Mel Brooks

I spent much of the last week crafting a profile about the one-and-only Mel Brooks, parodist extraordinaire. One of the things I came to appreciate is his absurd longevity: Working in clubs in the late ’40s (after enlisting at age 17 and fighting in WWII); TV in the ’50s and ’60s; movies in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s; Broadway musicals in the ’00s. It’s pretty stunning, really. He totally deserves to be one of the Honorees at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.

I invite you to check out his IMDB page; it’s something else. “Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein,” “Spaceballs” … even “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” continues to crack me up years later. That’s to say nothing of his iconic “2,000 Year Old Man” skit and his early TV work. Just an amazing career.