Happy Birthday, Mel Brooks!

Mel turns 93 today.  Here he is on why he's still alive and full of energy:

"Look, I really don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death.  And, therefore, as I see it, if you're quiet you're not living.  I mean you're just slowly drifting into death.  So you've got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colorful and lively.  My liveliness is based on an incredible fear of death.  In order to keep death at bay, I do a lot of "Yah! Yah! Yah!".  And death says, "All right.  He's too noisy and busy.  I'll wait for someone who's sitting quietly, half asleep.  I'll nail him.  Why should I bother with this guy?  I'll have a lot of trouble getting him out the door."  There's a little door they gotta get you through. "This will be a fight", death says. "I ain't got time". "

As a kid I'd heard the 2,000 Year Old Man routines with Carl Reiner (who he met in 1952 and with whom, at least as of a couple of years ago, had dinner with most nights) but it was seeing The Producers in 1968, the first film written and directed by Brooks, that made me a fan.  Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder from one of my favorite scenes:


In a telling commentary on 21st century America, Blazing Saddles, satirizing bigots and racists, would not be made today.  Here's a sample with Brooks as the Yiddish speaking Indian chief: