History Creator / MelBrooks

His record as writer, producer and comedian has resulted in him being one of the fourteen people to be an [[UsefulNotes/TheEGOTs EGOT (An Emmy (4 of them), a Grammy (3 of them), an Oscar, and a Tony (3 of them)), the top awards of television, music, film, and theater, respectively)]], a lifetime achievement award from the AFI, as well as a fellowship from the BAFTA. Brooks himself jokes that the only award he ''hasn't'' won is "Woman Of The Year."

* RunningGag: All over the place, but a notable one is making some sort of reference to a previous film (such as the Mr. Rental in ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' having copies of ''every'' Mel Brooks film released up to that point). Another, particularly in later films, is [[SequelSnark plugging fake sequels to the movie currently being watched.]] "Walk this way" is particularly popular, thanks to the numerous spins that can be put on it.

* AdolfHitlarious: A life goal of Mel Brooks is reducing Hitler to a punchline. He's notable for re-[[TropeCodifier Codifying]] this trope in the post-World War II world. While this trope was a stable of Allied anti-Nazi media both before and after the war, it disappeared overnight at the end of the war when the public discovered the full extent of the Nazis' atrocities. It helps that he a) started doing this nearly a quarter century after the war had ended, b) still refuses to cross certain boundaries in lampooning Nazism (see EveryoneHasStandards below), and c) is a Jewish-American World War II veteran and thus has about as many NWordPrivileges as you can get when it comes to deriving humor from the Nazis.

He met Anne Bancroft on a talk show and then bribed a woman in order to create a MeetCute with her. Proving that being GenreSavvy has its perks, he was somehow able to convince MrsRobinson to become [[UglyGuyHotWife Mrs.]] [[HappilyMarried Brooks]]. Their union resulted in [[Literature/WorldWarZ Max Brooks]], probably one of the foremost experts on how to repel and survive the oncoming ZombieApocalypse. He has three other children from his first marriage to Florence Baum, which only lasted a few years. He attributes this to both of them being too young to know what they were getting into, and they've remained on good terms in all the decades since.

* AffectionateParody: Arguably the king of this trope. His movies mock what we enjoy, but it all comes from pure love and understanding of the genre he's satirizing.

->''"Tragedy is when ''I'' cut my finger. {{Comedy}} is when ''you'' fall into an open sewer and die."''

If you were a kid at The TurnOfTheMillennium, you probably know him best as the voice of Wiley the Sheep on ''WesternAnimation/JakersTheAdventuresOfPiggleyWinks''.

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* ''History of the World Part II'' (Writer, executive producer)

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Frequently. ''Blazing Saddles'' spends its entire final act with the fourth wall broken, as the characters break out of their own movie to trash a sound stage and movie theater and ''Spaceballs'' even has the characters watch the film during the middle of it.

** While widely regarded as a legend in [[invoked]][[CrossesTheLineTwice making comedy about things that people don't normally like to talk about]] (and a frequent example used, unfortunately, by [[MisaimedFandom people trying to pass off racist jokes as satire]]), Brooks has made it clear that there ''are'' lines he is not willing to cross. He'll make fun of Hiter and the absurdity of fascism until the cows come home, but stops short of concentration camps and genocide because [[DudeNotFunny there's nothing funny about them at all]], famously ragging on ''Film/LifeIsBeautiful'' for more or less trying to do just that. In ''Film/BlazingSaddles'', he deliberately put in a scene of Bart escaping the gallows because there was no humor to be derived from a black man being hanged, especially not in a movie written by a [[NWordPrivileges white filmmaker]]. Even negating the racial content, there was one gag that he had cut on the grounds that even ''he'' found it tasteless ("I hate to disappoint you ma'am, but you're sucking on my arm"). And this was a movie where he had complete creative control over the final cut!

* UnexplainedAccent: Most of the characters in his movies don't even bother with putting on accurate accents. It makes the few characters that do speak that way stand out far more.

->''"Tragedy is when '''I''' cut my finger. {{Comedy}} is when '''you''' fall into an open sewer and die."''

In the new millennium, he co-wrote and produced successful musical versions of ''The Producers'' and ''Young Frankenstein'' for Broadway. Following the success of ''The Producers'', he and Creator/AnneBancroft appeared as themselves on ''Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm'', intent on casting Creator/LarryDavid and Creator/DavidSchwimmer in the show in the hope that they'll kill the show and they won't have to bother with it. In other words, it's a SpringtimeForHitler. Of course, like all SpringtimeForHitler schemes, it fails.

* CoolOldGuy: A comedy icon with just about every award to his name and who hasn't lost any of his spark or wit even in his nineties. They don't come any cooler than Mel.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Frequently. ''Blazing Saddles'' spends its entire final act with the fourth wall broken, as the characters break out of their own movie to trash a sound stage and movie theater.

* ProductionPosse: [[invoked]]A vast majority of his movies had starred not only Mel himself, but Madeline Khan, Creator/GeneWilder (who came up for the original idea of ''Film/YoungFrankenstein''), Harvey Korman, and Creator/DomDeLuise. Composer John Morris scored all of his movies except his [[Film/RobinHoodMenInTights last]] [[Film/DraculaDeadAndLovingIt two]].

Notably, ''Film/BlazingSaddles'', ''Film/TheProducers'' and ''Film/YoungFrankenstein'' occupy spots 6, 11 and 13 on the AFI's list of the 100 best comedies of the last 100 years. [[SoGoodWeMentionedItTwice Did we mention]] that he's ''really'' funny?

* CastingGag: [[invoked]]Famous mime [[EveryoneHatesMimes Marcel Marceau]] in ''Film/SilentMovie'' is ironically the only character to ever speak a word.

* HappilyMarried: To Anne Bancroft for a full 41 years until her death in 2005.

* ''[[Creator/SidCaesar Your Show of Shows]]'' (Writer)

[[/index]]

* SubParSupremacist:* A fixture of Creator/MelBrooks comedies. Brooks has said [[EnforcedTrope he has made it his life goal]] to reduce the Nazis and [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Nazi-adjacent white supremacist groups]] to objects of ridicule.