It's Good to Be the King

by James Robert Parish

  By 1951, the versatile Carl Reiner was a regular on Your Show of Shows and had become friendly with Mel Brooks, who had recently bulldozed his way into becoming an official member of the program’s writing staff. Both of these Jewish men came from humble backgrounds and both adored the world of show business. They also shared an antic sense of humor that could veer into the raunchy, a thirst for knowledge on a wide range of topics, and, most of all, an unquenchable inner urge to always be “on.” With this voracious craving to be in the limelight, they thrived on entertaining others—as well as themselves—whether at work, a business meal, or a social function.

  Carl’s innate curiosity and his knack for improvisation made him admirably suited to play the inquisitive roving reporter on “The Professor” sketches performed on Your Show of Shows. In these memorable routines he volleyed questions at the bumbling expert (performed by Sid Caesar), typically a pompous eccentric from abroad. It was Brooks who provided much of the material for these classic TV question-and-answer comedy skits.

  One day, Reiner, a regular attendee at the writers’ meetings, stormed into the smoke-filled think tank headquarters. He was deeply perturbed. The night before he’d seen an episode of a news-style TV program which utilized re-creations of important world events and the key people involved to provide viewers with a sense of “being there.” This particular segment dealt with the escalating cold war and had the host overhearing in a bathroom Russian leader Joseph Stalin predicting the likelihood of a nuclear war between the East and West. Carl was enraged at such irresponsible TV journalism. In his fuming state, he suddenly turned to Mel, who was seated nearby. Reiner thrust an imaginary microphone in Brooks’s direction. Out of nowhere, Carl inquired of Mel, “I understand you were at the Crucifixion?”

  Caught off guard, Brooks thought for a few split seconds, then launched into a humorous reply as if he were a nearly 2,000-year-old man. “Christ,” he responded, “was a thin lad, always wore sandals. Hung around with 12 other guys.” The others in the writers’ room were amused. The favorable response to the verbal give-and-take gambit led to repeats of the routine, usually featuring new questions and fresh answers. Soon the team was doing their shtick for friends at parties. (Occasionally, when Reiner was unavailable, Brooks would do the “act” with Mel Tolkin, the head writer of Your Show of Shows, substituting. Once in a while, Brooks would even venture to do a solo performance. According to Tolkin, one evening at a gathering when Reiner was not there, Brooks did a monologue, but could not come up with a good payoff line to finish his routine. He finally broke off in midsentence and walked out of the room. The guests waited, but Brooks failed to reappear. Tolkin went in search of him. It developed that Brooks had departed the scene in self-disgust. He had left a scribbled note on a table, “A Jew cries for help!”)

  In his performance guise, Mel’s Methuselah-like alter ego came across as an all-knowing—albeit eccentric—elderly sage who had observed literally everything in the continuum of world history (including the time cavemen first discovered that they were different from women). Over many centuries, this “wise” person had encountered nearly every famous person known to mankind, including Joan of Arc (once his girlfriend) and the legendary Robin Hood, who “stole from everybody and kept everything.” This self-impressed old soul was eager to share his colorful opinions on what’s what in the world, from the start of time to the present day … and beyond. He gladly offered his (amusing) thoughts to the roving reporter on how music first developed, and excitedly expounded on the many delights of nectarines: “Half a peach, half a plum. It’s a hell of a fruit!”

  From the start, Mel employed a rather heavy Jewish accent for his eccentric, funny old man. He said later that he had based the opinionated but lovable character on his uncle Sol, the type of man who asked, “Why do we need these big, six-story buildings? God never intended people to live so far from the street. Why do we have to be above two floors from the street?” … According to Brooks, Sol “was crazy, he was wild. I loved his energy. The 2000 Year Old Man is a purveyor of these same large truths—I don’t wanna call them lies. He mocks the things that we all are to become, just as I see my kids making fun of me and my ways. But someday they’re gonna end up with their own kids mocking them.… I never forgot his voice. That sound meant a great deal to me—safety, protection, strength, that loud, vigorous voice with the Jewish accent. When I redid it, when I listened to the tapes the first time, it was amazing, it was incredible. I went right back to being 6 years old with my mother’s family.”

  Brooks also acknowledged another reason he gave his character such an ethnic, old-country voice. “It’s easier to hide behind accents. Once you’re playing a character you have more mobility, more freedom. I suppose it’s also cowardice on my part. I can say anything I want, and then if people question me, I say, ‘Don’t blame me. Blame the old Jew. He’s crazy.’” Another time, in 1966, when talking to Playboy magazine, Mel told interviewer Larry Siegel of his by-then famous alter ego: “It’s not a Jewish accent. It’s an American-Jewish accent. And in 50 years it will disappear. I think it’ll be a great loss.” Brooks emphasized, “Unless Jews do Jews accurately, I consider the whole thing to be in questionable taste.”

  • • •

  In 1953, Carl Reiner, always a great enthusiast for new gadgets, purchased a recently marketed Revere audio recorder. Carl began capturing these unrehearsed skits he played out with Brooks. He thought they might be fun to listen to in later years.

  Already, Reiner and Brooks were celebrated in their social and business circles for their wacky, off-the-cuff 2000 Year Old Man skits. During their unrehearsed interviews, Carl, the ever curious reporter, often confronted other characters played by Mel. (Brooks’s other personae ranged from a newborn baby to a hip musician to a slightly mad accountant.) In Reiner’s estimation, these other figures being questioned by the intrepid newsman were more artistically satisfying than the 2000 Year Old Man because the premise of such alternate sketches could expand in so many more fresh creative directions. However, listeners expressed their preference for Mel doing his oddball but lovable old codger.

  What appealed to Mel so much about these impromptu performances was that the situation challenged his creativity. He felt like a student who had waited until the last minute to prepare for an important test and suddenly must deliver the goods in an exam. It gave Brooks a tremendous adrenaline rush to respond with crazy logic to the probing questions of his insistent interrogator. It literally made Mel think hard and fast on his feet. If he faltered a bit in answering due to his panic about providing amusing and irreverent responses to Carl’s queries and verbal retorts, so be it. It gave their routines an edge and spontaneity that seemed to heighten listeners’ pleasure.

  Brooks enthused, “I loved how much Carl laughed, and how much I laughed. We loved how much we got hysterical and they [i.e., the audience] got hysterical. It was like spreading joy. Then it became a challenge, to see whether or not I could field anything Carl could throw at me. A cat-and-mouse game ... [in which] I would dig myself into a hole, and Carl would not let me climb out.” Early on in these Q&A sessions, Reiner had discovered it was not an easy task to be a straight man to the nimble-minded Brooks. “As soon as he starts answering, I’ve got to start thinking about the next question. I’m listening with my third ear so I can give him the follow-up, and I’m looking for the moment where it’s needed. You never know when Mel is finished with a thought, because he’ll get five jokes on the way to the one that’s in his mouth.”

  • • •

  In 1959, Carl Reiner was making his feature film debut in Happy Anniversary. In this celluloid comedy, he costarred with David Niven and Mitzi Gaynor. Mel attended the wrap party for the movie’s cast and crew, which was held at a Greenwich Village restaurant. At the star-studded gathering were Broadway playwright/director Moss Hart and his singer/TV personality wife, Kitty Carlisle. From across the crowded room Mel recognized the legendary Hart (who was also a veteran
of working in the Jewish Catskills). Without giving it more than a second’s thought, Brooks maneuvered his way over to Hart’s table and stood there frozen until he had gained Moss’s full attention. Then the brash interloper said loudly, “Hello. You don’t know who I am. My name is Mel Brooks. Do you know who you are? Your name is Moss Hart. Do you know what you’ve written? …” Without waiting for the listener to respond, Brooks recited a list of the other man’s many stage credits. Then he shouted, “You should be more arrogant! You have earned the right to be supercilious.”

  At first, Hart was nonplussed by this apparent lunatic, who was causing a commotion with his ranting. Then Moss’s attitude changed. He concluded that Mel was being zany and not just a “nutcase” on the loose. He smiled benevolently at Brooks and the two chatted briefly. Later, at the same party, Brooks and Reiner ad-libbed a skit involving the 2000 Year Old Man and others in their growing repertoire of characters. Hart and the rest of the crowd were amused by the verbal virtuosity of the performing team. This created further word of mouth for the pair. (Also in this same period, Mel and Carl presented their interview act at Danny’s Hideaway, a restaurant that catered to show business folk. It gave them further currency with the New York in crowd.)

  A few months later, on October 23, 1959, Moss Hart was the subject of a party to celebrate the publication of his memoir, Act One. He suggested that Brooks and Reiner be invited to regale the 300 A-list guests with their unique 2000 Year Old Man routine. At the book soiree, held at Mamma Leone’s (a famous Italian restaurant on Manhattan’s West 48th Street), Mel Brooks and Mel Tolkin (standing in for Carl Reiner, who was fulfilling a work assignment in Los Angeles) provided 14 minutes of mirthful verbal exchanges. The pair was a big hit with the VIP crowd. Kenneth Tynan, the well-known English drama critic, author, and theatrical executive, who years later wrote a lengthy profile of Brooks for The New Yorker, said of that memorable evening: “All I knew as I left Mamma Leone’s that night was that his [i.e., Mel Tolkin’s] stubby, pseudo-Freudian partner [i.e., Mel Brooks] was the most original comic improviser I had ever seen.”

  By 1960, Carl Reiner was back in southern California to write for Dinah Shore’s variety/music TV series. Brooks was again at loose ends in his life and came out to the West Coast to see if he could generate any work assignments. When playwright Joe Fields, a longtime admirer of Mel and Carl’s interview act, learned that both men were now in Los Angeles, he hosted a large party in their honor. He made one stipulation: the duo must perform their 2000 Year Old Man patter. The guests of honor agreed. Among the notables on hand that night were talk show host/author/songwriter Steve Allen, movie star Edward G. Robinson, and veteran comedian George Burns.

  Allen was highly enthusiastic and said the two must seriously consider making a comedy album of the 2000 Year Old Man. While Mel and Carl appreciated the kind thought, they explained that they were concerned that the very ethnic character portrayed in their most popular sketch would not likely appeal to the general public who bought such recordings. Later at the gathering, Burns, a star then in his mid-60s, warned the two performers, “Listen, you better put that on a record, because if you don’t, I’ll steal it.” With such enthusiastic feedback, Brooks and Reiner agreed to allow Allen to use his record industry connections to determine if there was real interest for such an album. Steve even offered to finance the recording session.

  According to Reiner, “A few days later, Mel and I walked into a studio at World Pacific Records [in Los Angeles] and ad-libbed for over two hours” [in front of a small invited audience]. The edited results—which deleted occasional digressions, any too-lengthy pauses between answers, and any overly bawdy material—was released in an LP format in late 1960. The album (2000 Years With Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks) retailed for $4.98. It slowly gathered momentum through word of mouth from comedy aficionados, who found the album’s routines intriguing, irreverent, off-the-wall, smart, and endearing. Soon several talk radio stations around the country began airing cuts from the record, and sales zoomed even higher. Before long, World Pacific could not keep up with orders for the album, and Capitol Records took over distribution of the product. A whopping 1 million copies of the album were sold, making this classic album a huge success—in the same league with the comedy platters of then genre favorites like Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, and Mike Nichols and Elaine May.

  This success could not have come at a better time for Brooks, who was struggling to find his professional self now that he was no longer working full-time as one of Sid Caesar’s TV show writers. Said Reiner: “That was a turning point for Mel.… It gave him an identity as a performer for the first time.” (Writer and cultural analyst Kenneth Tynan assessed of this lucky turn of events for Brooks, “It gave him a comic persona [i.e., the 2000 Year Old Man] that at once embodied and exorcised his own deepest anxieties; for the main point about this jaunty survivor—more than twice as old as Methuselah and still going strong—is that he has conquered death. By playing a character who was immortal, Brooks may have staked his principal claim to immortality as a comedian.”

  Brooks and Reiner’s debut album was nominated for a Grammy Award, and led the team to return to the recording studios on May 26, 1961, to create 2000 and One Years With Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks. Like their original album, the new one divided its attention between the venerated old man (who was now given more time to rant and ruminate) and several other characters: the nutty tax expert, a newborn baby, a conclave of bizarre psychiatrists, and a man of verse.

  Reiner described the making of this follow-up album: “At that second recording we had Brendan Behan, the famous Irish playwright, and Mel didn’t know he was there. I’ll never forget this. I’d asked Mel, ‘Did you have a national anthem?’ He said, ‘Yeah, every cave had a national anthem’—he didn’t know I was going to ask him that, and he sang [‘Let them all go to hell, except Cave 17’].… And Behan came up after the session and said, ‘You know, I’ve got a new motto now,’ and he said something to me in Gaelic. I asked, ‘What does that mean?’ He’d translated Mel’s anthem. Now, that is exactly what flags, what nationalism does. Everybody should go to hell as long as we’re OK. That’s what I mean—Mel hits the absolute truths.”

  This Capitol LP was also Grammy nominated and further cemented the comedic reputations of the madcap Brooks and Reiner. However, there were a few critical dissenters to the latest album. For example, Thomas Lask noted in the New York Times: “There’s a frantic side to Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks’s 2000 and One Years, which tends to overwhelm the material. The wisecracks are sprayed like buckshot, one voice frequently covers the other, studio laughter covers both and there is never a second’s respite to savor any of it.”

  • • •

  From the start of the public success of the first 2000 Year Old Man album, Brooks and Reiner began receiving a slew of requests for the duo to perform together on TV. It led to their joint appearances on shows hosted by Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan, and Andy Williams, and later on, the Hollywood Palace variety series. On the first such outings, Mel and Carl appeared on camera wearing suits. Thereafter, Steve Allen suggested that Mel don an identifiable outfit. His costume evolved to include a black cape, an impressively large black fedora hat, and a black cane. (Sometimes Brooks wore a white wig to make himself look more aged.) Reiner often sported a reporter’s trench coat as he had on Your Show of Shows for “The Professor” skits.

  While Reiner was used to appearing on TV in an assortment of acting guises, this was a new experience for Mel. He soon grew quite adept at selling himself and his 2000 Year Old Man character to the public. However, neither he nor Carl was happy with the limitations that the television medium placed on their humorous act. First of all, the duo was restricted to a condensed amount of air time and could not afford to ad-lib questions and answers freely for fear that that might not mine gold in their allotted on-camera minutes. Then too, because of still-strong censorship rules controlling TV broadcasting, the team had to carefully avoid sayin
g anything too risque. To resolve such performance restraints they memorized their routines, and this spoiled (for the performers) the spontaneity of their presentation.

  In 1962 came the third album: Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks at the Cannes Film Festival It allowed for the introduction of several colorful showbiz characters (e.g., Frederico Fettucini), as well as a not-so-closeted Nazi type (i.e., Adolph Hartler) and, of course, the 2000 Year Old Man, who was now two years older than when he first reminisced and whined on vinyl.

  After that it was not until August 25, 1973, that the duo—preoccupied in other show business arenas—came back again to the recording studios, this time under the aegis of Warner Bros. Records. Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks: 2000 and Thirteen was taped on a soundstage at the Burbank Studios in southern California. There, an array of guests lounged on 200 sofas and were provided with snacks and drinks. The purpose of this was to help Brooks, in particular, get over his concerns that he might not come up with really good, zany responses to Reiner’s questions. The intent was to relax the performers by making the ambiance more like a party in an oversized living room than a recording studio work session.

  After an absence of so many years from doing their first such recordings, the costars decided to meet ahead of time to review (past) routines and ideas that could be springboards for their new album. According to Reiner, “A couple of hours before, upstairs, I had little cards and I’d ask him a question. And if the question was good, I’d put it down and say OK. He’d say, Those are no good, don’t ask that,’ and I threw those into my valise.… At least he knew what the question was—I didn’t know what the answer was, nor did he. But I could see his eyes flashing something would come. At the end of an hour, they were roaring, and I said, ‘Let’s try some of this garbage.’ All the garbage turned out great, because his mind was clicking. I knew Mel could do it. We go to dinner together. There’s always four or five things he says that nobody else would.”