Well, when Nick called
me and was like, “Hey, do you want to work on History of the World, Part II?
And Mel's involved.” I was like,
“No!”
- Roll it.
- Oh, hello.
- Who is this?
- It's your mama.
- If you are my mother, what is your last name?
- Bell. - It’s my mother. That confirms it.
- [Nick] I know a lot of Mel's movies by heart.
And so when we got the call to do this, it was really a no brainer.
Mel was involved from the jump in sort of conceiving of,
you know, what the show could be, structurally how it worked.
He has jokes that he's been waiting to put in
and things for 40 years that are in throughout the show.
And so you feel his presence throughout the show and like
just being able to pay homage to him in all those different ways
was incredibly gratifying.
- We knew we wanted to honor the first movie and honor just the Mel Brooks Universe.
And while it was a sketch show and there were going to be some scenes,
That was just like Josh Gad owning a room or just the Council of Nicaea
with just a bunch of funny comedians being awful bishops, rewriting history.
We also knew there had to be a Civil War battle
camp and horses riding up a hill and
an actual Russian
village where Schmuck Mudman and his family unhappily live.
And a musical number.
Like, we knew we wanted big things to, like give the thing a cinematic feel.
- Someday, the masses will adore me
as, together, we stand tall!
- So when you're calling and saying, “Hey, do you want to work on a Mel Brooks show?”
You get a lot more yes’s than no’s, if any.
- So not only were people excited to do it, but also understood what,
like, generally speaking, humor-wise, what the,
like, bellwether was, you know?
It's like everybody knows his tone and so it was trying to stay within
that was not that hard because we were all aware of it.
- And there were just some folks who, you know, would zip in for a day.
Like, you get, you know, Jack Black for a day.
But then you get Pam Adlon for a week.
And it was just it was just a cornucopia of delights.
- I grew up with Mel's movies and his oeuvre
was the first film director’s I had ever completed.
I just connected in such,
like, a personal way with his comedy.
And it spoke to me and inspired me.
And the idea that, you know, 40 years after this original classic was released,
something that I watched again and again on VHS, growing up in the eighties,
it's just such a thrill and an honor to get to play
in the sandbox with the legend himself.
So it's a real thrill.
- He shaped comedy.
And I think it's really interesting
to watch something that, you know, had such profound impact.
And I think even without really knowing that
necessarily as a child, his work just speaks for itself.
And it's it to be doing this show with something
with content that's so legendary in terms of sort of the original IP and then also
with a person who, in our industry is so legendary, it was such a cool
thing to do.
- With so many of Mel Brooks movies, like, my dad was, like, he loved Mel Brooks.
So, so many of my experiences and my introductions to his films,
Blazing Saddles being the first, like all came
through my dad and like his love for Mel Brooks.
Like, and the way he laughed made me laugh.
You know, and that’s from Llife Stinks through, you know, Blazing Saddles
to Spaceballs, to History of the World to Young Frankenstein.
Like, everything that like he attached to it, I wanted to understand why.
And I think in doing that, what I didn't realize was happening at the time, like
back to what Zazie said, but like, you were a kid, we were kids
watching this comedic genius and like, watching him create something
that so many people have been influenced by.
- I don't remember the first time I saw History of the World Part One,
because it's always been in me.
Like I remember everything about it.
It's just my childhood, like, The Towering Inferno, like,
you know, The Wizard of Oz.
It's just like it's wired into my brain and my DNA.
And so I, you know, had no choice.
I grew up the kid of a comedy writer and producer.
And so, you know, Mel is our one
man band, Jewish version of Monty Python.
And Mel, your hero, is able to like,
be a part of it and not just like sit,
like, pushed up against a window with a thin blanket over his legs.
And we're doing a show for him.
He's in it. And part of it,
it's the greatest kind of perfect moment.
- I would say my household was much more of a Robin Hood: Men in Tights home.
That was always on repeat.
And, you know, he was he was the guy in our youth.
And something that I shared with my siblings.
And as far as being like a formative influence in the early part of my life,
like, I was also a ravenous Get Smart fan.
I, like on Nick at Night, would watch it all the time and was really so thrilled
when in eighth grade we did Get Smart as a play and I got cast as Agent 99.
Thank you very much.
So I will say, I was really truly,
like, paying a lot of attention to him as a young person.
And to be part of the second installment of History of the World was just
such a wild opportunity and one that at first I was so thrilled about.
And then very shortly thereafter I was like, I can't do this.
I can't do Mel Brooks.
Like, what am I trying to do here?
Like, it's way too ambitious.
But we just had such a great team and I think we just took it
one little choice at a time.
And I think we're all really happy with the work.
- Really most important was Mel was always pushing the envelope,
and I think our goal was to do whatever version
in 2023 of that.
And I think he and also simultaneously was silly.
Like, you know, his work was never quite political,
even though he was making broader societal like, you know, observations.
But it was also fun and silly and didn't take itself too seriously.
And I think that was important to us too, to find as well.
One of the things I loved about Fargo, the TV show, is that how much they
paid homage not only to the movie but all of the Coen brothers work.
And we were doing our version of that with what we're calling
the MBU the Mel Brooks Universe.
And so there are jokes.
If you watch the show, you know, there are jokes in there
from Blazing Saddles and from The Producers and Young
Frankenstein and Spaceballs, as well as History of the World,
that some of the jokes we wrote in our writers room and also, you know,
comics would come in with their own, like Jason Alexander had a
you know, would be like, “Oh, I've got I can do a callback to Spaceballs.” Or
Ken Marino’s like, “I can do a callback to, you know, to this part of History
of the World.” Like, there are always ways to sort of pay homage to Mel's work
sprinkled throughout the show.
Almost every episode.
- Wow. - Wow.
- You want Jesus to be white?
- That's not what I'm saying.
Don't you put words in my mouth.
- [Mel] History of the World...
- Part II!
- If this was on NetFish, I would cancel my subscription.