Mel Brooks Enjoys Chasing Dangerous Comedy
Monitor News Service
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Mel Brooks lives -- and laughs -- dangerously.
"All my life, I am after dangerous comedy," he says in Hollywood where he is functioning as executive producer and script supervisor for his new series spoof of the Robin Hood legend, "When Things Were Rotten."
"Dangerous comedy -- that's the kind where you hit the ground, you want to stop laughing and you can't. With 'Rotten' I have this effervescent, 'Meshuganah,' dangerous comedy."
Now a California resident, where he lives with wife Anne Bancroft and three children by a former marriage, Mel is begiinging to look suntanned and swimming-pooled. He even talks Hollywood -- lots of Tiddishisms, production budgets, big deals, battling the studios.
"I don't really need this," he says of the series. "With my movies 'Blazing Saddles' and 'Young Frankenstein' back-to-back, that's enough for a lifetime . . . but it was fun that roped me in. I couldn't resist the fun of somebody saying 'Holf You Tongue' and everybody holding their tongues.
"You know they can't pay you enough for the aggravation you go through in television. I went through six years of 'Get Smart.' The costs are always a factor. They would have preffered making that show by putting two people in a closet with a naked light bulb talking to each other for 13 weeks.
"The economics of TV today are such that it makes sense to do what Norman Lear and Mary Tyler Moore have discovered -- take Polaroid pictures of gentiles sitting in club chairs.
"With Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest. I thought I'd make the series kind of a blazing forest rather than 'Blazing Saddles' -- lots of people falling off horses and plenty of sets and locations. I love physical comedy."
Except for his precedent shattering "2000 Year Old Man" record, most of Mel Brooks's successes -- and failures -- have been with physical comedy. He started as a writer on TV's now-classic "Your Show of Shows," where he was one of eight writers, one of whom also was Woody Allen. Then he went on to do "Get Smart."
Can Brooks and his staff of writers manage to sustain a contrived spoof 13, maybe 24, 48, 96 separate episodes?
"Listen, we are not 'Batman.' That was a living cartoon. All of our jokes will be concerned with real human behavior, with eternal verities, with people's needs and wants. The clothes on the clothesline may be funny and crazy -- but the line will always be real and taut."
He laughs, just a litle hysterically, and there is a what-did-I-say look on his face. Just in case you missed his own chagrin at what came out as confusing promposity, he reverts to physical humor. Since it's too difficult to fall down, he gives himself a Bronx cheer.
"Imagine. A breakthrough, a grouop comedy in costume. We can juztapose medieval cliche against modern knowledge. It's not even a challenge -- it's a joy.
"We don't just sit around and write the show off the top of our heads. Each episode is farmed out to teams of writers who submit story outlines which are then approved. After that come rough drafts which are discussed at story conferences, then a final rough which we all get together to polish. Listen, writing is 90 percent of the success of any venture in show business and I know it."
Some people -- myself included -- have one major reservation about the Mel Brooks brand of comedy. The adolescent vulgarity that often turns marvelously whacky humor into behind-the-barn simplemindedness. Will there be tatse problems on TV?
"I must tell you -- 'Rotten' is a family show and doesn't lend itself to filth easily. However, I don't feel restricted in that sense. If I do feel restricted it has to do with only having 26 minutes to make a story, have characters relate to one another and still make it funny."
How does Mel Brooks feel about the charges that slapstick comedy is too violent for the kiddies?
"Ludicrous. The premise of comedy is to make people laugh. Only in extreme instances of super-violence, where people are dismemebered, for example, is it reasonable to apply the same standards on anti-violence to a comedy show that you might apply to a police show.
"Sure there will be violence -- but our audience will know that nobody really gets hurt. In a comedy show, everybody understands that nobosy gets hurt. Children know that even better than adults."
What's next for Brooks after TV and movie successes?
"Another picture. It's called 'The Mel Brooks Silent Movie' and is indeed a silent movie - but the noisiest silent movie ever made. It will have a soundtrack with sound effects but no dialogue. You'll see the greatest physical comedy ever, starring Mel Brooks and Marty Feldman in a Ritz Brothers-type romp."
Mel Brooks seems to be very serious about his comedy. Can he separate his personal "off" from his "on"?
"I am very serious about comedy. I think it is important. After all, I've devoted my life to it. But I always keep in mind that . . . life ends seriously."
So what's Mel Brooks really like when he's not joking?
"I'll tell you the big secret. I'm much taller, slightly blond, and I walk better . . ."
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