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NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The 2000 Year Old Man is turning 100. Mel Brooks on Sunday will celebrate his centennial birthday.<\/p>\nNEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The 2000 Year Old Man is turning 100. Mel Brooks on Sunday will celebrate his centennial birthday.<\/p>\n
The comedian and filmmaker has been awaiting the milestone. Earlier this year, Judd Apatow titled his retrospective documentary on him: \u201cMel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born to make people laugh,\u201d Brooks says in the film. \u201cSo, I do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn, New York, on June 28, 1926. After serving in the Army during World War II and performing in the Borscht Belt, Sid Caesar hired him as a writer. On his \u201cShow of Shows,\u201d Brooks met Carl Reiner, who\u2019d remain a lifelong friend and with whom he created the \u201c2000 Year Old Man\u201d sketches.<\/p>\n
Reiner would pepper Brooks\u2019 ancient man with questions about what Jesus was like. \u201cJesus \u2026 yes, yes,\u201d Brooks would answer. \u201cThin lad. Wore sandals. Always walked around with 12 other guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks went to make classic comedies like \u201cThe Producers,\u201d \u201cBlazing Saddles,\u201d \u201cYoung Frankenstein\u201d and \u201cHigh Anxiety.\u201d It all started, Brooks told The Associated Press in 2021, with his childhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to keep the party going. I wanted to keep the happiness and joy and explosions of laughter going into a dour part of our lives, not our childhood anymore,\u201d Brooks recalled. \u201cI was once interviewed and the guy said, \u2018What was the happiest part of your life? Was it winning the Academy Award? Was it marrying Anne Bancroft?\u2019 I said no, not at all. It was my childhood. From about 4 or 5 to 9, it was the most exciting, happiest, joyous life that anyone could experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy said, \u2018What happened at 9?\u2019 I said, \u2018Homework.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Even now, Brooks hasn\u2019t retired. In April, Brooks submitted a video message to Eddie Murphy to honor him for his AFI life achievement award. In May, he announced that he was donating thousands of his documents and photographs to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been proud to say that I make people laugh for a living,\u201d Brooks said then in a statement. \u201cSo, knowing that my work will have a home at comedy\u2019s national archive and continue making people laugh leaves me with a deep sense of pride.\u201d<\/p>\n
To mark the occasion of Brooks\u2019 centennial, the American Film Institute on Friday named 1974\u2019s \u201cBlazing Saddles\u201d the funniest film of all time. It has previously ranked sixth on its list of 100 greatest movies. Brooks\u2019 film displaced \u201cSome Like It Hot\u201d \u2014 which Brooks had long held wasn\u2019t as funny as his movies \u2014 from the top spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s right!,\u201d said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and chief executive. \u201cWe\u2019re happy to right this wrong as Mel celebrates his centennial. It\u2019s good to be the king, and may he live to be a 2,000 year old man. Happy birthday, Mel!\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks has sometimes made mortality a joke, too. In a 1980s sketch, he created a coin-operated gravestone for himself that played a videotaped message. It began: \u201cI was Mel Brooks, one of the funniest little Jews to walk the Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked in that AP 2021 interview if he thought much about death, Brooks said no.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave up after 60 thinking about it because if I did, I\u2019d be thinking about it all the time. So I don\u2019t think about it much. When and if it happens it\u2019s going to be a sad day \u2014 for everybody but me,\u201d Brooks said, laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoy living,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019d like to do it as long as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The 2000 Year Old Man is turning 100. Mel Brooks on Sunday will celebrate his centennial birthday. The comedian and filmmaker has been awaiting the milestone. Earlier this year, Judd Apatow titled his retrospective documentary on him: \u201cMel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!\u201d \u201cI was born to make people laugh,\u201d … Continue reading Happy birthday, 2000 Year Old Man. Mel Brooks is turning 100<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1518692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1451],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1518691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-entertainment-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-06-28 14:19:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1518691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1518693,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518691\/revisions\/1518693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1518692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1518691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1518691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1518691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}