Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 30, 1994 TAG: 9407070073
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS J. ROWE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
Mel Brooks, who played the 2,000-Year-Old Man, has said while in character that at least two millennia ago he was on CDs - ``cave drawings.''
``Cheap, disgusting. I'm ashamed of that,'' he said of the joke.
But he has nothing to regret in ``The Complete 2,000 Year Old Man,'' a box set released by Rhino Records of the four albums that Brooks and Carl Reiner released between 1960 and 1973.
Most of the albums still sound timely. They discuss homosexuals in the military, selling America to Japan, killer cigarettes and fad diets.
``I was amazingly prescient. ... I mean, I had an inkling, right?'' Brooks said in groping for an explanation for how well these routines stand up decades later.
``You know, I divorce myself,'' Brooks went on. ``It's not me. It's this guy. It's this 2,000-Year-Old Man. And I really enjoy him. I laugh my guts out when I listen to him. I know it sounds egotistical, but it really isn't, because it's not me - I'm listening to this guy.''
Then just what is the 2,000-Year-Old Man's appeal?
``He is very direct, and very honest, and primitive. He knows no lie. He's not a dissembler. And he's not a con man. He's a passionate, honest, primitive guy who tells the truth as he sees it. And there's no question about it being true. I mean that's it: `I was there, I know.'''
For instance, he not only knew Joan of Arc, he went out with her. (And when she was burned at the stake, he felt ``terrible.'') He remembers that Robin Hood didn't steal from the rich and give to the poor; Hood ``stole from everybody and kept everything.''
Shakespeare? The 2,000-Year-Old Man vividly remembers his poor penmanship and his play ``Queen Alexandra and Murray,'' which closed in Egypt.
His personal life? He had several hundred wives and some 42,000 children (``and not one comes to visit me'').
Reiner and Brooks first improvised the 2,000-Year-Old Man in 1950 to entertain their co-workers on Sid Caesar's ``Your Show of Shows.'' Reiner recalls that he was infuriated by an interview show he had seen, and he went to the office and started to mock that program by asking Brooks, ``I understand you were at the Crucifixion,'' and Brooks ran with it (Christ was a ``thin lad, always wore sandals. Hung around with 12 other guys.'')
They entertained their friends at parties for years, and in the late '50s, Steve Allen was among the guests who found the bit hystrical and he persuaded them to record.
What followed was ``2000 Years With Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks'' (1960); ``2000 and One Years With Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks'' (1961); ``Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks at the Cannes Film Festival'' (1962); and ``Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks: 2000 and Thirteen'' (1973). (Rhino Home Video also is releasing the animated ``2000 Year Old Man'' television special from 1974 on video.)
The first album helped Reiner's film and TV career take off, and lifted Brooks from the professional and personal low points he was enduring.
``Strangely enough, the only time I took flight was the 2,000-Year-Old Man,'' said Brooks, who co-created (with Buck Henry) the TV series ``Get Smart'' and made such films as ``The Producers,'' ``Blazing Saddles,'' ``Young Frankenstein,'' ``Silent Movie'' and ``Robin Hood: Men in Tights.'' He was one of the writers of ``Your Show of Shows.''
``I really went bananas,'' he went on to say about the 2,000-Year-Old Man, ``and I didn't worry about structure. Whatever stupid thought entered my mind, I just said it. I did no censoring or editing. Boom! That was it. He asked me a question; the first thing that came into my mind, I'd spew out. I never even digested the question.''
The 67-year-old Brooks said the 2,000-Year-Old Man was his most personal creative effort, adding:
``It was the purest, because it was noncommercial. ... It was just pure fun. ... It was never meant to be heard by anybody but those people who were in the room listening to it.
``I'm glad that Carl prevailed, 'cause I never wanted it to be anything but that. I wanted it to be just us, very private. But he said there were thousands of people out there who might really love it, and it might help them and get them through the day. And I said, `OK, OK.' And he said we might make a buck. I said `OK, OK.' ''
Even though the 2,000-Year-old Man's dialect sounds strangely like the voice of an eastern European Jewish immigrant, Brooks said he didn't fret about material having limited appeal.
He thinks good humor is universal. ``When I saw `Juneau and the Paycock,' a play by Sean O'Casey, I said, `Gee, Jews could have written this.' It's the same family love and stresses, harmony and friction. When it's written right, it's all the same,'' he said.
Certainly, comedians as disparate - and hugely successful - as Billy Crystal and Bill Cosby, see the 2,000-Year-Old Man as a mentor; others, such as Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Lewis and Bob Newhart, admire him. And for a change, it doesn't sound like typical show business logrolling.
In a 1992 interview with The Associated Press, Crystal even admitted to carrying Reiner's and Brooks' picture from a 2,000-Year-Old Man album in his wallet.
For now, the next generation of comedians will have to content themselves with the reissues for laughs and inspiration, even though Reiner keeps urging Brooks to do another.
``He might prevail on me, and there might be another one,'' Brooks said. ``But I'm not going to promise anything.''
And will the curmudgeonly wisenheimer still think that, of all the scientic breakthroughs and accomplishments in the history of mankind, Saranwrap is the greatest invention?
``Now they got things like Velcro. Never IMAGINED in the days of Saranwrap,'' Brooks said, obligingly going into character.
``My God! You could go to the bathroom. Bing! Bang! Open and close in less than 10 seconds ... Velcro - that is the amazing miracles of out time. You can keep everything closed or open as you wish with Velcro. ... Velcro certainly has pushed us a millennium ahead of Saranwrap.''
by CNB