Mel Brooks Did Literally Everything

Summary

Bulwark Takes – “Mel Brooks Did Literally Everything”
Episode Date: June 28, 2026
Host: The Bulwark Team
Guest: Kathryn Rampel

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Episode Overview

This episode celebrates the 100th birthday of comedy legend Mel Brooks, focusing on his transformative impact on Hollywood, American comedy, and pop culture. Kathryn Rampel joins the Bulwark crew for an enthusiastic rundown of Brooks’ legendary career, and why his work remains timely, enduring, subversive, and beloved. From Blazing Saddles earning the AFI’s “funniest film of all time” nod to Brook’s profound influence on satire and theater, the episode is part superfan celebration, part insightful cultural critique.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Mel Brooks at 100: A Comedy Titan

• Mel Brooks is turning 100, and the cultural world is celebrating his influence across TV, film, and theater (01:03).
• The American Film Institute (AFI) recently crowned Blazing Saddles as the official #1 comedy film of all time (01:33).
  • Quote: “You love to see it.” – Kathryn Rampel (01:53)

Blazing Saddles & the AFI Honor

• Kathryn agrees with AFI’s designation, calling Blazing Saddles “obviously the funniest movie ever made” and commending its brilliant satire and slapstick (01:55).

Growing Up Brooks: Kathryn’s Mel Brooks Phase

• Kathryn shares her “very cool” middle school debate club stint, where she performed a 10-minute, multi-character solo version of Spaceballs (02:41–04:06).
  • Quote: “Super cool, just like I am today.” – Kathryn Rampel (03:07)
• Still knows the script by heart, and says his films have remained quotable for decades.

The Perpetual Relevance & New Projects

• Brooks’ films (Spaceballs, Young Frankenstein, History of the World Part 2) continue to inspire sequels and reboots, with Spaceballs 2 slated for April 23, 2027 (05:23).
  • Discussion of Brooks’ ongoing creative legacy even at 100, and the enduring appetite for his comedy.

Parody and Affection for Genre

• Brooks’ parody succeeds because of his sincere affection for the genres he mocks— “You can't make a parody about westerns unless you actually love westerns.” (06:25)
• His methodology: Respect for the source material is what empowers his satire (06:30).

Satire as Social Weapon: Comedy, Hitler, and Trump

• Brooks’ approach to lampooning authoritarian figures is highlighted, especially via The Producers and its “funny Hitler.”
  • Quote: “The most powerful move you can make… is to laugh at [evil].” – Kathryn Rampel (08:13)
• Contemporary parallel drawn to Donald Trump, arguing laughter is a uniquely corrosive insult to would-be autocrats (08:40).

Robin Hood: Men In Tights & Breaking the Rules

• Host and Kathryn both share their fondness for Robin Hood: Men in Tights (“my favorite of the Mel Brooks movies”–10:16), especially as an accessible, TV-friendly entry point for young fans.
  • Innovative comedy: “It was one of the first times I remember seeing a movie that was breaking the rules of movies and then putting them back together.” – Host (10:19)
  • Quote: “Unlike some Robin Hoods, I can speak with a British accent.” – Host, quoting Cary Elwes (10:42)

Young Frankenstein and Brooks on Broadway

• Touches on the critical and audience adoration for Young Frankenstein (12:15), then pivots to Brooks's theatrical achievements.
• The Producers Broadway adaptation was a phenomenon, with a powerhouse cast (Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick) and successful tours (13:21).
  • Acknowledges that the stage version diverged from the original film “of necessity,” and discusses how some songs—like “Springtime for Hitler”—migrated from film to stage (13:21).
  • Stage-to-screen adaptation of the musical didn’t connect as well (14:15).
  • Young Frankenstein didn’t match this commercial success (15:10).

Comedy and Changing Social Mores

• Reflects on the evolving landscape of humor: Comedy ages with society because it’s designed to push boundaries (16:18).
  • Blazing Saddles—received content warnings in streaming era, despite being an anti-racist satire (16:52).
  • Conversation on how new generations from both political spectrums might reject the film today, for being both too “woke” and too “offensive.” (17:14)

Modern Remakes and Cultural Impact

• Discuss mention of the 2022 animated Blazing Saddles homage, Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, with animal stand-ins easing modern sensitivities, though likely lacking the same edge (17:59).

Spaceballs: Favorite Bits and Enduring Humor

• Favorite Spaceballs jokes are shared:
  • “Ludicrous speed, going to plaid,” Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet, Pizza the Hut, and combing the desert (18:47).
  • Emphasis on the joy of “dumb puns” and dad humor.
  • Host notes how much Brooks’ puns rely on visual or “literary” humor: “It's like an English teacher joke almost.” (19:54)

The 2000 Year Old Man and Brooks’ Legacy

• Tribute to The 2000 Year Old Man sketches with Carl Reiner (20:05), a must-watch for new fans.
• Host highlights the recent documentary, The 99 Year Old Man (directed by Judd Apatow), as a comprehensive, joyous overview on Brooks’ life and legacy (20:29).

Mel Brooks: The Quintessential American Story

• Brooks’ biography as:
  • WWII veteran
  • Embodiment of the American dream in Hollywood
  • Shaper of contemporary comedic and cinematic sensibilities (21:00–21:08)
  • Quote: “He is a great American. I cannot emphasize enough how important he is to the world of comedy and film.” – Host (21:00–21:08)
• Kathryn adds praise for Brooks’ power to “shrink intimidating authoritarian figures by making the world laugh at them,” and how his tradition lives on (21:21).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Blazing Saddles is obviously the funniest movie ever made. A movie that could not get made as it is today… brilliant satire, brilliant slapstick.” – Kathryn Rampel (01:55)
• “Super cool, just like I am today.” – Kathryn Rampel on performing Spaceballs solo in middle school (03:07)
• “You can't make a parody about westerns like that if you don't actually love westerns.” – Host (06:25)
• “The most powerful move you can make in the face of great evil is to laugh at it.” – Kathryn Rampel (08:13)
• “Unlike some Robin Hoods, I can speak with a British accent.” – Host, quoting Men in Tights (10:42)
• “Comedy is more susceptible than just about anything else to changing mores and changing values.” – Host (16:18)
• “Laughter is a lesson we need now as much as ever.” – Bulwark Takes Team (22:21)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:03 — Mel Brooks' 100th birthday and AFI honor for Blazing Saddles
• 03:07 — Kathryn’s Spaceballs middle school performance
• 04:10 — Upcoming Spaceballs sequel
• 06:25 — Brooks’ affection for genres he parodies
• 08:13 — Comedy and undermining evil: Brooks, Hitler, Trump
• 10:16 — Why Men in Tights is personal favorite
• 13:21 — The Producers’ Broadway success and adaptation
• 16:18 — Comedy and changing social values
• 18:47 — Favorite Spaceballs gags
• 20:05 — The 2000 Year Old Man sketch tribute
• 20:29 — Recommendation: The 99 Year Old Man documentary
• 21:00 — Mel Brooks as an American icon
• 21:21 — Kathryn’s tribute to Brooks’ impact

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Final Thoughts

This episode joyfully chronicles Mel Brooks’ immense contributions to comedy, pop culture, and American social commentary. Through personal anecdotes, critical appreciation, and cultural analysis, the Bulwark crew and Kathryn Rampel offer both new and longtime fans a fresh appreciation for why Brooks still matters—and why his work will continue to inspire future generations.

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Recommended Follow-up:

• Watch the HBO Max documentary The 99 Year Old Man (20:29)
• Seek out The 2000 Year Old Man sketches with Carl Reiner (20:05)

Transcript

[Kathryn Rampel]

Hey everybody.

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[Bulwark Takes Host]

Hey everybody. Welcome back to Bulwark Takes.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

I'm very excited to be joined today by Kathryn Rampel who I learned a

[Bulwark Takes Host]

very fun thing about just moments ago as we were, as we were getting

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

ready for this video.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

But this is going to be a fun video. We are celebrating Mel Brooks who is turning 120 on Sunday. Sunday is his hundredth birthday.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

You know it's cannot imagine the landscape

[Bulwark Takes Host]

of Hollywood or American comedy without Mel Brooks.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

He is kind of the defining figure

[Bulwark Takes Host]

and he look, man's won it all.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

He's, he's a literal egot winner, the

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony. He is a, he is a Kennedy center honors awardee. I interviewed Carl Reiner back in 2009

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

when he won that award and it

[Bulwark Takes Host]

was like it, it was one of the great thrills of my life listening to Carl Reiner talk about Mel Brooks

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

and their work together.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Best selling author. He's done it all. But Katherine, the big news here, the big exciting news is that the American Film Institute has decided to, on the occasion of Mr. Brooks's hundredth birthday, bump up Blazing Saddles to officially on their very official list of official comedy classics, be the number one funniest film of all time.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

You love to see it.

[Kathryn Rampel]

Yes, they are the authority on the matter, but I don't even know that we needed their blessing. Blazing Saddles is obviously the funniest movie ever made. A movie that could not get made as it is today, of course, but it is a brilliant satire, brilliant slapstick. Like there's just so much good stuff in that movie. I think about it all the time and I quote it all the time because I'm a very cool person and I just.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

You were saying before, before the, before the show you were talking about how you went through a Mel Brooks phase.

[Kathryn Rampel]

Yes, I definitely did.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

I just imagine, you know, it's one thing, it's there. We all go through phases, but I can only imagine like high school Katherine Rampel running around quoting Mel Brooks to everyone.

[Kathryn Rampel]

It was more middle school. You know what it was? It was that I was in this. It was like a debate club thing. Competitive. It was. Was the term for it. Maybe one of our viewers will know. But it was like this debate slash performance thing that I think still exists where in addition to like actual debate, you would recite poetry or monologues or whatever. And I did a 10 minute condensed version of Spaceballs, of course, where I played all of the characters. Again, I was super cool, just like I am today. And I did all of the characters in different voices and I competed with it. And I'm sure that there is very embarrassing footage somewhere in my parents house of this performance. But yeah, like Spaceballs. Even today, you know, I still could probably recite most of it. Easier to do a 10 minute version of the entirety of Spaceballs probably than Blazing Saddles, given the racial slurs in Blazing Saddles. But yeah, but you know, Spaceball's also one of the comedy greats. I think actually one of my favorite things about Mel Brooks is that he's like still producing content. You know, they're coming out with a Spaceball sequel. I don't know when that is. Do you know? It's like next year.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

I think it's coming out later this year. I want to say.

[Kathryn Rampel]

Oh, thank God.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

I'll look up, I'll effort the release date. Real.

[Kathryn Rampel]

Yeah, they're doing like a sequel to that. They're doing a sequel to something else. I'm trying to remember Young Frankenstein or something. One of the other classics I think is getting rebooted. They did History of The World Part 2 A couple of years ago and I think even though these movies are old and yes, parts of them are probably not going to hold up great, given changing social mores and whatnot. There is really just so much good, solid comedy in them. And comedy nerds love it. And I think there's a. There's still a real following, which is why there's going to be an audience, I'm sure, for Spaceballs 2 and the other sequels that are hopefully lined up. I just love that like he's 100 years old or about to be 100 years old and they're still mining the catalog. They're still like. I don't know how involved he is creatively with these things, but his. The spirit of the work still goes on and I love that like you know, he didn't wait until he had. He had passed away and his estate decided to do something with these properties, you know, with these. With the ip. He's. He's gonna oversee it while he's still around.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Yeah.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

The new Spaceballs is coming out April 23, 2027. So next, next year, early next year, it'll be. It'll be out.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Spaceball's the new one.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

Originally, there was a joke, remember, in. In at the end of the first baseballs. Spaceballs 2, the. The search for more money, the quest for more money, whatever, And.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

And they. He was like, I. I was going to call it that, and then we decided not to.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

That was. You know, that was a little too on the nose, but it definitely.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

It's. It's. It's funny, too, because we are in such a. It's.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

It's a very weird kind of doldrums for comedy at. At movie theaters right now. Like, there. There just aren't a ton of them. Scary Movie 5, I think, is like the. Is the only real big recent or whatever. Whatever number of scary movie they're on.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

But even. But, like, you look at Scary Movie, and that's.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

That's a movie that itself, you know, kind of ties directly back to just the very parody ideas.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

One thing I've always loved about Brooks and one thing that.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

That comes through in all of these parody films is his love of the. The source material that he is parodying.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Right. Like, you can't make a parody about

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

Westerns like that if you don't actually love Westerns.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

And he talked.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

He's talked about this before. That, like, that's the key to understanding all of this. You.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

You can make fun of it, but you. You have to actually why it works,

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

to break it down.

[Kathryn Rampel]

Yeah. And, you know, there are other ways in which he used comedy in really interesting and innovative ways. I remember seeing interviews that he's done where he talked about how radical it was to do the Producers and have a funny Hitler character. You know, this was not that long removed from World War II. Right. That was, like, in the 60s. Yeah. And the wound's still very fresh for a lot of people around the world, a lot of Jewish Americans who presumably were consuming this film as well. And he talked about how the most powerful move you can make in the face of great evil is to laugh at it. And, you know, that there was like a. A social mission almost in the comedy. It was like, stupid. You know, it's slapstick and silliness and all sorts of Other things, but that in and itself, in and of itself, is a power move. And I always loved that. And it's really true even for modern politics. Like Donald Trump, for example, can stand almost any insult, it seems like, except when people laugh at him. You know, that famous White House correspondents dinner that apparently sent him off on his political career. So there's really, you know, there's really a. A potency in being able to laugh at terrible figures of history. And in some ways, Mel Brooks was an innovator in that art. Actually, another film where. What's the name of the film where he sings a song as, as Hitler as well, where he sings about how he wants just a little piece, but it's a little, you know, a little piece in the world, but it's a little piece of Poland, a little piece of France, and it's, you know, again, this was a, A favorite character for him to lampoon throughout a lot of his work and then obviously mined a lot of other silliness and genres. Like, one of my other favorites is Robin Hood Men in Tights. Great film. I haven't seen it in years, so, like, who knows how much politically incorrect stuff is in there today, but definitely loved it as a child and, you know, found some great talents in it as well. So it's, it's just, it's so lovely that he's still around and, and hopefully creating more work. What's your favorite of the Mel Brooks overall?

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Well, so the Little Piece of Poland

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

is from To Be or Not To Be. Just.

[Kathryn Rampel]

Thank you. Yes, yes, yes.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

No, so this is like.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

It's funny that you just mentioned Robin Hood Men in Tights. Cause that is actually my favorite of the Mel Brooks movies. It's not the one most people go

[Bulwark Takes Host]

for, but it's the one that came

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

out when I was 12 and very into Robin Hood.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

And it's like, well, this is amazing. This is the funniest thing I've ever seen. And, and, you know, I had seen. I had seen. I don't know that I had actually seen all of Blazing Saddles at that point, but I'd definitely seen bits and

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

pieces because it was constantly on cable.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Right. This is the.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

The other thing about his movies is

[Bulwark Takes Host]

that they were actually great TV movies because you could hop in at just about any point and laugh for a

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

while and then, you know, and then

[Bulwark Takes Host]

stop watching a little harder on basic cable. Some of the language issues, you know, didn't, Didn't.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

Didn't quite translate.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

But the, but his movies were so good. But Robin Hood Men in Tights. It was one of the first times I can remember seeing a movie that was breaking the rules of movies and then putting them back together, right? Like there's the shot in Robin Hood

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

Men in Tights where the crane, the camera crane comes crashing through the stained glass windows. Everybody's like, what's going on?

[Bulwark Takes Host]

And it's like, that's a silly thing. But it's also just very funny. And you're like, wait, they can't, they're

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

not supposed to be able to do that.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

They're breaking, they're shattering the whole illusion here. And it's so funny. And like Cary Elway's saying, you know, unlike some Robin Hoods, I can speak

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

with a British accent, which was just perfect. Just a perfect kind of comment on the Kevin Costner Robin Hood that had come out in the years before. I love that film so much.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

And the first time most of us had seen Dave Chappelle.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

Dave Chappelle as, as his, his, his sidekick. I just, I love the movie and it has always been my favorite.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

We have not mentioned maybe his greatest film, Young Frankenstein.

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[Bulwark Takes Host]

Young Frankenstein. People love Young Frankenstein.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

But again, I was always a men in tights guy.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

I wanted to ask you, Catherine, because you are a New Yorker, you love theater. There's a huge second strike that there's a huge fourth act to his career because he is one of the, he's

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

making early television sketch comedy with your show of shows, then he's making the great satirical films of all time.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

And then the move to Broadway, where he has an enormous amount of success, that is a total blind spot for me.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

I've never seen the stage productions of either Young Frankenstein or the Producers.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

But you have, right? I mean, tell me how that translates to the stage.

[Kathryn Rampel]

I mean, the Producers was just this phenomenon when it landed on Broadway in, I want to say, the late 90s, early 2000s, somewhere around there, I think I was in high school and.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Yeah, 2001.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

2001.

[Kathryn Rampel]

2001. Okay. Yeah, 2001. That sounds about right. Terrific cast. Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Katie Huffman. And it was just, again, this phenomenon because the material was so good, the songs were so good, it was so funny, and the cast was just, like, spectacular. I think they were on TV all of the time. They went on this very successful tour with this production. And in many ways, the show was pretty different, actually, from the film. Maybe of necessity, because it's a musical and, you know, they have to take their creative license. Some of the songs were like. Because the original film did have some music. Springtime for Hitler in Germany, that made its way onto the stage version as well. But it was just. It was such a delight. It was so funny. They tried to actually make a film version of the musical version of the film a few years later, and with the same director of the Broadway show, Susan Stroman, director, choreographer, and that was a bust. They had the same cast, and it just, like, it didn't translate a lot of times, you know, the film of the stage show doesn't always work. You really have to kind of create it from scratch. So that was not a huge success, but I saw it anyway and I enjoyed it because I knew all of the songs and I loved the performers. Young Frankenstein, as I recall, was not the same commercial or artistic success on Broadway, and I think didn't last that long, as I recall. But Producers ran for many years and, as I said, went on tour. So I saw it on tour. At some point, it came to where I lived in Florida, and Alan Ruck was playing the Matthew Broderick character, which had its own sort of ironies because they were both in Ferris Wheeler's day off together. And here Alan Ruck is again, like, playing a little bit, fill in, second fiddle to his. His buddy Ferris Bueller, slash Matthew Broderick. But he was terrific, too, really good people, even for the touring versions, which is often not the case, because who wants to go on tour if You're a big star. You know, it's. It's hard work, but yeah, it was, it was great. I do wonder if that ever gets revived again. Again. There are parts of it that I think probably would need to be adapted given how, you know, mores have changed. There's a song, Make It Gay, which was about how the way to have a spectacular show about Hitler was to make it super gay. And I remember it being funny, but I don't know how it would strike audiences today and in my ear today if I listened to it. So, yeah, it was great stuff. You should listen to the soundtrack.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

It is funny how comedy is more

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

susceptible than just about anything else to changing mores and changing values.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Because, you know, like, good comedy is

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

based on pushing boundaries, right? It is. And if you're already pushing boundaries, you know, well, God only knows where those boundaries will be 10 or 15 years from now. You know, Blazing Saddles got wrapped up in the whole. In the late 2010s, there were efforts to take things of streaming services or put warnings on them and was one of the ones that got slapped with the warning. But I, I just like if you

[Bulwark Takes Host]

watch that movie now, it's a movie I like. I hate to be pedantic about it, but it's a movie about how racism

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

is bad and stupid and self defeating.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

And like that, you, you make that today and it would be decried as, you know, woke nonsense. Right? Like it just, it, it, it's, it's. It's amazing.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

It's kind of amazing the silly fights that we wind up getting into.

[Kathryn Rampel]

Well, I think it would be criticized from both ends of the political spectrum. From the right it would be seen as too woke, and from the left it would be seen as too offensive because it actually shows the triggering stereotypes or whatever or various racist tropes that they are poking fun of, obviously. But there's a lot of use of the N word and things like that that I'm not. Would go over so well with audiences today if it were made today. But again, the whole point of the film is lampooning racism that gets in the way of communities thriving, shall we say?

[Bulwark Takes Host]

We should say that our colleague Jonathan last mentioned that they did kind of sort of remake it in 2022 as paws of Fury, the Legend of Hank.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

It's an animated film with, you know, cats and dogs as the, the various.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

So you can remake this film.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

You just have to use cats and dogs living together.

[Kathryn Rampel]

I haven't seen the film. I shouldn't prejudge, but Somehow I don't think it's gonna have the same punch.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

It doesn't quite hit the same.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Let's wrap up here with your. All right, what is your favorite bit from Spaceballs? You had a whole Spaceballs routine that you performed. What is your favorite gag or bit

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

or character or joke from that film?

[Kathryn Rampel]

Oh, my God. I don't know. There's so many things to choose from. I love the ludicrous speed and going to plaid. I love Rick Moranis as the Darth Vader dark helmet figure. Pizza the Hut. I don't know. They're just. There's so much to choose from when they're combing the desert. Like, some of it is just like, you know, dumb puns, but I, they, they land with me. I love the dump puns. I have like dad humor, you know, a lot of the time. So. Yeah. What's. What's yours?

[Bulwark Takes Host]

The dumb puns are, are kind of the key to the whole thing because I've written about this before, but it is. There's a weird way in which the best of these sorts of movies work

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

with literary humor as much as anything else.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Like, it's a, it's a joke that only makes sense if you can see the word. You know, like when you say comb the desert and you see the giant

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

comb and you think, oh, comb.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

I don't know, it just, it's a, it's a, it's.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

It's like an English teacher joke almost.

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[Bulwark Takes Host]

But the. Oh boy. My favorite, My favorite Mel brooks bit.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

The 2000 year old man, the comedy sketch he does with Carl Reiner, where they are,

[Bulwark Takes Host]

you just, just go watch it.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

You can, you can find it on Google. There's, there's a, it's a four minute Google video of him and Carl Reiner kind of doing, doing the, the hits from that.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

But it is, it is wonderful.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

He, he remains very, very funny.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

There's a great documentary about Mel Brooks on HBO Max that I think was

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

directed by Judd apatow called the 99 year old man. And if you want, if you just want a good, if you just want

[Bulwark Takes Host]

a good overview of his, his life

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

and career, watch that. It's. It's well worth your time. It's, you know, it's, it's just so much fun. It's so much fun.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

And he is like, he is act. He is a great American. Like mel Brooks is 100A. Like he fought in World War II.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

He goes and achieves the American dream

[Bulwark Takes Host]

of success out in Hollywood. He reshapes how we look at the world.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

I cannot emphasize enough how important he is to the world of comedy and really just film in general. It's a delight. I'm glad he is still with us to make it to 100.

[Kathryn Rampel]

Yes. And hopefully he gets to see these sequels that are being made and all of the mochandising, as yogurt put it in Spaceballs. Another Spaceballs line I should have given a shout out to is I am your father's brother's nephews, cousins, former roommate, which was obviously a parody of Luke. I am your father. So anyway, just so many gems. So many gems. Thank you, Mel Brooks, for making my life better, for making the world a better place, for giving us things to laugh at, and for helping shrink how intimidating authoritarian figures can be because we can laugh at them and putting them in their place. I love that. I love that he did that back in the day and I love that there are so many comedians who have taken up that legacy in the years since because great weapon.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

Laughter is a lesson we need now

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

as much as ever for sure. Catherine, thank you so much. To find that video of you doing these spaceballs in 10 minutes, we're gonna, we're gonna put that on the YouTube.

[Kathryn Rampel]

I think my mom has it somewhere. It's hopefully it's on some medium that we cannot actually access. Some VHS that's been left in the sun too long or something.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

Betamax.

[Bulwark Takes Host]

All right, Catherine, thanks for being, thanks for being on. Remember to make sure you hit like and subscribe. Share this with friends. And again. Go, go watch.

[Bulwark Takes Guest]

Go watch the 99 Year Old Man. It's on HBO Max. You can. It's the best two hours that you'll spend on with a funny man. With a funny man and his funny friends, of which there are many.

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