Mel Brooks has donated his profession archive of greater than 150,000 paperwork and 5,000 images to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, N.Y., the identical nonprofit establishment that holds the papers of Brooks’ longtime collaborator Carl Reiner.
The archive consists of Brooks’ earliest notes on comedy throughout his service in World Battle II via his years with Sid Caesar on NBC’s “Your Show of Shows” via his rise as a comedy auteur icon within the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s with such movies as “The Producers,” “Young Frankenstein,” “Blazing Saddles,” “Silent Movie,” “History of the World, Part I” and “Spaceballs.”
“I’ve always been proud to say that I make people laugh for a living. So, knowing that my work will have a home at comedy’s national archive and continue making people laugh leaves me with a deep sense of pride,” Brooks mentioned in saying the deal for his archive. “I’m honored that my contributions will be preserved for future generations at the National Comedy Center – especially because it’s a place that was meaningful to my best friend Carl Reiner, who believed in the importance of preserving comedy’s history.”
Brooks and Reiner, who died in 2020 at age 98, labored collectively on “Your Show of Shows.” The pair have been additionally identified for the recurring bit often known as “The 2000-Year-Old Man,” during which Brooks performed a person from historical occasions who was interviewed about modern tradition by Reiner as a TV newsman. Brooks is marking his centennial 12 months in 2026 as his birthday approaches on June 28. At 99, he’s an influential legend for 3 generations of comedians, actors and administrators, and counting.
“Mel Brooks is simply a giant of comedy, and his influence on my life and career is immeasurable. I have had the good fortune of knowing so many hilarious, funny people, and Mel is the king. Now his extraordinary body of work will take its place alongside Carl Reiner’s in the National Comedy Center’s archives,” Billy Crystal mentioned in an announcement. “They were my heroes, and became my friends and mentors and the hilarious uncles every comedian wishes they had. Now together again and always, their legacies will live longer than 2,000 years.”
Buying Brooks’ archive is a coup for the Nationwide Comedy Heart, a nonprofit cultural establishment that opened its doorways in 2018 in Jamestown in Western New York, which is the hometown of Lucille Ball. The Nationwide Comedy Heart is house to one-of-a-kind historic objects and comedy iconography equivalent to George Carlin’s intensive handwritten artistic notes, Joan Rivers’ legendary 70,000-joke card catalog, Lenny Bruce’s annotated manuscripts and obscenity trial papers, manufacturing information from Ball and Desi Arnaz’s trailblazing Desilu Studios. It additionally homes unique artistic supplies from “Saturday Night Live,” “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” “In Living Color” and “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” Reiner’s archive was donated to the middle in 2021.
“Mel Brooks’ archive represents an unparalleled primary-source record of how a singular artist reshaped narrative, satire and cinematic form – all through the lens of comedy,” mentioned Journey Gunderson, govt director of the Nationwide Comedy Heart. “Preserving this material is not simply an act of stewardship – it is the safeguarding of a vital cultural legacy that will inform scholarship, creative inquiry and historical understanding for generations.”
