Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks (born Melvin Kaminsky on 28 June 1926) is an American actor, director, and screenwriter.
Quotes
- I was in the middle of shooting the last few weeks of Blazing Saddles somewhere in the Antelope Valley, and Gene Wilder and I were having a cup of coffee and he said, I have this idea that there could be another "Frankenstein." I said not another — we've had the son of, the cousin of, the brother-in-law, we don't need another Frankenstein. His idea was very simple: What if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein wanted nothing to do with the family whatsoever. He was ashamed of those wackos. I said, "That's funny."
- On the initial inspiration for his film Young Frankenstein, in "The Sunday Conversation: Mel Brooks on his 'Young Frankenstein' musical" in The Los Angeles Times (1 August 2010)
- Lady, it rose below vulgarity.
- To a woman accusing The Producers of being vulgar; quoted in "Great Movies: The Producers" by Roger Ebert (23 July 2000)
12 Chairs
- Hope for the best. Expect the worst.
The world's a stage. We're unrehearsed.- Chorus
Blazing Saddles
- Jim "The Waco Kid": My name is Jim, most people call me... Jim.
- Sheriff Bart: Good mornin', ma'am! And isn't it a lovely mornin'?
Old Woman: Up yours, nigger!
Jim "The Waco Kid": [consoling Bart afterwards]: What did you expect? "Welcome, sonny"? "Make yourself at home"? "Marry my daughter"? You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers … these are people of the land … the common clay of the New West. You know – morons.
- Sheriff Bart: Excuse me while I whip this out.
- Sheriff Bart: Where the white women at?
- Railway Worker: You shifty nigger! They said you was hung!
Sheriff Bart : And they was right!
- Sheriff Bart [waking up a drunk Jim in jail]: Are we awake?
Jim "The Waco Kid": We don't know. Are we black?
Sheriff Bart: Yes we are.
Jim "The Waco Kid": Then we're awake, but we're very puzzled.
- Sheriff Bart: Since I am your host and you are my guest what are your hobbies? What do you like to do in your free time?
Jim "The Waco Kid": Oh you know, play chess...screw.
Sheriff Bart: Well let's play chess!
History of the World, Part I
- Josephus: I'm Josephus, and I'm the main course over at the Colosseum!
- Count de Monet [consistently mispronounced as "count da money"]: Bearnaise, do we have any of those delicious raisins left?
Bearnaise: You ate yours. These are mine.
Count de Monet: Au contraire, they are mine! I paid for them! Hand them over!
Bearnaise [sotto voce, mimicking]: 'I paid for them! They're mine!' [Blows a raspberry]
Count de Monet: Don't be saucy with me, Bearnaise. - Count de Monet: It is said that the people are revolting
King Louis XVI : You said it. They stink on ice. - Impoverished Paris Street Merchant (Jack Carter): Rats, rats for sale. Get your rats. Good for rat stew, rat soup, or the ever-popular ratatouille.
- Other Street Merchant:Nothing, I have absolutely nothing for sale!
- King Louis XVI [prior to his arrest]: It's good to be the king. (Also used in Robin Hood- Men In Tights and The Producers [Musical])
- Tomás de Torquemada: It's better to lose your skullcap than your skull.
- Moses : God has given us these fifteen— (after dropping one of the tablets) Oy! Ten — ten commandments!
- Revolutionary Leader: And now, let us end this meeting on a high note. [Proceeds to sing a sharp high note, followed by the rest of the revolutionaries.]
- Jail Inmates: Eighty fff....Eighty fff....Eighty fff....Eighty fff....Eighty Six!
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
- Ahchoo:Man, white men can't jump!!
- King Richard: From this day forward, all toilets in this kingdom shall be known as...'Johns'!
- Little John: Let's face it — you've got to be a man to wear tights!
- Man In Front of Castle: Hey Abbot!
- Townspeople: A black sheriff?
Blinkin: He's Black?!
Ahchoo: Why not? It worked in Blazing Saddles. - Robin Hood: Watch my back!
Achoo: Yo' back just got punched twice. - Will Scarlet Blinkin, fix your boobs, you look like a bleeding Picasso.
- Blinkin Aaahhhh, you lost your arms in battle, but you grew some nice boobs (Blinkin gropes the Venus De Milo statue left behind after creditors take away Loxley Castle)
- Robin Hood: Because unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with a English accent.
- Sheriff of Rotingham King illegal forest to pig wild kill in it a is!
Spaceballs
- Dark Helmet: I see your schwartz is as big as mine.
- Radar Officer: I've lost the sweeps, the bleeps, and the creeps! [Explains via vocal sound effects]
Dark Helmet [aside to Colonel Sandurz]: That's not all he's lost.
- Dark Helmet : What? You went over my helmet?
- President Skroob: What the hell, it works on Star Trek!
- Dark Helmet: What's the matter Colonel Sandurz... chicken?!
- Dark Helmet [after everyone on the bridge announces that their last name is "Asshole."]: I knew it, I'm surrounded by Assholes.
- Lonestar: That's all we needed, a Druish Princess!
- In the director's commentary Brooks states: I'm both proud and ashamed of that line.
- Dark Helmet : So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
The Producers
- Max Bialystock: That's it, baby, when you've got it, flaunt it, flaunt it!
- Max Bialystock: I'm wearing a cardboard belt!
- Stormtrooper Mel : Don't be stupid, be a smarty
Come and join the Nazi Party!
- LSD as Adolf Hitler: Heil Baby!
- Lead Tenor Stormtrooper: Springtime, for Hitler, and Germany
Winter, for Poland and France!
- Max Bialystock: How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?
- Leo Bloom: Actors are not animals! They're human beings!
Max Bialystock: They are? Have you ever eaten with one?
Young Frankenstein
- Igor: My grandfather used to work for your grandfather. Of course the rates have gone up.
- Igor (limping off): Walk this way — and Dr. Frankenstein limps off after him.
- Dr. Frankenstein:: Igor, would you give me a hand with the bags?
Igor:: [doing a Groucho Marx] Certainly, you take the blonde and I'll take the one in the turban. - Igor:: Sed-a...
Inga:: Sed-a...
Igor:: Dirty word! He said a dirty word! - Dr. Frankenstein Damn your eyes!
Igor (pointing at his lazy eye) Too late!
The 2,000 Year Old Man (and sequels)
- As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.
- If they [presidents] can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country.
- To me, tragedy is if I'll cut my finger, that's tragedy...Comedy is if you walk into an open sewer and die.
- [explaining that Paul Revere was Anti-Semitic] He was scared they were moving into the neighborhood. "They're coming, they're coming. The Yiddish, they're coming"
- After I eat asparagus...
- You know Cuneiform? You know Sanskrit? It's neither of those.
- Angel of Death ain't kissing me! I'm full of garlic!
- It's Wheird, there's an H in there. Gotta hit that H otherwise they think I'm some sort of a kook!
- [on ancient poetry] Nog Nog! Mkellen bebog! V'luch Matuch Maluch M'tog!
- Translation: Beans Beans! The musical fruits! The more you eat...
- [on the greatest invention] Liquid Prell.
- No! You don't wear a hat on your gentles! You wear a hat on your head where you're supposed to wear a hat!
- [On Churchill's Accent] "Ve must conquer da Narjies!" Now, we were fighting and killing Nazis. We all left and went looking for Narjies!
To Be Or Not To Be (1983)
- Excuse me, is this England?
- While in a Adolf Hitler costume, after crash landing in England at the height of the Battle of Britain.
Miscellaneous
- Who's the dummy writing this show?!
- As the voice over for a small curly haired man in a series of cartoons for The Electric Company, also repeated at the end of the Electric Company record.[specific citation needed]
Quotes about Brooks
- He understands not only with his brain but with his heart. And that might be called love. Not quite sure, but maybe that's the key.
- Anne Bancroft, in an Associated Press interview (1997)
- Mel is sensual with me. He treats me like an uncle — a dirty uncle. He's an earthy man and very moral underneath. He has traditional values.
- Madeline Kahn, as quoted in "The Mad Mad Mel Brooks" by Paul D. Zimmerman, in Newsweek (17 February 1975)
See also
External links
Categories:
- Actors from the United States
- Comedians from the United States
- Satirists
- Screenwriters from the United States
- Film directors from the United States
- Producers from the United States
- Composers from the United States
- Songwriters from the United States
- American Jews
- 1926 births
- Living people
- People from New York City
- Academy Award winners
- Tony Award winners