writers' offices' came such comic legends as Woody Allen, Neil
Simon, Larry Gelbart, Mel Tolkin and of course Mr. 2000 himself, Mel
Brooks. Mel formed a close friendship with Carl Reiner who played second
banana on the show to comic legend Sid Caesar. Reiner was a performer
who longed to also be taken seriously as a writer. While Mel, on the
other hand, was frustrated at merely writing for the show and longed
for the chance to perform. From this mutual frustration, and their love
for comedy in general, came a bond that would forge a friendship that
is still going strong to this very day.
AND
NOW...
A Few Words from
Fellow Comics on
Brooks, Reiner and the
2000 Year Old Man
“
There are certain moments I'll always remember -- my first baseball
game in Yankee Stadium, my first kiss, and the first time I listened
to The 2000 Year Old Man. It changed my life.”
– Billy Crystal
“
I was 12 years old the first time I heard it and I thought…
Ohhhh, this is hysterical. The next day I'm on the school bus
talking like an old Jewish man. The 2000 Year Old Man is comedy's
Sergeant Pepper.”
– Adam Ferrara
“
The 2000 Year Old Man albums, arguably the funniest comedy recordings
ever, served as my own personal adolescent shield to get me through
bouts of low self-esteem and depression. More important…
they enabled me to shamelessly lift jokes from this astonishing
collection to impress heerleaders in front of neo-Nazi bullies.
Mel and Carl complement each other in genius fashion. This is
truly humor for the ages.”
– Richard Lewis
“
To say that Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks are brilliant and geniuses
is to vastly downplay their enormous talents. I consider myself
the luckiest son on the face of the earth… for having Carl
Reiner as a father, for having Mel Brooks as his best friend,
and for not having Lou Gehrig's disease.”
– Rob Reiner
“
My big epiphany occurred the first time I heard Mel Brooks and
Carl Reiner's 2000 Year Old Man routine. It didn't make me say
I have to do this, but it was like staring into the sun. I couldn't
look away, I kept playing it over and over.”
– Paul Reiser
“
The first time I heard it I laughed my butt off. I like the crafting
of the words and the set up and punch aspect. There was very little
ambivalent dialog. It was very much set up…punch, set up…punch,
set up…punch. That's really great to watch them do that.
And I did learn one important thing from it… I always avoid
fried foods.”
– Hal Sparks
|
 One
day, in 1950, Carl Reiner came in after seeing a TV show called We,
The People that had featured an inflammatory interview with
someone claiming to have been in Stalin's toilet and to have overheard
him saying they were going to bomb America. In his frustration over what
he had seen, Carl turned to Mel and mockingly asked… 'I understand
you were at the scene of the Crucifixion?' Mel shot back with… 'Oh,
bo-o-o-o-oy! I knew Christ. Thin lad, always wore sandals…' And on
that day a comedy legend was born.
Reiner
has claimed he was just kidding around, that he didn't know he was going
to get an answer. But after that first reply he realized no matter what
he asked, Brooks would somehow come up with a funny response. Carl laughed,
Mel laughed and the whole office laughed. "Working with Carl and Mel
was a treat," Your Show of Shows' star Imogene Coca has recalled.
"We laughed all the time at rehearsals. They were funny in (producer)
Max Liebman's office, they kept us laughing as we moved from room to
room." When they first started doing the now famous characters Carl
Reiner would ask the same question again a couple of days later expecting
to hear the same hilarious answer… instead Mel would come up with
a different hysterical reply. Brooks has always felt that ad-libbing
is a lot more fun than remembering. Over time other characters were
born but what always remained was the interview premise. "I'd pick a
character for him to play," Reiner explained, "I never told him what
it was going to be, but I always tried for something that would force
him to go into panic, because a brilliant mind in panic is a wonderful
thing to see." These improvisational interactions between Brooks and
Reiner soon became a challenge to Brooks; a test to see if Brooks could
field anything and everything Reiner could throw at him. Brooks sees
it all as a sort of cat-and-mouse game. Whereas Reiner says that when
they're creating their impromptu comedy he's not chasing a mouse he's
chasing a fox.
In time,
the popular routine began getting requested, not just in Your Show
of Shows' offices, but at parties as well. But even though everyone
laughed, Brooks never felt the material was right for mainstream America
so for a decade the 2000 Year Old Man only came out in writing rooms
and at small party gatherings.
 Then
at a Hollywood party in 1960 Steve Allen, the original host of the Tonight
Show, heard the routine for the first time. Afterwards Allen remembers
saying to Reiner and Brooks something along the lines of… "this
must be shared with the world. It's silly to have anything this funny,
this marvelous restricted to audiences of fifteen people in a living
room." But it took a little convincing on Allen's part. "That night
they did not immediately say, 'Oh, yeah what a great idea!' They both
sort of shyly resisted and they said in effect… 'Well, thanks a
million. We saw you laughing and we know you love it but you're hip
and this is a very hip inside bit. All comedy writers love it, but we're
not sure it's for the general public.'" Allen contacted Richard Bock,
who was at the time the head of World Pacific Records. Although chiefly
a Jazz label, they showed interest right away and a recording session
was arranged. Carl was willing to make the recordings but Mel still
needed some convincing. Steve Allen assured Brooks that if they didn't
like what resulted from the session they could burn the tape. If they
liked it they could edit and release it. "I just kept insisting because
I knew I was right," relates Allen. "And, of course who cares whether
I was right. The important thing is my persistence did have the productive
result that they eventually agreed to record the thing." Brooks' reluctance
finally faded and both he and Reiner showed up for their first recording
session. A large audience was gathered for the session and Steve Allen
relates that "in front of a larger audience than he was used to, Mel's
comic inventiveness flourished."
Reiner and Brooks' first comedy album, 2000 Years with Carl Reiner
and Mel Brooks, would truly propel Mel Brooks' career as a performer.
No longer seen as a talented writer alone, Brooks would begin getting
offers from everybody in television to do appearances. The first album
was also instrumental in getting Mel Brooks the job of co-creator on
the Get Smart TV series.
Carl Reiner's
film career would benefit from the 2000 Year Old Man routine even before
it had a chance to be released. At the same Hollywood party where Steve
Allen had seen them perform, Reiner was approached by movie producer
Ross Hunter with an offer to create his first motion picture. From this
offer came Reiner's first script, the Doris Day /James Garner comedy
The Thrill Of It All.
In the
next two years two more 2000 Year Old Man albums would be released:
2000 and One Years with Reiner and Brooks and Reiner & Brooks
At The Cannes Film Festival. With each album more minutes of time
was devoted to the 2000 Year Old Man sketch. "All of the characters
made us laugh," Reiner has recalled. "When we did the parties, the 2000
Year Old Man would always be like a forshpeis (Yiddish for appetizer),
a beginning, and then we'd do the others." But by 1973, after a long
rest from records, the two returned to the studio at the request of
Joe Smith at Warner Bros. Records. The 2000 Year Old Man would become
the main course of the album that resulted – this time it was 2000
Year Old Man and only 2000 Year Old Man.
 Three
of the original four albums have earned Reiner and Brooks Grammy nominations.
But it was their latest release, The 2000 Year Old Man In The Year
2000 that garnered them the coveted award. Phil Proctor of the comedy
troupe Firesign Theatre, also nominated the same year for their recording
Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death, says, "We honestly felt
that if we had to loose to anybody… of all the people we were up
against, all of whom we respect and admire… we said, If we have
to loose, we hope we loose to Mel and to Carl. Because they have been
a tremendous influence on us and a lot of other comedians." Proctor
takes great joy in Reiner and Brooks' latest 2000 Year Old Man offering,
"it's introducing their comedy to a whole new generation and I think
that they've managed to crossover beautifully, they deserve it. He humanizes
history in a comic way," adds Proctor of the Mel Brooks' character.
"By reducing everything to this one little Jewish guy who has somehow
survived over this vast period of time he reduces all these grandiose
ideas to very simple, funny, personal experiences. It's a riot, it's
just hysterical."
Carl Reiner
and Mel Brooks have both had great success in their solo careers but
lovers of comedy will always have a soft spot for their 2000 Year Old
Man routines. "I would be really fascinated," says former Talk Soup
host Hal Sparks, "to see the two of them make a movie together, not
necessarily of the 2000 Year Old Man, but just a really well crafted,
old school type comedy. It would seem very possible, what with the success
of Grumpy Old Men… and the two of them would be great together."
Reiner and Brooks together on the big screen, now there's something
we'd probably all like to see. Rhino records' re-release of the classic
original 2000 Year Old Man recordings as well as the latest 2000 offering,
has assured the 2000 Year Old Man a life that will crossover into this
new millennium. But a Brooks and Reiner movie… now there's a way
to enter this millennium in grand comedic style… and if it should
ever happen, you can be assured we will enter laughing!
Illustration by J.C. Johnson / Photos Courtesy Meadowlane Enterprises
& Rhino Entertainment
To
Read a Small Sampling of My Interviews with Entertainers Click Below:
Comedy Legends Mel
Brooks & Carl Reiner
CBS's King of Queens
Star Kevin James
Stand-Up Comedian
& Playwrite Lou DiMaggio
Roger Lodge — Host
of TV's Blind Date'
To Read
a Small Sampling of My Humorous Articles Click Below:
Taxing Times for
Americans
Talking Turkey
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