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Comedy is serious - deadly serious. Never, never try to be funny! The actors must be serious. Only the situation must be absurd. Funny is in the writing, not in the performing. If the situation isn't absurd, no amount of joke will help.

Mel Brooks

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Mel Brooks
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: June 28
Actor
Composer
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Journalist
Librettist
Lyricist
Screenwriter
Soldier
Songwriter
Stage Actor
Brooklyn
New York
Melvin Brooks
Melvin Kaminsky
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Joke
Actors
Absurd
Funny
Performing
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Must
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Serious
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Comedy
Never
Situation
Deadly

More quotes by Mel Brooks

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When we got to our hotel rooms, mosquitoes as big as George Foreman were waiting for us. They were sitting in armchairs with their legs crossed.
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THE 2,000-YEAR-OLD MAN'S SECRETS OF LONGEVITY 1. Don't run for a bus - there'll always be another. 2. Never, ever touch fried food. 3. Stay out of a Ferrari or any other small Italian car. 4. Eat fruit - a nectarine - even a rotten plum is good.
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I have always been a huge admirer of my own work. I'm one of the funniest and most entertaining writers I know.
Mel Brooks
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Not only should we laugh about Hitler. We must laugh about him. Especially in Berlin.
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Well, you know, 'Spaceballs' is a weird combination, because it's a simple, sweet little fairytale, and it's crazy and out-there and making fun of and taking apart sci-fi, 'Star Wars', and 'Star Trek'.
Mel Brooks
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I was adored [as a kid]. I was always in the air, hurled up and kissed and thrown in the air again. Until I was six, my feet didn't touch the ground. Look at those eyes! That nose! Those lips! That tooth! Get that child away from me, quick! I'll eat him! Giving that up was very difficult later on in life.
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One day, God said 'Let there be prey.' And he created pigeons, rabbits, lambs and Gene Wilder.
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Immortality is a by-product of good work.
Mel Brooks
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Dom DeLuise was a big man in every way. He was big in size and created big laughter and joy.
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My God, I'd love to smash into the casket of Dostoyevsky, grab that bony hand and scream at the remains, 'Well done, you god-damn genius.'
Mel Brooks
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I'm still a horse that can run. I may not be able to win the Derby, but what do you do when you retire? People retire and they vegetate. They go away and they dry up.
Mel Brooks
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If presidents can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country.
Mel Brooks
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Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin.
Mel Brooks
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Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive.
Mel Brooks
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Creative people should always be striving, they should always be hungry, they should be looking for the next place to go.
Mel Brooks
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I love gentiles. In fact, on of my favorite activities is Protestant spotting.
Mel Brooks
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The thing is to be brave and move the audience with you, instead of cater to the lowest common denominator, you know, slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass. You got to move the audience a little further ahead in terms of their appreciation of what is comedy. It's complicated.
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Ill just say whats in my heart: Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.
Mel Brooks
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He who hesitates is poor.
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I wanted to entertain so badly that I kept at it until I was good. I just browbeat my way into show business.
Mel Brooks